Tutorial: Chestnut Bun (video)

Hello there!

I haven't posted much lately due to the launching of my Dutch blog, but I've been able to shoot a video between translating articles. Enjoy my tutorial on making a Chestnut Bun!

Leg Massage Tutorial 4/4

This part was so hard to translate, but I hope I did allright though. Let me know if there are grammar or other mistakes or if you need help figuring this part out.

Foot

1.   Hand-over-handeffleurage on top of the foot (crosswise on tissue)

   -   You have to perform a crosswise effleurage.

   -   Don’t use two hands simultaneously, but alternately

   -   3x3

   -   After the 9^th finish by returning with a gentle touch and two hands at the same time.

2.   Effleurage ankle

   -   Use only your middle and ring finger for this.
   -   Then stroke underneath the ankle with them.

   -   Go back with a gentle touch, the indexfinger needs to go above the ankle, the other fingers underneath.

3.   Frictions 1x
    -   Use your middle and ring finger.
    -   You have to perform frictions on 3 places on the soft part just below the ankle.
    -   Return with a gentle touch.

4.   Hand-over-handeffleurage on top of the foot (crosswise on tissue)

   -   See 1.

5.   Rotations foot (bottom/sole, not on top of the foot)

   -   Pick the foot up with 2 hands.
   -   Your thumbs should be on the bottom/sool of the foot
   -   Make a rotational movement (circles) with the thumb
   -   It has to be performed in the direction toe to heel.

6.   Brush foot (sole)

   -   Form a fist with the hand that’s on the inside.

   -   Your other hand should be on top of the foot for support.

   -   With both hands at the same time stroke from toes to the heal in one movement.

   -   Don’t apply pressure with the upper hand only the one on the bottom of the foot.

7.   Modelling foot
   -   "Breaking metatarsals' (not literally of course)
   -   The movement looks a bit like intermittent pressure: take up the foot with the fingers (pinky, index, middle, ring finger) and you put your thumbs together on top of the foot, only you shouldn’t exercise pressure for 8 seconds
   -   You let your thumbs glide off to the side of the foot. drains thumbs down (to the side)

   -   You have to do this at three places: behind toes, right foot and ankle on

8.   Loosening of the ankle
   -   Pick up the ankle with the hand that’s on the outside

   -   Grasp the foot with the hand that’s on the inside, hold it between your fingers (they should be on top of the foot) and thumb (on the sole)
   -   If you have trouble with the way you should keep your hands then think of a crosswise effleurage, only now your hand (the one on the outside) should be upside down supporting the ankle.
   -   You have to let the foot make circles, three times towards the inside, three times towards to the outside.  The order doesn’t matter.

Cosmetic Ingredients: Parabens

How many times have you been told not to buy cosmetic products that contains parabens? I’ve been told quite some times and today I had a product in my hands on which it actually said it didn’t have parabens in it. 

It really got me wondering all of a sudden: what the hell are parabens and why are they so bad? So I went to do some research on the internet out of curiosity (I just needed to know haha) and I found out a whole bunch of stuff.  That means I’ll be giving you all the deeds on parabens in this article.

What are parabens?

Paraben is a term for a class of chemicals, so that means there are several different types of parabens. The most commonly used parabens are: Methylparaben, propylparaben, ethylparaben and butylparaben. 

Now this is gonna be a bit more difficult, but if you’re interested in chemical talk then read on, else just jump to 'Why are they used?'.

Parabens are a group of benzoic acid related substances. They are alkyl esters of para-or 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, and sodium salts of these esters.

I know this probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, so I’ll try to explain it the best I can. Alkyls are chemical compounds that only consist of the elements carbon (for example the air you breathe out contains carbon and oxygen) and hydrogen (water for example is hydrogen combined with oxygen). Esters are something that result from combining an acid with an alcohol.

So what ‘alkyl esters of para-or 4-hydroxybenzoic acid’ means is that a substance with carbon and hydrogyn results from mixing a type of benzoic acid with alchohol and that substance is called a paraben. And for the sodium salt part, well it just means that sometimes just the salt of the esters we talked about are used in theproducts. 

And what makes up all these different types of parabens is how many carbon atoms it contains: 1 = methyl, 2 = ethyl, 3= propyl, 4 = butyl. Pfff.. well that was it for the difficult part haha, up to something way easier!

Why are they used?

Parabens are used because they are great preservatives in many formulas. They’re mostly used for killing fungus and bacterias. And another great aspect is that they’re pretty cheap. So what they do is making it able for the cosmetic products that you use to last those many months.

In what are they used?

Almost any cosmetic product you can think of: Shampoo, moisturizers, shaving gel, toothpaste, make-up, deodorants and go on. But they are actually used in a lot more things, even in food and medication. BTW not all the same parabens are used for all products, but if you want to go that deep we’d have to talk more in terms of chemicals and I’d rather spare you that and me for that matter.

Why are parabens considered bad?

Allergies

Not everyone considers them bad, so many people disagree with it and they have studies to back them up. But they’re also many, many studies saying that parabens are indeed bad.

Parabens can cause allergic reactions for people with sensitive skin, it may lead to skin irritation, rosacea and dermatitis.

Reaction to sun exposure

There are also studies that indicate that when the UVB in sunlight might react with methylparaben , so if you have methylparaben applied on the skin it can rapid skin aging and can lead to DNA damage.

Breast cancer

Parabens have been associated with breast cancer. That is some scary stuff, ain’t it? Parabens have been detected in several breast cancers in a study. But there is also another reason to why it’s linked to breast cancer, parabens can mimic estrogen and that is a hormone known to play a role in the development of breast cancers. You might have heard the rumor somewhere that deodorants can cause breast cancer. Well, don’t be too sure that it’s just a rumor, because it actually might be true. The parabens found in breast cancer often got there through the skin, so that might mean deodorant may be to blame. Though scientists are not completely sure if that really is indeed the cause of breast cancer, they are currently still doing research.

Review: OSiS+ Dust It Mattifying Powder

Had a nice picture to add here, but blogger doesn't want to upload at the moment, so I'll just try to add it again later. But the most important part is the video anyway: