As a frugal person myself, I’ve always shared my secrets with my clients. I earn my living selling my services, not products. Here a few for you to enjoy!

1. To dry nail polish in a hurry, spray nails with PAM Oil Spray.

2. Olive oil can be added to bath water for a skin softener.

3. Toner/Astringent — Use witch hazel instead. No need to dilute — use full strength. You can also rinse with a splash of Apple Cider Vinegar after cleansing — it balances out the ph of your skin.

4. Cut back on the amount of shampoo you use. Do the same with toothpaste. The manufacturers want us to use more, so we buy more.

5. Keep your pantyhose in the freezer, and they will last longer.

6. For great lotion, mix one-part lotion with one-part vaseline. It works better than plain lotion, and, depending on the cost of your lotion, you can stretch its value.

7. To prevent hair pins from falling out, bend one prong in a “V” about halfway up and insert in hair. It will stay.

8. Old lipstick tubes, thoroughly cleaned, are great for purse-sized pill boxes or for pins.

9. Use hydrogen peroxide as an inexpensive nail bleach.

10. For an excellent facial, mix dry oatmeal and water into a paste and spread on face. Lie down and let it dry. Wash off with warm water.

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Here are twelve beauty tips that are guaranteed to work, if you follow them *all*. There’s no point eating fresh fruit and vegetables, and then smoking like a chimney!

1. Moisturise.

This is a misnomer, you can’t actually put water in your skin. You can, however, oil it up (like leather!), and trap water next to the skin.

After every wash, put an inert oil on your face. Johnson’s Baby Oil is good. Put it especially on your laughter-lines (around the eyes), your forehead, around the mouth and on the neck.

You don’t need expensive ointments; independent studies show these are a con.

2. Eat Good Food.

Eat plenty of fruit, fish and vegetables, drink water. A healthy diet makes for a healthy body, and health makes you look younger.

3. Sleep.

MOST IMPORTANT.

At least eight hours. A good night’s kip will make you look years younger.

Go to bed before midnight, as early as possible. You’ve had enough when you bound out of bed in the morning, full of energy. If you don’t, you need more, or you’re depressed, or you went to bed after midnight.

Lack of sleep is very ageing. If you don’t get enough sleep you look haggard i.e. old. Sleep deprivation is akin to being a zombie; your IQ is less, memory poorer, and your reactions slower. You become more prone to disease.

4. Don’t Smoke.

Smoking constricts the capillaries in your face. This is why smokers look pale. It ages the skin. It makes your hair lank.

A smoker is essentially in a constant state of ill-health; weaker immune system, less energy, less stamina. In time smoking can lead to serious disease. It lenghtens recovery time from other diseases. Doctors tend to write-off smokers; they know their work is being wasted.

Cigarettes contain poisons like formaldehyde, ammonia, arsenic, and benzene. The reason people crave them is because they also contain nictotine, which is more addictive than heroin. You can kick heroin in five days; nicotine can take weeks.

5. Don’t Drink Alcohol.

Again, alcohol is a poison. Drunkenness is a mild form of poisoning; hence its alternative name: intoxication.

I once knew some Australian girls when I first came to in London. They used to ‘party hearty’. One of them was very pretty. After 6 months she looked like she’d aged fifteen years; 20 going on 35.

When I was very young I used to wonder why adults looked so old, tired and fed up. Certainly life has its disappointments, but we help death mark our card early on.

6. Don’t Sunbathe.

In neolithic times men used to cure animal hides by exposing them to the sun. This was the earliest form of tanning; they were making leather.

This is what’s happening to sunbather’s skin. That’s why 35 year-old sunbathers look 45, and 45 year-old sunbathers have skin the texture of a leather armchair.

Sitting in the sun for hours is weak-minded. Look at the great beauties, the older ones. They kept well out of the sun; their skin is milky white. You don’t see their sisters in magazines, who, for a season’s healthy glow, sacrificed their looks forever.

7. Don’t Dye Or Bleach Your Hair.

Unless your hair is grey or mousey, leave off putting chemicals on it. If you are healthy, your hair will reflect this. Bleaching is bad for your hair, and you may damage the follicles. If the dye doesn’t suit your skin tone, it won’t make you look good anyway.

8. Don’t Wear Formal Clothes.

Dress younger, look younger!

9. Don’t Wear A Beard Or Moustache, Or Long Hair (for men).

If your hair is thinning and long, or you have a beard or moustache, you’ll look older by ten years. Conversely, a short hair-cut and a clean-shaven face takes years off you. Cut off your sideburns; voila! instant youth.

10. Don’t Have Cosmetic Surgery.

This is a trap. Because a man has M.D. after his name doesn’t mean he has the skill of a Michelangelo or Da Vinci. That’s what you need to remodel a human face.

Why? Because our perceptions of human beauty rely on very subtle clues in another’s face; small lines, dimples, contours, expressions.

A cosmetic surgeon cuts these out, and you are left with a mask. You lose some of your personality. You become a type; a Hollywood social x-ray, a waxen-faced thing. Don’t do it, girls!

We are not machines; cut us, take a part out, replace it, and we are never quite the same again.

11. Don’t Over-diet, Over-exercise.

This makes you look scrawny and haggard. A slightly fleshy face looks younger; the wrinkles fill out a bit.

A bit of exercise gets the blood flowing, and reminds your muscles they exist. Too much intense exercise (more than two hours a day), a low carbohydrate diet, and you look haggard; worn out, old, under par.

12. Don’t Worry!

If you have problems, resolve to deal with them, or deliberately avoid them; but decide, and then put them out of your mind. Stress and worry make you haggard, and pre-dispose you to disease. They keep you awake at night, and ruin the quality of your sleep.

Meditate. Resolve your problems before you go to sleep at night. Observe your thoughts and emotions dispassionately. You may be surprised to find how crazy most are!

In short, youth is a combination of factors; one cream or regime won’t do. Address your entire person, body and mind.

Here’s to your good health!

T. O’ Donnell (http://www.tigertom.biz) is the author of ‘The Black Book Of Power’, a free personal development ebook, and lives in London, UK.

COPYRIGHT: You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. You must publish the article AS IS. Do not modify, alter or edit it.

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T. O’ Donnell

Tips to Stay Wrinkled Free & Look Younger
This can be applied frequently. Mix 2 table spoons of oatmeal with half cup of milk and cook gently till it becomes soft. Stir in 2 teaspoons of olive oil and beat together. Allow to cool and then spread it over the face and neck. Leave it on, for about 25 minutes and then rinse with luke warm water.

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In Chinese medicine, we treat problems like acne, blemishes, and other skin problems, hair loss, and premature graying of the hair. Some of this you may need to see a Chinese medicine herbalist for, but some of it you may be able to deal with yourself. I’m going to give you natural beauty tip after natural beauty tip to help you do just that.

Natural Beauty Tip #1 – Eyes Lacking Luster
What does it mean? You can see it in babies and young children – bright, glowing eyes. Our oldest Chinese medicine classic (written between 200-500 B.C.) states that “the essence of the internal organs ascends to the eyes.” The Bible says something similar, “Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light.” Clear and glittering (shining) eyes indicate vitality of mind and essence. Dull, clouded eyes reflect a disturbed mind, and weakened essence – this often happens in people with long term and deep emotional problems.

How can you fix it? Well, first of all, if you have some emotional problems, work through it with a professional- either a counselor, therapist, or someone within your religion. This is one part of getting to the clear, vibrant personality that shines through in bright eyes. It may take a while to get there. Second, you can take herbs and eat foods that benefit the eyes.

Probably the best Chinese herb for the eyes is lycium fruit (gou qi zi). Other herbs are black sesame seeds (hei zhi ma), and privet fruit (nu zhen zi). Good foods for the eyes include shepherd’s purse, undried raspberry (fu pen zi), and animal liver.

Natural Beauty Tip #2 – Bags Under Your Eyes
Bags under the eyes indicate Kidney-system (root energy) deficiency, blood stagnation, or allergies. Respectively, the solutions are to increase energy and minimize overwork; get more movement and circulation; and find the allergy cause, eliminate it, and take anti-allergenic herbs and foods.

The Kidney-system energy is limited. If you overwork, have too much sex, or use more energy than your digestive system can produce, you’ll dip into this limited energy fund. This can lead to more than circles under your eyes- you can end up with premature aging and hair loss, impotence and infertility, and ankle, knee, and lower back problems. If that’s your problem, try to practice moderation, eat better, and take supplemental herbs and foods like black cohosh, Chinese chive, mutton, walnut, oysters, pork, dried rehmannia (sheng di), Chinese yam (shan yao), and horny goat weed (yin yang huo).

Blood stagnation can mean sharpn stabbing pains; clots and dark blood in the menstruation; irregular menstruation; and hard spots in the abdomen. If you have this, try celery, rose, yellow soybean, seaweed, mung bean, corn, eggplant, cucumber, and hemlock parsley (chuan xiong).

For allergies, get both IgG and IgE done for both external (skin test) and food allergies (blood test). If you find something substantial, avoid it! For food and herbs, try garlic, fresh ginger, royal jelly, chicken, beef, chestnut, astragalus (huang qi), kudzu vine (ge gen), and welsh onion (cong bai).

Natural Beauty Tip #3 – Acne
This is literally too much heat – your face has become a volcano just to let it out! Try mung bea, seagrass, seaweed, Chinese hawthorn (shan zha), Job’s tears (yi yi ren), and purple sage (dan shen). Avoid spicy foods, greasy foods, and fried foods. Try some raw vegetables, too.

Natural Beauty Tip #4 – Dry Skin
Moistening herbs and foods are soy, spinach, asparagus, millet, barley, salt, seaweed, apple, tangerine, pinenut, persimmon, peanut, pear, honey, oysters, and clams. A seaweed facial wrap would be nice, too!

Natural Beauty Tip #5 – Eczema
Try guava, clam, irish potato, he shou wu, wild chrysanthemum, mugwort, Job’s tears (yi yi ren), and asian dandelion (pu gong ying). Avoid spicy foods, greasy foods, and fried foods.

Natural Beauty Tip #6 – Psoriasis
Try turnip root leaf, vinegar, grapefruit, black plum (wu mei), cloves (ding xian), and dang gui (aka dong quai).

Natural Beauty Tip #7 – Prematurely Graying Hair
This can happen for two reasons- either you have a root energy (Kidney system) deficiency (for more information and solutions, see the Kidney deficiency information up under natural beauty tip #2), or you have what is called ‘hot blood.’ The second one happens with bleeding, nosebleed, skin ulcers, and urinary difficulties. For hot blood, take black soybean, processed dried persimmons, processed rehmannia (shu di huang), and dried rehmannia (shu di huang).

Natural Beauty Tip #8 – Premature Aging
This is another Kidney-system deficiency.

Try walnut, chicken, duck, he shou wu, Chinese ginseng, deer antler velvet (the deers aren’t harmed! Lu rong), astragalus (huang qi), lycium fruit (gou qi zi), horny goat weed (yin yang huo), caterpillar larva fungus (dong chong xia cao), and red date (da zao).

References:
Sionneau & Gang. The Treatment of Disease in TCM: Volume 2.
Lu. Chinese Herbs with Common Foods: Recipes for Health and Healing.
Pitchford. Healing With Whole Foods.
Maciocia. The Foundations of Chinese Medicine.

About the Author

Acupuncturist, herbalist, and medical professor Brian B. Carter founded the alternative health megasite The Pulse of Oriental Medicine (http://www.PulseMed.org/). He is the author of the book “Powerful Body, Peaceful Mind: How to Heal Yourself with Foods, Herbs, and Acupressure” (November, 2004). Brian speaks on radio across the country, and has been quoted and interviewed by Real Simple, Glamour, and ESPN magazines.

Brought to you by Ample Advice

Brian B. Carter, MS, LAc

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