ZO Skin Health
Stay Cool!
If you live in an area where the temperature is soaring, your skin is under stress and duress. Dry skin, eczema, acne-prone and sensitive skin are all especially problematic. Here’s what Dr. Obagi recommends to get through the summer heat:
- Sweating is your body’s way of regulating temperature. Wear fabrics that allow your skin to breathe properly—like linen and cotton. Spandex, lycra, etc. are comfortable, but they may trap sweat, congest pores and cause breakouts on your back or neck.
- Hold off on facial waxing, glycolic peels, microdermabrasion, etc. Avoid or reduce the use of products that contain high concentrations of glycolic acid, salicylic acid, retinoic acid or retinol. They all work to expose new, younger, healthier skin cells, but in so doing, shed the dull, dry skin cells that have been blanketing your skin.
- Drink plenty of water or a sports drink. When your skin is not properly hydrated, it will appear more wrinkled, dry and damaged.
- Apply a good sunscreen (like ZO Skin Health’s Oclipse SPF30) about 30 minutes before going outside—it can take that long for it to be fully absorbed by your skin, and reapply it throughout the day. Sunscreens with physical blocks (like titanium dioxide and zinc oxide) are better than chemical sunscreens.
- Avoid the use of products that are fragranced.
- Wear a broad-brimmed hat. Not only will it shelter you from the UV rays, it will provide some welcome shade (and protect your hair color!)
- Opt for a treadmill instead of your favorite jogging path. Now is the time to enjoy an air-conditioned fitness center.
ZO Skin Health
Tattoos (and Tattoo Removal)
One of the leading online news-magazines (www.msnbc.com, to be exact), had a story yesterday about Hollywood celebrities who have tattoos. What’s especially interesting though, is that that story got more hits than any other story on the homepage—generating more visitors than stories about Iran nuclear weapons, Haitian refuges, and gubernatorial primaries. I guess we all need a break from reality now and then.
So why do people like Penelope Cruz (she has the number 883 tattooed on her leg), Angelina Jolie (she had her Billy Bob tattoo lasered off, and later replaced with a map of the birthplaces of her adopted children) and Pink (too many tattoos to enumerate!) get tattoos?
I live and work in Beverly Hills, but I have no idea.
Some people have tattoos for cosmetic reasons (aka permanent cosmetics), for eyebrows, eyeliner, lips, lipliners. Also, some women have tattoos as part of post-surgical breast reconstruction.
Then again, there are Elvis tattoos, dragons, butterflies, leopards and lizards. For all of those crazy varmints and witchcraft tattoos, 50% of the people who get them later regret it. Luckily, there are several ways of removing them, and which technique a dermatologist uses will depend on the size, position and age of the tattoo.
In my practice I use a QS laser, which breaks up the pigmentation. The body’s scavenger cells then remove the pigmentation, over a period of about 30 days. The lasers cause bleeding, oozing and then crusting, so healing takes about 7 days. Generally, multiple treatments are required—but there’s no way of telling in advance.
After treatments are completed, there will be no residual pigmentation, but a flesh-toned outline of the tattoo will remain. Just a little tint—like in ZO Skin Health’s Oclipse sunscreen—will help even the tone and conceal the outline.
Whereas tattoo parlors are sometimes suspect and of questionable quality, it’s important to work with skilled and trained medical specialists for tattoo removal. Before you get a tattoo, just think about Halle Berry. She had the name of her first husband, David Justice, tattooed on her derriere. After she divorced, she had his name lasered off, and a sunflower tattooed in its place. As she said, “I wish I never had the tattoo in the first place. Clean, clear skin is always better.”
Good point, Halle.
