beauty – #theskinteach

I am a skin care junky. Yes, I said it.

When I started using eye cream at the tender age of 16 people thought I was crazy. Believe me, there was many an expert that told me I was wasting my money and just did not need an eye cream. That kind of advice followed me well into my 20’s.

But it never made any sense to me. Prevention just felt like the better option, especially when it came to caring for my eyes. I disregarded the opinion of all of those people and have used eye creams and/or serums ever since.

Fast forward to today. I am a woman who is venturing on to another decade very soon, and it is safe to say that in the 2+ decades since I was 16 I have used A LOT of eye cream. I also have come to understand why people feel that eye cream may just be a marketing ploy to get you to purchase more products, because in all of those eye creams I have tried over the years there has only been three that I found did anything for me.

One of those products is the Eye Contour cream from Endor Technologies. I have been using it exclusively for almost a year now and I am seeing visible changes in the laxity of the skin around my eyes. I wanted to write about this product because I was removing my makeup the other night and looked in the mirror and noticed that the skin around my eyes was significantly firmer. To say I was pleasantly overjoyed would be an understatement.

Eye Contour Beauty Shortlist — Image used with permission from Arylide Life Sciences, the Canadian distributor for Endor Technologies

There are a couple of things that I initially always look for in an eye cream. I want a product that will work with my highly sensitive eyes and something that works well to prep my skin for makeup. I conceal around my eyes every day because of vascular darkness, and not all eye creams work well with concealer. Using a product that helps to deflect from the darkness and does not crease with movement means that I use less makeup and helps keep the makeup I do apply stay in place for the whole day.

Often, in my experience, eye creams that are built to be anti-aging are made with highly active ingredients. This is great for many people, but not for me. My eyes are very sensitive ever since I had an allergic reaction a few years ago, so I have to be very careful with what I use around them. Many highly active products I have used in the past have caused me some pretty major reactions and I have had to stop using them because of this.

Endor Eye Cream packs an anti-aging punch without causing me to react. They do this by using ingredients (and science) that gets ingredients into the skin in order to cause a physiological change to the skin. So instead of putting highly active ingredients to supplement the skin they use active ingredients to cause your skin to create more hyaluronic acid and build collagen on it’s own.

How do they achieve this wonder, you ask?

Nanotechnology. Basically that means that they take a molecule and reduce it in size, allowing it to penetrate deeper into the skin. In Endor’s case, this ingredient is Gold Thioethylamino Hyaluronic Acid. These spherical nanoparticles get deep into the skin, and through a cell signalling process, cause our body to produce more of our own hyaluronic acid, collagen, and elastin. Three things that we produce less and less of as we age, but all vital components in keeping skin in a youthful state.

Photographic evidence from a 28 day study conducted by Endor Technologies. Image used with permission from Arylide Life Sciences.

Endor Eye Contour also contains ingredients to immediately and visibly reduce the appearance of dark circles around the eyes and, as already mentioned, it is a fantastic base for makeup. I find it non greasy, easy to apply, and my eyes feel refreshed immediately.

I apply a small amount of this product around my eyes both morning and night. You can see in the picture below how much I use in each application. My first jar of this product lasted me so long that I just recently purchased my second jar, and I have been using this eye cream for roughly one year.

Because this product comes in a jar I use a cotton swab or small stick (you can use a toothpick too) to decant it. I do not put my fingers directly into the product because I do not want to possibly transfer bacteria from my hands into it.

You can find the Endor Eye Contour cream in professional practices around the world. Click here to visit their website to find a practice near you.

Until next time,

Audrey

I recently saw a friend’s post asking people to participate in a group challenge posting gratitude posts for the month of September. It got me thinking about what I am grateful for. Of course I am grateful for my family and friends. I think we tend to always think in that direction when asked what we are grateful for, but we don’t always give thanks or recognition to the professional part of our lives. At least I don’t always move that way. Not because I don’t have a lot to be thankful for professionally, but because I guess I have always felt that I am supposed to only talk about gratitude in a personal sense.

Sounds funny even as I type it because I have had an amazing career so far, and it wasn’t just because of perseverance and elbow grease. I have so many supportive and amazing people who have worked with me, given me advice, and often seen my potential before I ever did. I would not be where I am if not for them.

The beauty industry has some, often strange, connotations. People can sometimes give the impression that the industry is full of vain, self-centered people. We do makeup, paint nails, peel, plump, and pluck our way through the world. So we must be superficial since we work on the superficial, right? We must be that made for television version of ourselves, pushing each other out of our own way grasping for the next face, the next bottle, the next sale…right?

I could tell you those stories, but I think I’ll save them for my scripted reality show.

The truth is that I have definitely encountered people in this industry who do represent that pop culture image of being in the beauty industry. They probably exist in every industry. But I have encountered many more amazing, uplifting individuals than I can count. Truly inspiring and hard working people who support and lift each other up. In fact, the friend’s post I mentioned early, well she’s one of them. One of the very best people I ever worked with. She was even my manager at one point, and one of the best I have ever had.

I could list many names, from the director who barely knew me but saw something in me, making me a program director leading me to my love of curriculum development, to the people I worked with at a non-profit who suggested I apply for a national volunteer position leading me to working with fellow educators from across the country. I hold every single one of them close to my heart.

My point is that it is easy to say that you worked hard for your career. Yes, you worked for it. But what about showing a little gratitude for all those people that pushed you and gave you advice along the way? Have you thanked them?

I leave you with this request, tell them. They might not even know how they have impacted you, and you may lead them to thank those that have inspired them.

And that is how we spread gratitude.

Until next time,

Audrey

Category: beauty

Endor Technologies Eye Contour

Gratitude