Face Good

Did everyone enjoy your Chinese New Year holidays? Mine was great! I called on many relatives and friends whom I haven't seen for ages. I also ate like I haven't in ages XD I've lost count of the number of mini meals I've had for each day! I hope all that moving around makes up for the weight I might have piled on! But I haven't had a proper night's sleep because I've been staying up all night to play mahjong! At least the information in my previous post will come in handy.

After all the misdeeds I've done to myself over CNY, I've made a resolution to increase my fruit intake. So I'd like to share some information I have about fruit juices in case there are others who share my resolution.

Fruits are highly nourishing for skin especially since its rich in Vitamin Cs and healthy (well maybe with the exception of durians). That’s why I always try to drink fruit juices instead of caffeine products like coffee and tea! Different fruits contain different nutrition levels and are hence more adept at serving different purposes. For optimal beauty results, choose the one that serves yours!


In the following, I’ve listed ingredients needed to make each type of fruit juice. Just remove their skins, cube them and put them into the juicer!

Reduce breakouts for people with Oily Skin
You will need ½ a medium-sized apple, ¼ of a lemon and a few small slice of carrots (by preference).

Even skin pigmentation
¼ of a whole pineapple, ½ a stick of celery, ½ a tomato.

Nourishing weak immune system
1 orange, ¼ of a medium-sized cabbage, 1 stalk of coriander

Mild Hair loss
2 stalks of Chinese Lettuce (remove leaves), 1 medium-sized piece of ginger, a small carrot, an apple and 1/3 of a lemon.

Digestion and rosy skin
1 tomato, half a lime. You don’t need a juicer to mix them up. Simply squeeze out their juices into a cup and mix them up properly.

Relieving exhaustion, lightening of pigment and acne scarring
¼ of a pineapple, ½ of a bittergourd, 3 guavas

It is important that you use fresh fruits, and drink them right after juicing where they are still fresh! Some fruits undergo oxidation upon exposure and that causes nutrient loss!

Well no, not karate or kungfu, but precautionary measures to protect your skin’s wellbeing on late nights. As you’re putting in extra nighters to ensure a peaceful Chinese New Year holiday, bear in mind that stress and late nights are the nemeses of beautiful, healthy skin! What’s more, many of us are going to stay up really late on New Year’s Eve. It’s a bane for the skin, but a tradition we have to observe nonetheless! The good news is, we can cushion these harmful effects and reduce them to the minimal!

Before midnight...

Keep your meal light and healthy. People tend to have their dinner really late when they’re doing overtime. Though we should actually have dinners in the evening, I know this is pretty inevitable, so if you really must have dinner-supper, choose to eat more vegetables and less meat and oil.

Remove your make-up as early as possible, preferably before midnight, even if you’re still stuck in your office. It’s better to look less glamorous for a few hours than suffer from breakouts over the next few days, don’t you think so? Pores get blocked when your face gets suffocated by make-up for long hours. The damage would have been done by the time you remove your make-up. Remove your make-up as early as possible, and remove it well.

Increase your intake of vitamin B, because it helps to strengthen your immunity system and relieves exhaustion!

Staying up after midnight...

Staying up late intensifies heatiness. The combination of late nights with a snack of potato chips, biscuits and other dry snacks that cause heatiness is a lethal one. You could end up with pimple breakouts and worst, sore throats and coughs.

1. Green tea has a cooling effect that helps to reduce heatiness. It makes you more awake and refreshed, and helps to rid your body of free radicals which are harmful to your health. Alternatively, you can drink jasmine tea or wolfberry tea if green tea doesn’t go down well with you.

2. If you must have supper, take non-oily and non-heaty foods like fruits, porridge or wholemeal bread.

Aftermath

1. Return to your normal sleeping routine as soon as you can.

2. If you're not used to staying up late, you may feel weak and tired over the next few days. Do drink ample water and consume protein-rich food to repair your damaged cells.

3. Massages will help to stimulate blood circulation.

4. Don't stay at home all day long even if you're exhausted. Go out for a walk. The sun will do you good. But don't forget the sunblock for your skin!

Have a Happy and Healthy Year of the Ox!