Keeping your hair rich and full pass your forties!

As I get older, I notice many of my friends who once had great hair end up with edges snatched and thinning crowns. This is an epidemic of cataclysmic proportions in the afro-american community.  Obviously if most folks knew how to deal with it, they wouldn’t hesitate to fix it. So with that being said let’s have this conversation.  Do you want rich and full hair pass your thirties?  So do most folks. There’s only a few ways to guarantee great hair as you age.  So lets talk about it!

 

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  1.  Vitamins. Here are my list of goto vitamins that has my hair full and strong. Macca root is very good for virility. It helps to give balance.  If you are a man, the same hormones regulate hair loss.   Another nutritional supplement to take is Super Callogen E(ground up cow bones). Along with the ability to  regenerate a small amount of cartilage between the joints, it also helps grow fuller… richer hair! FYI get all these vitamins and supplements  from the  vitamin shoppe! I swear by them and no they don’t sponsor me!

2.  Exercise. Sounds flakey right? Nope exercise release hormones just like vitamins can. Exercise promotes a strong circulatory system which feeds blood to your hair follicles.

 

3. Water. Water guarantees hydration. For all your bodies systems to work right water is essential! So drink it and spritz it in your hair daily along with a water based conditioner. Seal it in with an oil based sealant such as shea butter or olive oil and voila!!!! Watch your hair grow like wild fire!

When plastic surgery becomes too much…

So there has been this uptick in plastic surgery amongst people of color.  One of the biggest surgeries is buttocks implants.

New ASPS (American Society of Plastic Surgeons) stats showed that 2015 was another year of the rear, as procedures focusing on the derriere dominated surgical growth. Buttock implants were the fastest growing type of cosmetic surgery in 2015, and, overall, there was a buttock procedure every 30 minutes of every day, on average.

Here are the top procedures related to the bottom in 2015:

  • Buttock augmentation with fat grafting (14,705 procedures, up 28 percent from 2014 to 2015)
  • Buttock lift (4,767 procedures up 36 percent from 2014 to 2015)
  • Buttock implants (2,540 procedures up 36 percent from 2014 to 2015)

The pioneers of the “big booty era” are magazines such as “King” and “XXL”.

King magazine is geared toward African-American and urban male audiences. It features articles about hip-hop and R&B as well as sports and fashion. The magazine is published by Townsquare Media and was a spinoff from XXL. The magazine was started in 2002. It ceased publication on March 31, 2009, citing failing ad sales as a result of the poor economy and plans to release monthly installments soon. It resumed publication, this time as a quarterly magazine, in late 2009. It was later suspended again, and the website was sold by Harris Publications to Townsquare Media in 2014.

They paved the way for women of color (of all shades) to flaunt their curves since high fashion magazines and society in general frowned on more voluptuous  and curvy body types.  These magazines were considered a bit seedy but found their place in front of the eyes of passer-byers because of its normalization and placement with other well known magazines.  For roughly a decade these types of magazines came and went but offered a glimpse into the beauty and majesty of women of color.

Today we find ourselves at a cross roads.  The increase of underground surgeries, implant removals and ultimately surgical fatalities has us all pondering When is too much… too much?

 

In search of a cosmetic surgery procedure that might be less costly than the going rate in the United States, a 43-year-old woman traveled to the Dominican Republic for a “tummy tuck.”

What she got, instead, were massive open sores and an antibiotic-resistant infection that ultimately left her with a deformed abdomen.

And hers is a story far from unique. Medical experts say it should serve as a cautionary tale for Americans who head abroad for cheaper plastic surgery, only to find they’re rolling the dice when it comes to their safety.

The reason? Complications and rare infections resulting from subpar care delivered by some poorly qualified and under-regulated out-of-country physicians and facilities.

“We studied cosmetic procedures, those not covered by medical insurance,” explained study lead author Dr. Dennis Orgill. “People are motivated because of cost, and in some cases because of cultural issues. There are many websites that advertise for these procedures. And the initial costs for these procedures in developing countries is substantially less.

“Some surgeons in these countries are excellent,” Orgill added, “but sometimes it is hard for patients to tell the difference by looking on the internet.” And it’s that inability to properly vet international services, providers and regulations that ultimately gives rise to “a large public health issue,” he warned.

Orgill is medical director of Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Wound Care Center in Boston. He and his colleagues discussed their findings in the April issue of the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Following several cases of botched plastic surgery in the Dominican Republic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. State Department issued alerts warning American patients to steer clear of that country.

That concern was confirmed by the recent review of 78 patients (nearly all women) who had sought care at Brigham and Women’s following plastic surgery performed abroad between 2010 and 2017: three-quarters had undergone procedures in the Dominican Republic.

The review also identified other problematic “medical tourism” destinations, with Colombia and Brazil topping a list that included Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, El Salvador, China, Syria and Turkey.

All the patients were American residents (average age 43), although many had been born in the country they chose to return to for surgery. More than 60 percent relied on Medicaid as their American insurance.

About 45 percent had undergone a “tummy tuck” (abdominoplasty). A third had gone in for a breast enlargement. Other procedures included a breast lift or reduction (17 percent); liposuction (13 percent); or injections of foreign substances such as silicone (nearly 20 percent). About a quarter underwent multiple procedures.

Following the procedures, nearly 10 percent of the patients sought corrective cosmetic surgery at Brigham and Women’s. About 18 percent had serious infections; 18 percent had persistent pain; 8 percent had scarring; 15 percent had unhealed wounds; and 5 percent had internal scar tissue in their breast. Other issues included hernias, perforated bowels and ruptured implants, the review authors said.

Eight patients had to undergo emergency procedures in the hospital’s emergency room.

One 59-year-old woman experienced kidney failure and developed multiple hernias following abdominal liposuction, also done in the Dominican Republic.

Orgill and his associates concluded that the American College of Surgeons and/or the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) may have to develop guidelines to tackle the issue of plastic surgery tourism. Such guidelines do not yet exist.

Dr. Jeffrey Janis, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, stressed that when seeking plastic surgery, it’s important to vet both the physician and the facility.

“The ASPS does not allow you to become a member unless you’ve passed a rigorous training program by the Board of Plastic Surgeons, which attests to the fact that you’ve been well-trained and can safely practice plastic surgery,” he said. “So if you go outside the U.S. you really should seek someone equally qualified.

“And you also don’t want plastic surgery done in a barn, a basement, a tent,” Janis said. “I’m not making those scenarios up. It happens.”

Janis added that “that is not to say that if you travel outside the borders of the U.S. that you’re taking your health into your own hands. That’s not fair. There are plenty of very qualified doctors around the world who can perform procedures. The issue is, has the patient done their homework so they know what they’re getting into?”

Social media models such as the Kardashians and the Hadid sisters has paved the way for the new “urban” styled models to take a strangle hold on the industry.

So were does this leave the women who pioneered this trend?  Back at the bottom of the food chain.  What took them a decade to create, the newer forms of social media took another decade to dismantle.  So once again, women of color (particularly women with darker skinned complexions) struggle to find where they fit into the equation.

 

 

 

Why “Beating your face” is bad for you!

It’s very popular now a days to transform oneself from something  extremely “homely” to something beautiful. YouTube is filled with videos of even disfigured women turning themselves into beauty queens using extreme and even excessive makeup.  The results are usually astounding which is why the term was coined “beating your face”.

Well this phenomenon has a downside…. It’s called foundation!  Out of all the makeup that is used, foundation is the biggest culprit.  Foundation covers the largest amount of skin surface and this is where the problem lies.  If you have acne it will only excasturbate the problem, it also caused your skin to crater over time.  

If the reason to use heavy makeup is to cover up blemishes this will only work for a short period of time.  It is best to keep your face clean.

If you want to get an even tone use shea butter.

It will eventually clear away the acne but it will take a while.  Months maybe even a year.  This is why using alot of make up is so appealing.  But in the long term, it will do more harm than good.  There is nothing wrong with using make up.  Even heavy makeup is ok for very special ocassions but any more use will prematurely age your skin, cause concaving of the skin and cause acne.