March 9th, 2010 at 11:33am
Under Health and Fitness
My forehead is all spotty but I don’t have acne anywhere else. Why is this?
It is difficult to give you the right answer without seeing you but it is helpful to think about what is different about your forehead. Below are two likely reasons.
One problem can be your hairstyle. Ordinary hair across the forehead does not cause any problems but if you use greasy hair products, including hair waxes and gels, to keep your hair in a particular style it could cause acne. Greasy things can block up the pores and lead to the formation of comedones - we therefore call them ‘comedogenic’. If this is your problem, stop using the grease and your acne should clear with or without needing a simple topical acne treatment. If your hair is naturally greasy, wash it as often a necessary with shampoo designed for greasy hair.
There is a type of acne called pomade acne, which is a direct result of using pomade hair products, more commonly used on African-Caribbean hair styles. If you wish to continue using these, there is no need to find a suitable acne remedy - you just need to keep it off your hair-line and wipe away the excess from the surrounding skin with a towel or damp cloth and keep your hands away from your face until you have washed them thoroughly.
Is it just me or are all burger restaurants staffed by kids with acne?
This is a bit of an urban myth but one that may have a little truth behind it. A hot sweaty face leads to more blocked pores and more acne. So the combination of heat and humidity in poorly ventilated kitchens where a lot of frying goes on and where everything gets a fine coating of grease can make acne worse.
Also, these types of fast food outlets tend to employ students looking to boost their pocket money and therefore you have more teenagers - the classic age for developing acne. The worst cases of acne triggered by heat and humidity occur in soldiers on jungle training where the added friction from their packs can cause an extensive and serious flare-up of acne. This type of acne is easily resolved with simple acne remedies from the pharmacy.
By Kym
March 9th, 2010 at 09:48am
Under Health and Fitness
My doctor told me I would grow out of my acne but I am now 15. If it is true that I will grow out of it, please can you tell me when?
Your acne will get better with time but no one can tell you when that will be and it is certainly not a reason to stop you finding the best acne treatment. Acne starts when hormone changes occur around and after puberty. These new levels of hormones stay the same for many years - until the menopause in women and longer for men.
It is surprising that people do grow out of it but many more people seem to carry on having problems well into adult life. You need to find some acne remedies to deal with your acne as a ‘now’ thing so that when it does stop happening you won’t be left with scars to remember it by.
Help! Every month, just before my period, I get spots around my chin. They don’t even come to a head; they just sit there and hurt. Do I have acne?
Yes, you probably have. Acne is triggered by the skin’s abnormal reaction to hormones, so the changing levels of hormones at the time of your period cause acne even though your skin doesn’t react to different levels at other times of your cycle. This is a good example of needing to see your doctor when the spots appear, as there will be nothing to show if you have to wait a week for an appointment. It also illustrates how important it is for people with acne to be able to tell their own story about the pattern of spots and when they get them, rather than just being looked at quickly. Your history of getting spots at the times of your periods will suggest a different approach to treatment, and consequently a more tailored acne remedy, than if you had spots all the time. You could also think about taking a photo of yourself with spots to show the doctor how bad it can be.
I have heard that there might be a problem with my ovaries which is why I get acne. If that is the case, what is it, why do boys get acne, and are there acne remedies for it?
You might have a condition called polycystic ovaries. This means that your ovaries have lots of fluid-filled lumps (cysts) on them. If this is the case, your ovaries won’t be producing the right balance of hormones and, in particular, too much of the male hormone testosterone.
If this is the case, you are then quite a bit more likely to have very bad acne, grow extra hair on your body and perhaps also have light or even no periods at all. In later life you could find it harder than normal if you want to get pregnant. It is very important to have tests for this condition as soon as you can; they include blood tests for the hormone levels and ultrasound scans of your ovaries.
This is one of the few times when detailed medical tests are needed for your specific case of acne. Your acne will need different and stronger acne treatment, and you might also be offered treatment for your ovaries. They are a lot bigger with all the cysts, so an operation to remove some of the cysts can lead to more normal levels of hormones.
Although girls also have some testosterone, boys’ testes - the male equivalent of ovaries - normally produce high levels of this hormone, which is why they are often more affected.
By Kym
March 8th, 2010 at 01:03pm
Under Finance
With the exception of the last few years, property has generally increased in value so much that there is a general belief that you just can’t lose with property investment. This impression is underlined by the growth of property clubs, where you pay to invest in newbuild and off-plan properties bought at a discount. Such clubs tend to be heavily advertised and appeal to people’s greed and laziness by suggesting that you can become a property millionaire in no time through tax liens, for little or no money down, and whether the market is rising or not.
The truth is that you can lose, but even so, property does historically come good most of the time - eventually. Also, investors in property can now, quite literally, have the whole wide world in their hands - or in their portfolios. It is now possible to invest in property in most countries in the world, so that your property portfolio can look as international as you like. Nowadays, anybody can be an international investor and financier! Anybody can swagger around brandishing an impressive-looking international property portfolio!
So why do I believe that property, in general, makes a good type of investment?
In the first place, everybody understands property, simply because everybody has to have a roof over their heads. Everybody also understands that home occupiers have to pay rent or a mortgage in order to continue living there. It is also self-evident that even when fully owned and mortgage-free, there are continuing costs attached to living in a home.
This is knowledge that we all have. By contrast, you have to be quite financially sophisticated to understand how equities and other aspects of the money markets work. You also have to be numerate and actually enjoy number-crunching. Successful people are doing sums in their heads the whole time; it is second nature to them. But few ordinary people really understand how and why stock markets crash, or how the stock market performance in, say, Japan, can intimately affect other stock exchanges around the world.
Few people, too, readily understand futures, hedge funds or derivatives. You have to be quite deeply interested in money and all its ramifications to be able to play money markets. It is a mindset which not all of us have. Yet everybody knows what estate agents and letting agents do.
Then, historically, at least, property is solid and substantial and far less liable than equities to stock market fluctuations, to crashes and recoveries. Obviously house prices fluctuate, but there has rarely, if ever, been a complete crash. One reason for this is that all real estate is built on land which will never go away. A further reason for the dependability of property is that everybody needs a home, whereas we can manage without a car, foreign travel, the latest electronic gadgetry, if we have to.
Then, there is almost always a shortage of housing. And while house prices can go up and down, there is always going to be some value in land. By contrast, the entire value of an equity can be wiped out, in a severe downturn of the market, performance in the High Street. And there is little the individual shareholder can do about this, except to buy and sell at the right time.
When you invest in stocks and shares, you may have very little control over whether their value rises or falls. To take a famous example, when former jeweler retailer Gerald Ratner made his notorious remark at a City dinner that his sherry decanters were ‘crap’, £500 million was immediately wiped off the value of Ratner shares, with the result that many shareholders lost very large sums indeed, through no fault of their own,
But even if somebody calls your house ‘crap’ - as ’specialists’ on TV home design programs often come perilously close to doing - it is still unlikely to lose all its value.
One way to invest in property is through tax liens. Investing in tax lien certificates is becoming more popular, especially within the current economy. If you currently invest in property but aren’t using this investment vehicle you should definitely look into it.
By Kym
March 7th, 2010 at 12:19pm
Under Misc
The Art Nouveau design style made its appearance during the last ten years of the nineteenth century. At the time Victorian design and decoration was truly excessive, and people were secretly looking for something with perhaps a little less “clutter”.
Art Nouveau design was born out of that desire to simplify things.
There was a general movement towards making rooms lighter and altogether less cluttered. This was reflected in the newly popular, paler paint colors for walls that were in strong contrast to the previously fashionable, darker shades and were seen as fresh and airy by comparison.
To provide interest, a paper or painted frieze might have been added at the ceiling line and borders above the skirting/base board were not unusual. Architectural embellishments were few. Dados diminished in popularity, but a picture rail or plate rack at approximately eye level might have been featured. Pilasters and paneling were also sometimes applied, especially if they could be employed to emphasize the vertical. Wallpapers, mostly depicting botanical themes, continued to be favored, particularly now that their cost was much reduced as a result of machine-manufacture.
Plain window and door glazing now gave way to more decorative treatments. Stained glass featuring geometric patterns or representations of botanical subjects was popular.
The latter part of the nineteenth century saw a decline in the fashion for large area rugs. These were often removed in favor of wood floors, both board and parquet, which were frequently covered with faded oriental carpets.
Art Nouveau Furniture
Plush curtain treatments and deeply buttoned upholstery were eschewed by the followers of the New Art. In their stead simpler furnishings were in evidence.
Attention was directed to the windows themselves rather than to how they were dressed. Pelmets, if they were used, were now flat and of simple design, otherwise lengths of fabric would be simply gathered and suspended from a plain wooden pole. With the emphasis on vertical lines, the curtains were frequently full length and rarely caught in a tie-back.
Furniture designs were pared down to a more basic form and were usually constructed from oak or satin-wood for a lighter look than the traditional mahogany. These items would have a simple wax finish and the grain was much in evidence. Cutouts, often in the form of a heart, inlaid work and simple carving were the principal embellishments to be seen.
Other items of art nouveau furniture, in the Mackintosh manner, were highly stylized, and chairs with their exaggerated ladder-backs were often painted black.
Lighting And Accessories
Probably the first item that springs to mind when Art Nouveau is mentioned is the Tiffany lamp. Its skilled American creator, L. C. Tiffany, who also designed whole houses (appropriately enough, for someone whose middle name was Comfort), produced some of the loveliest colored and leaded glass lamps to be seen. Although electricity became available during this period (to those who could afford it), in general the appearance of light fittings varied little from those fittings previously designed for gas.
Far fewer accessories were displayed, the emphasis being on objects made from silver, copper, ceramic, glass, bronze and pewter.
Whatever design style you are looking to incorporate into your home, check out these interior room designs tips. Whether you’re thinking along the lines of a Victorian style or just looking for some living room design ideas.
By Kym
March 5th, 2010 at 12:46pm
Under Homes and Gardens
With wealth and security inevitably come a profusion of styles and an irresistible temptation to go over the top: a broad statement, but one borne out by history. In the twentieth century we have to look back no further than to the 1980s to see evidence of this. If we retreat even further - to the mid-nineteenth century - we find perhaps an even finer example - I’m talking of Victorian interior design ideas.
Victoria was on the British throne, her empire was churning along quite nicely and the rewards of the industrial revolution were being appreciated by a rapidly growing middle class. In the ‘workshop of the world’, as England was then known, fortunes were being made through trade with the colonies. Add to this newly found wealth and security, a monarch with strong feelings about home and family, and you have all the back-ground ingredients of Victorian style.
With all attention on the home, it was obvious that this was where an individual’s status could best be demonstrated to the world at large. The message was loud and clear: ‘I have arrived, I have substance and I espouse family values’ (sounds familiar?). A great surge in building and urban development ensued, much of which constitutes the English housing stock of today.
The penchant for classical styles was declining, but without any strong, new, directional fashion surfacing, the only way to look was back and to reviving previously popular interior and living room design ideas (this too has its parallel in the 1980s when shabby-chic country-house eclecticism became all the rage). Gothic, Elizabethan, oriental, Scottish baronial, Egyptian and rococo - these were among the many styles that the Victorians mixed somewhat indiscriminately. When interpreting Victorian style today, you have the choice of jumbling these various furnishing styles within one room or perhaps of concentrating on just one theme in each individual space.
Industrialization had arrived and furniture was produced en masse (but, alas, not always to the highest standard). At least this meant that furnishings cost less and were therefore available to a wider public and in greater abundance. It should be no surprise, then, that house dwellers of the time overdosed on exuberance. The Victorian home is typified by the cluttering of furnishings, layer upon layer. Why stop at one pair of curtains at a window when these can be accompanied by blinds and net drapes too? Every imaginable item was draped, trimmed and bedecked; every inch of floor space crammed with furniture and every table spilt over with memorabilia.
While the dictates of today’s decorators may be ‘Less is more’ or ‘If in doubt, leave it out’, the byword of their Victorian equivalents was ‘More is marvelous’!
Although at the beginning of this long-enduring period (1837-1901) schemes tended to be relatively light in feel, by the turn of the century they had become altogether more somber. Window treatments were designed to restrict light, the decorator’s palette took on deeper tones, furnishings became bulkier and dark woodwork dominated living room designs. Artificial lighting, despite the arrival of oil lamps followed by gas lamps, did little to brighten interiors. This all sounds rather dull until you remember that the Victorians would dress their rooms according to the season.
Come spring, many of the heavier elements would be replaced or covered by lighter-weight materials in paler colors; then the winter scheme would be re-imposed in the autumn. We adopt this arrangement for our personal clothing, so why not for our rooms?
In Victorian times there was a preciseness that we perhaps lack today with our flexible casual lifestyles. Each room had its definitive purpose and style of decoration. Libraries, drawing rooms and dining rooms tended towards the sumptuous, while upstairs was generally given a lighter, more feminine touch.
By Kym
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