Eczema refers to a broad range of skin yuckiness, mostly super dry and itchy, caused by a broad range of things from topical exposures to allergies. Mostly it’s a situation of ‘try a little this, try a little that, and let’s see what gets it to go away’.  Dermatologists will often use a steroid cream and have you try making adjustments to your diet.

My derm didn’t have any availability for a couple weeks. From a business prospective, South Florida is a great place to be a dermatologist. So in the mean time I slathered a good dose of Vitamin E oil on it. I figure that stuff’s good for pretty much everything. Within a couple hours the flesh was looking just a tad fleshier. So I kept it up and within 4 days or so it was gone. The vitamin e oil treatment cured my eczema.

This isn't my hand, but it's eczema on a hand.

Since then I’ve heard several testimonials from chronic Eczema sufferers. Yesterday evening I met a guy who experienced years of debilitating eczema on his foot. He sought out ‘specialists’ in several cities, at one point even receiving injections of his own urine! From voodoo to who-knew, he tried it all. Just home from a trip to visit her mother in Morocco, his girlfriend pulled out a water bottle filled with a hazy liquid with sediment still floating around in it. It was completely unrefined and unfiltered argan oil. She slathered his foot with the stuff and wrapped it with saran wrap.  5 days. 5 days and he was cured. He dropped all else. He was going into business.

He and the girlfriend joined together to form a web-based company called the Essence of Argan. They sell 100% Argan for many purposes, not just the use of argan oil to cure eczema. Oils mostly come mixed with what’s called ‘carrier oils’, or synthetic substances to thin it out. The popular and expensive Moroccan Oil hair product, for example, only contains about 2% argan oil. When picking any oil you should check the potency so you choose the correct one for your need.

Argan oil itself contains a high amount of vitamin e, so maybe that’s where the effectiveness to help cure eczema is. I don’t know. But it’s good shit. And if you have eczema you should dedicate a short week to trying an argan oil or straight vitamin e oil remedy.

Picking up my little one’s prescription for Levsin today (yes, we’re resorting to drugs, please don’t judge-I don’t like it either) I passed the Halloween aisle filled with various drugstore type costume items. A hot purchase every year are those massive eyelashes that have glitter or bright colors on the end. These lashes somehow seem to be an integral part of any female costume. Sometimes they are the entire costume themselves. What is that about?

That’s my blog.

That people are treated differently based on their appearance is as old as people and deeply complex. I think Deborah, approaching it from a legislative point of view unlike brouhaha for the sake of a sound bite or studies for the sake of studies, is talking about laws to protect people. She narrows the beauty biases down to potential legal ramifications and therefore some kind of real recognition and result.

But wow, is taking on this issue really possible? Innocent babies respond better to attractive people and adults respond better to cuter babies. Can a perception so ingrained in our brains be controlled?

Even in positions where intelligence is a key factor such as in high-level government, the women dye their hair and clearly undergo a few nips and tucks. I suppose the only way to really know if they do this because of societal pressure or because they like it is to ask.

‘Excuse me Nancy, did you just get ANOTHER eye job? If so, did you feel forced to keep up with America’s perceptions of what kind of person they could respect? Or worse, did your boss, The American People, take you aside and let you know your job might be on the line with those saggy lids?’

‘And Hillary, love the new highlights. Did you get them especially to impress Netanyahu in your upcoming meeting? Did you feel the highlights might make the meeting more successful?’

Some things may be more difficult for a less attractive woman or a shorter man, but same goes the other way around.  My pop wanted to be a military pilot but at 6’6” with poor vision didn’t make the cut. I have an attractive girlfriend who was asked if she had a boyfriend in a job interview. WTF? But, pops became a navigator instead and girly found a different job she loves. Rhodes recognizes the bias goes both ways, and argues justice for both sides. However, I wonder if this is really a worthy priority?

Don’t get me wrong; I totally back anyone who feels they’ve been unjustly treated in school, work, or play because of their looks. That’s just whack.  If they want, they should pursue their case legally. And I deeply sympathize with feeling like an outsider or less of a person because of something superficial.  But I say try not to let it get to you, because only you control your destiny.

Whatever the stance, it’s a very interesting topic that effects everyone. What do you think?

Here’s a link to WLRN’s Topical Currents with Deborah Rhode. I call in and comment at 35:19 to say that makeup can be fun too.

1. Use a thin angled eyeliner brush. This is key. The one pictured is from the paint section of a craft/hobby store and cost approx. $7.00. Wet the brush and rub the edge in an eyeshadow powder or use dry with a cream liner.

2. Touch the brush to the outer corner of the eye, using the length of the brush to create your wing. A positioning tip so that each side is even is to line up the end of the line with with a point on your eyebrow.

3. With the long hairs of the brush touching the tip of the outer line, connect it to the top of the eyelash line. Now you have a wing.

4. Fill in the wing so that you have the outer portion on your cat eyeliner complete.

5. Delicately draw the brush edge over the lid to complete the liner. Whether you start from the inside or outside depends on what you’re most comfortable with. Alternately, if you’d like to switch to pencil liner or liquid liner for the lid portion, that is totally cool too.

6. If you’d like added precision and intensity, go over the easy cat liner you’ve already created with a liquid line.

Finit-0! From here you can play it up or play it down to make it just right for you. For me I think next time I’ll make my outer line more vertical for a bewitching whimsy.

While mind control is important to any endeavor, so is basic sanitation. Mind control can’t actually stop an eye infection from your nasty mascara. Here’s a few basic tips for a clean makeup kit:

-Wash your brushes. When they start getting stiff, that’s not just product build-up in there. That’s bacteria. If you’ve been breaking out, especially in areas where you use the brushes, that’s probably why. Use shampoo and warm water for natural bristles and something a little stiffer like dish detergent for synthetic bristles if need be.

-Wash your grimy hands before putting on makeup. From touching other people and places to pets and the potty, you definitely don’t want to bring the mix to your face.

-Buy new mascara every month even if the one you have hasn’t gotten chunky yet. Drug store mascara matches up to any premium brand, so you don’t have to spend a lot to achieve good sanitation.

-Sharpen your pencils before every use, especially if you’ve lost or broken the cap. This will help you get a great point, and also remove whatever’s on the outside. This includes the gunk that was in your eye yesterday and any dirt build-up on the pencil cap.

-Periodically clean the makeup bag itself. Just throw it in the washing machine or dishwasher, depending on what it’s made of.

-If you’re using a friend’s product, be courteous and don’t use the applicator directly on yourself. Put it instead on the back of your clean hand or some kind of palette type surface.

-Most makeup should be tossed in a year. Powders can last the longest at 3-5 years, and gels and liquid liners the shortest at 3-6 months.

The following are some makeup ideas that it’ll really set your face apart from the fireworks.

-Glitter lid. See the previous post 80s Makeup For 2010 for a good how-to.

-Super bright lip gloss. Pink and tangerine are great summer BBQ colors.

-Red+white+blue themed eye shadow scheme. Sounds heinous, I know, but this chick pulled off a pretty sassy look on her youtube tutorial.

-Body shimmer. Fabulous for beach and lake body bearing environs. Use a shimmer lotion along the collar bone, shoulder caps, and like a straight line down your arms and legs. Add a little shimmer fairy dust to your cheekbones too.

-Blue mascara. Making  a come-back in general, blue mascara is a subtle and cute way to show some 4^th of July enthusiasm.

Have fun! Just be sure not to light yourself or others on fire (it’s terribly hard to cover burn scars), and I’ll be back blogging on Wednesday!

P.S. In case you didn’t notice, this photo is of a dummy. It’s not a real person. No one got their face blown off to take this picture.