The little things you do~
I have good news for you! The little things you do each day (that may seem like they don’t even matter) will eventually add up to something big. Case in point…
A lovely co-worker from my long-ago days of working in a spa in Santa Monica contacted me with a request for skin care help. (A little background…She is in her late 60s, puts in long hours at a highly demanding job, and has aging parents to care for/worry over. She was used to putting herself very last on a long list of things to care about.) One day she looked up and felt like she was exponentially showing her age. She didn’t feel comfortable doing facial injections, or other medical treatments that could potentially go awry, and she was leery of the price tags on all that anyway. Any kind of cosmetic surgery felt totally out of her budget, and besides that, it just wasn’t her style. She didn’t want to look weird, and she wasn’t trying to fool people into thinking she was 23 again. She just wanted to feel good in her skin.
She sent me a picture of herself and asked me if there was anything I could recommend.
BEFORE
Since I now live in Oregon and she still lives in California, treating her in person was not an option. So, we talked through a skin care regimen she could do at home every AM and PM.
This became her skin care regimen:
1) Used her own gentle cleanser;
2) Applied the AHA and Paprika Treatment Mask 1 to 4 times per week after cleansing;
3) In the PM only, applied Retinol 3 to 6 nights per week;
4) Applied AnteAGE Eye;
5) Applied AnteAGE MD Serum;
6) Applied AnteAGE MD Brightener;
7) Applied AnteAGE MD Accelerator;
8) Applied Rich Grape Moisturizer;
9) Applied Bulgarian Rose Otto Oil;
10) Applied her own mineral sun protection (as the final layer every AM).
I encouraged her to continue doing her facial exercises regularly as well. (She learned the Face Yoga Method years ago and found when she practiced the exercises regularly it did make a positive difference in how she looked. But then, as any type of regular workout can, her practice fell to the wayside.) I encouraged her to do her face workout regularly again.
I also encouraged her to visit her dermatologist to ensure that a few of the skin issues she described to me were not precancerous. Her derm did two over-all treatments on her skin to remove potentially precancerous areas.
Once her skin was treated and fully healed, and once she had her AM and PM skin care routine down pat, we added in micro-channeling with the AnteAGE Home Micro-Needling Solution, a treatment she did regularly at home.
Time passed.
Approximately one year after she sent me her original picture, she sent me this
updated picture:
MID-WAY
A few months after that, she sent me this picture:
AFTER
What changes do we see?
*Better color balance (skin tone is more even);
*Improved collagen integrity (smoother skin over-all, and skin appears to have more firmness, fullness and lift. By the final picture, even the under-eye area has improved);
*Complexion has a healthy glow now (epidermis is fortified with more hydration and moisture and exhibits more luminosity. Over-all appearance is brighter).
All of this happened with just an upgraded, regularly followed, active, viable, home care regimen that she practiced herself. The little things we do all the time really can make a difference. There is so much power we have already, right in our own two hands.
She had this to say about undergoing this transformation:
“I know I've said something like this before to you but I think good things can't be said enough..I am so grateful for you opening my eyes to taking care of my face which becomes deeper and more significant the more I commit. My collaboration with you is an important thread in my life where most of the time I am putting so much energy out toward my staff (as you know caretakers need a lot) and let the reflection about myself be last on the list….”
Her thoughts touch on the other benefit of giving worthwhile care to ourselves…it can improve how we feel inside, too. This may not show up in a before and after picture but is just as real.
“Self-care is the non-negotiable. That’s the thing that you have to do. And beauty is the thing that can be the benefit of the self-care. Beauty is not the point. Beauty is just a cute side-effect from self-care.”
~Jonathan Van Ness
“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.”
~Stephen Covey
“Every small positive change we make in ourselves repays us in confidence in the future.”
~Alice Walker
“The most creative act you will ever undertake is the act of creating yourself.”
~Deepak Chopra
“We turn not older with years but newer every day.”
~ Emily Dickinson
“Loving yourself isn’t vanity. It’s sanity.”
~Katrina Mayer
“Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners.”
~William Shakespeare
“This revolutionary act of treating ourselves tenderly can begin to undo the aversive messages of a lifetime.”
~Tara Brach
“Self-care doesn’t necessarily mean jogging!”
~ Sandra Oh
“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
~Anna Quindlen
“Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.”
~Clint Eastwood
“Clay can be dirt in the wrong hands, but clay can be art in the right hands.”
~Lupita Nyong'o
“Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”
~Carl Jung
“My mother's great line was, ‘Grasp the nettle with two hands, girl, because if you don't somebody else will.’”
~Fiona Wood
“I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”
~Maya Angelou
Blog written by Marna Herrington with Rich Earth Organic Skin Care Studio
Blog copy editing and polishing provided by Karen-Eileen Gordon (MsGordonLovesWriting@gmail.com)
This blog is not intended to take the place of in-person consultations with qualified skin care and health care practitioners.
This blog is for the purpose of education and fun only. All images and text in this blog are under the legal ownership of Rich Earth Organic Skin Care Studio, or permission of use has been granted for this specific blog only, unless unambiguously in the public domain. Permission is not granted for this text or these images to be copied and used out of the context of this blog, or for commercial purposes. If any part of the text is quoted in an article or other blog for educational purposes, a hyperlink to this page must be included.