5 MONEY-SAVING BEAUTY TIPS THAT ARE ALSO GREAT FOR YOUR SKIN

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You can save money and treat your skin even better with a few common-sense tips. Here are 5 ways you can save big bucks and get even bigger results.

1. RINSE AND RE-USE!: You can rinse and re-use our Disposable Cleansing Cloths several times. You can always do it after The Sandwich, and if you aren’t removing make up you can also do it after Cleansing Milk and Toner. It’s important that you DO NOT open up the cloths, but leave them folded. This is true any time you use them. It will not only allow you to re-use them more times, they are much thicker and therefore more absorbent when folded.

2. NATURALLY REFRESHING: When you feel you need to refresh your skin after exercise, on a hot day, or any time at all, don’t reach for a product. Simply splash 10 or more times with warm water, and then 10 or more times with cold water. It not only feels refreshing but it also stimulates your circulation, gives you a rosy glow, kick-starts natural detoxification and doesn’t cost a dime!

3. GET OUT OF THE OIL BUSINESS: If you find you get shiny during the day, don’t try to dry it up with powder or strong cleansers or astringents. Just wipe it with a tissue. Often it’s perspiration as much as oil anyway. If you find you need to wipe several times a day, no problem! It doesn’t cost anything and won’t hurt your skin at all. If it’s perspiration, it will save your skin from unnecessary drying and exposure to unnecessary ingredients.

4. GO NAKED!: Only wear make up when you are going out, and only if you really have something to cover up. This is another example of helping your wallet and your skin at the same time. Applying foundation and powder have become habit for millions of women. If you must wear make up for work, or if you are going out, by all means wear what you must! But if you’re going to be home all day, you will make your make up last much longer, saving money and saving your skin from dozens of unnecessary ingredients at the same time. As Simone always said, “What you take off your skin is just as important as what you put on it!”

5. LESS IS MORE: Always use less of any product, and be aware of how long your products are lasting. Buying a giant “economy” size of an over-diluted product that you have to slather on to get results isn’t really a bargain when all is said and done. It’s not going to work very well on your skin and you’ll be back at the store before you know it plunking down more money for more of the same.

How to read ingredient labels

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Take a look at the ingredient listing on any product package, and it seems like simple list of ingredients in any ordinary recipe.  But the fact is that ingredient labeling is a mixed bag of legalese and chemist-speak that doesn’t always mean what you think it does.  Consider the following when you sit down to a good ingredient list reading:

What’s in a name?  The law requires that we list the chemical names of ingredients, which can be confusing to the average consumer.   Some of the ingredient names sound downright scary, with words like “acid” and “alcohol”.  They sound like something you’d be more likely to put in your car engine than on your face!  For instance, someone reading “stearic acid” probably doesn’t know that this is a wonderful moisturizer, naturally found in coconut oil or that “butylene glycol” is a healing humectant that comes directly from the root of the kava kava plant.   Remember that if you ever put salt in a recipe, you’re actually eating sodium chloride!

A weighty issue:  By law, ingredients are listed in order of their weight in a formula, with the heaviest listed first.  This is misleading to most people, as one would assume the ingredients listed first are either the most powerful, the most important or that the product consists mostly of the first few ingredients.   But you really can’t tell from the list what the most powerful or most important or even most prevalent ingredient is.  For instance, water is heavier than most ingredients, so that is usually listed first.  This does not necessarily mean that the product is mostly water or that water is the most important ingredient.  A small weight of some ingredient at the end of the list can potentially be the most powerful or take up the most space in the jar.  Without having the knowledge of a cosmetic chemist, it is impossible to be sure from the ingredient list alone, whether a good amount of something for your particular needs is in any given formula, or what the most potent ingredient is.

Shape shifting:  Another thing to keep in mind is that, just like cooking, cosmetics is chemistry.  Ingredients often react with each other and when they join they change each other and become a completely new ingredient all together.   So something on an ingredient list that might be bad all by itself can become something very different and very healthy when it is mixed with other ingredients in a formula.

There is  much to say on the topic of ingredients and in future posts we will address them.  Please let us know what you think about ingredients and ingredient labeling!

Skin Aging Causes and Solutions

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Aging is a natural process that doesn’t have to be frightening. Every one of us can age beautifully and gracefully, always look fantastic for our age, and sometimes even younger.

Great skin is a combination of nature and nurture. What you are born with and what you do with it. Some of us have naturally better skin. Some of us have to work a little harder at it.

Aging is also a combination of nature and nurture – what happens naturally, and what we do that shows up over time in lines, wrinkles and dullness.
Here are the top three causes of pre-mature aging, and what you can do about them:

WHAT HAPPENS NATURALLY: Everyone loses bone and muscle as they age. When the bone and muscle shrink, the skin no longer “fits” as well as it used to and it starts to sag. Doing all you can to maintain healthy bone and muscle can minimize this. Products that contain “firming” ingredients cannot fix this problem.

WHAT HAPPENS UN-NATURALLY: Too much alcohol, tobacco, junk food and sun. We have control over all of these factors by the choices we make every day. Too much alcohol will most likely over-bloat and stretch your skin, cause redness and broken capillaries. Tobacco is a toxin that in time gives the skin a yellowish gray color and increases and deepens wrinkles around the mouth and eyes. Too much junk food can create an overweight, unhealthy body and, among other things, water retention that will bloat and age your face. Too much sun is the killer! It will totally destroy your skin over time.

HOW YOU NURTURE YOUR SKIN: This is where every one of us can take charge of how we age. And it’s never too late – no matter how old you look this minute, you can look younger than that soon, and slow the signs of further aging way, way down. The two most effective anti-aging steps you can take are exfoliation and protection.

That’s the whole idea behind The Simone France Sandwich (a combination of Moisturizer, Refining Scrub and Soap). Do this for one minute every morning and you never have a build up that ages your skin. Every morning your skin is fresh, dewy, clear and glowing. Because you clean and exfoliate and do not irritate your skin, it becomes stronger, healthier and younger looking. The longer you use it, the more results you will see.

Of course no discussion of anti-aging is complete without talking about face lifts, laser surgery, microdermabrasion and the host of other medical procedures that are so prevalent. These are serious procedures that require careful consideration. In future blog posts we will address these important concerns in detail.

Simone’s Story

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We think the best way to start off our new blog is by telling the story of Simone France herself, why she chose a career in skin care, why our products and method are so very different from virtually all others, and how her experience all those years ago is so relevant to each of us today.

Simone was eighteen years old, living in Paris just after World War II. Like so many young women then and now, even though she had the most beautiful skin, she wasn’t satisfied.

The family was going to a wedding and Simone wanted to look extra beautiful for the occasion.  She read a tip in a magazine that recommended brightening your complexion by washing your face with soap and a bristle brush. (The soaps they had after the war were lye based and absolutely terrible.)

Never stopping to think about it, she followed the advice without question, and the next day she woke up to bright red, puffy, sore, infected skin!  Not at all what she had in mind for the wedding, and for a long time she was ashamed to go out anywhere.  Her family was very upset because there was nothing wrong with her skin to start with!

A doctor treated the medical problem, but her skin was still in a terrible condition. Back then doctors were not in the beauty business.  Once the medical problem was solved their job was done.  So the search to regain get her beautiful complexion began.

Simone was fortunate to be living in Paris where there were so many beauty institutes and “experts” available. She went from one to the next to the next. They all had the same approach.  They expressed shock at the terrible problem and pushed her to sign up for a series of costly treatments.  Even though she was very young and naive, she says she “recognized  hocus pocus when I saw it! “  Right then she realized the importance of being honest with people if you really want to help them.

After a long search with no real results, she finally knocked on the door of a wonderful professional woman who was very encouraging in her approach and who recommended a simple treatment. Not only did her advice ring true to Simone as soon as she heard it, but over time her skin completely recovered.

This experience led to a decades-long career in skin care and a sincere desire to help people. She learned how easy it is to mislead people and she vowed to always tell the truth.  She developed a product line and method based on common sense and results she could see every day on the faces of thousands of real women, famouus and not famous, who came to her every day for advice and treatment.  Over the years, she has seen “miracle treatments” come and go. But skin is still skin and that has not changed.

Our company is steeped in the tradition of a real woman, who had hands-on experience looking through a magnifying mirror, seeing the real results of every product on the market.  This is rather unique in the world of skin care.

Simone has now retired from the product company, but those of us who started the company with her and who worked side by side with her for years are committed to remaining true to her values, her methods and her products.   This is our commitment to you.  We hope this blog will be a place where common sense, respect for our readers, and a commitment to excellence in information as well as in products will always be paramount.