What's In Your Lip Balm?Written by Lisa Maliga
The use of lip balm is often necessary due to fact that our lips don’t produce any oil and are likely to become dry and chapped. You’ll probably notice this during wintertime, especially if you spend time outdoors. However, many of us have chapped lips during regardless of season. You live or vacation in a hot, dry climate, or a high altitude. In severe cases lips can become cracked and bleed due to fact that they may be using commercial lip balms or relying on nothing at all. Licking one’s lips actually makes problem worse.A couple of summers ago I had unsightly chapped and dry lips for no apparent reason. My diet hadn’t changed, I wasn’t under too much stress, and I was still in same location. For years I’d been using various brands of lip balms that I’d purchased from a health food store. I dutifully read contents and noted they contained almond oil and other natural ingredients. On closer inspection I again read label. The last word gave me clue I needed: “active sunscreen - PABA”. The other brand contained all natural ingredients including lanolin, which is derived from sheep’s wool, but is a known sensitizer. One or both of these ingredients was responsible for irritating my lips. Instead of using lip balm I switched to some solid cocoa butter I happened to have. Within 24 hours my lips began to soften and turn from flaky white back to natural pink. I began exploring ways to make my own lip balm that would of course contain skin-loving cocoa butter. Cocoa butter was nice to use, but after a while I wanted to go back to using a stick or small pot of lip balm that I could carry around with me. I read several books and researched many recipes I found on internet. For several months I experimented with recipes until I was happy with results. So delighted that I even gave away a few small pots of shea butter lip balm to testers, which had been sweetened with white chocolate. Only one problem occurred – after a week lip balm turned grainy! This was disappointing to me, but I continued to try to make grain-free lip balms. Three months later I ordered some gently refined shea butter and after reformulating my recipe, and carefully adding shea butter last, problem was solved! The culprit had been timing of shea’s addition to melting process, along with shea butter that wasn’t up to my usual ultra high standards. Since early 2004 I have successfully made numerous batches of luxurious shea butter lip balms and have expanded my line to include 15 lip smacking flavors. I’m very proud of my lippy creations and wish to share my carefully selected ingredients.
| | After exercise headache - more serious than you think?Written by James Cottrill
It's surprisingly common - you're exercising, everything's fine, and then POW - a headache strikes! Or, sometimes, a headache hits while you're exercising. Is it just a minor annoyance? Or could it be a signal that something serious is going on? Should you go to doctor, or just shrug it off?If you already suffer from headaches or migraine, it may just be that your exercise is starting headache chain-reaction. In that case, it's important to look at overall picture and make sure you're getting treatment you need for headaches. Your doctor may recommend a pain killer to take just before you exercise, to stop pain before it starts. In case of migraine, this is called an "effort migraine", and it's very common. A throbbing headache in back of your head may be an "exertion headache", which again usually requires some pain killers and is not serious. But after exercise headache can be a warning that something serious is going on. As a general rule of thumb, if you get a new headache after you exercise, you should see a doctor right away. Any sudden change when it comes to headache could be a sign of something serious, so don't wait. Some of more serious headaches have to do with blood vessels in head. A headache after exercise could indicate an abnormality in blood vessels themselves, or could warn you of a brain hemorrhage (or haemorrhage) (blood flow when blood vessels break). If you're exercising in heat and begin to have sore muscles, difficulty breathing, and dizziness along with headache, you could be experiencing early signs of heat exhaustion or heat stroke. You'll soon be past helping yourself, but friends will need to make sure your body is cooled off quickly.
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