I featured the acne control skincare line D-Zit a few months ago. If you remember, I got some great results from this line. Since trying the D-Zit acne system trial kit, I’ve discovered a few other products from Derma MD (they produce the D-Zit line) that help with inflammation (which is a by-product of having acne prone skin) and a product to help reduce the hyperpigmentation (aka dark spots left behind by your pimples).

You can read my original review here: Now you can control acne breakouts thanks to D-Zit: Acne System Trial Kit

This time around, I tried D-Zit’s key products along with two products from the Derma MD line for about 60 days (my test fell right in the middle of the holiday season when stress is at its high point and pimples are a fact of life).

Neither the D-Zit nor Derma MD products will deliver instant results. You’ll notice the results over time if you stick to this routine.

NARS Cosmetics is unquestionably my favourite makeup find of 2008! Once I tried their spring 2008 collection … there was no going back!

What I didn’t know was that they also have a full range of skincare products that are equally sensational.

Not long ago, I reviewed their Aqua Gel which I thought was amazing at hydrating my skin.

You can read my review here: Review: NARS Skin Acqua Gel Hydrator has saved my skin from this bitter winter!

There are far more products in the NARS Skin line and I wanted to make sure that my readers knew about them.

The NARS Skin is a complete line of skin care products that ranges from eye creams to lightweight moisturizers to foaming cleansers to toning lotions to serums.

I had never heard of an oxygen mask until I tried the Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Mask. And after trying it, I can understand why it’s a Best of Sephora 2008 Winner!

The oxygen mask has also been featured in these magazines: In Style, Fitness, Parenting Magazine, Marie Claire and RedBook.

Bliss skincare is available to buy from Bliss spas which are located in New York (they have three there), Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco and London (U.K.). Alas, there are no spas in Canada yet and there are no beauty counters at department stores selling the brand, but luckily for us Sephora stores do carry the brand so it’s quite convenient to buy it locally!

The Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Mask comes in a cylindrical white plastic bottle. The bottle has a pump-action dispenser, which is very easy to use because it dispenses the product quickly when you press it … you won’t be fighting with your mask.

I was watching some trashy celebrity gossip TV the other day (I’ll secretly admit to enjoying TMZ) and they showed Ivana Trump after having lunch (with Star Jones) at a posh and expensive New York City restaurant and it was obvious from her Chinchilla fur coat that the recession had not hit on Ivana’s door.

After spotting the expensive coat that must have cost at least $90,000 USD since Chinchilla is one of the most expensive furs (if not THE most expensive furs), I noticed her face. Her lips were moving because she was answering the question the TMZ camera man had asked her, but her face was frozen. As the camera got closer to her face, I jumped back (I was standing) and I thought to myself: “Why is Ivana Trump looking like Joan Rivers”?

I was surfing old archive of Yahoo’s OMG when I found Lisa Rinna’s feature. What stopped me dead in my tracks was the title: “I Look Like a Freak” After Too Much Plastic Surgery”.

You won’t hear too many Hollywood celebrities admitting to too much Botox Cosmetics® or having had too many shots of injection fillers.

The former “Dancing with the Stars” contestant admits that she’s had her cheeks enhanced with injections of Juvederm® and she admits that she might have gone overboard (I totally agree)!

It’s interesting because Lisa (45, born July 11, 1963) admits that she was influenced by one of her girlfriends when she decided to explore this cosmetic enhancement avenue.

Review submitted by our product reviewer Eleni

We tried one of Elizabeth Grant’s prestige gold products, but weren’t too impressed with the results.

A tiny little gold jar from Elizabeth Grant’s prestige line of gold products containing ingredients to restore luminosity to my skin – WOW! I really need that.

It’s that time of the year again … you know … the sudden return to that dull wintry skin we all hate in the cold weather. It’s just not fun to have sallow-looking skin when I feel so vibrant and radiant on the inside.

I’ve tried a number of Elizabeth Grant products recently and had really great results with all of them … err …until now.

There are very few parts of North America that have not been affected by this bitter winter. Honestly, by mid-December, I was ready to pack my bags and move to a place where I no longer had to deal with winter.

Winter always does such a number on my skin and it’s always challenging for me with it comes to hydrating my skin because I cannot use heavy creams without risking breaking out.

As you know, I’m late in the game in discovering NARS Cosmetics, and I only recently discovered NARS Skin! I have started using a lot of their skin care products, which are quite acne-prone-skin-friendly, but in this post I really want to focus on their Aqua Gel Hydrator.

Velds is the producer of this product that is quite popular in France so obviously, I wanted to try it! I had featured the product a while back when I first had heard of it, but because I had such a long lineup of products to test, I was only able to try it recently.

The Ferox Pure Pulp is made from a wild South African aloe plant called ferox. Aloe ferox plants can be found in Cape Province in South Africa and they have been used by South Africans for more than 1,000 years as a remedy against burns. It’s only in 1967 that the regenerative abilities of the aloe ferox plant were put to the forefront by a surgeon after using the plant on a patient who had just received an open heart transplant – application of aloe ferox accelerated the reproduction of the fibroblasts …which are the cells responsible for the formation of collagen.

Review submitted by product reviewer Eleni

Once those little, fine lines start settling in around the eyes, there’s NO turning back! Sun exposure, stress, diet, smoking, pollution and genetics all gang up on us. I don’t recall this ever being a topic of conversation while vacationing in the Caribbean sun many years ago, but I find myself having to deal with the outcome now…just like everyone else in my age group. If only there was no such thing as aging…

Thank goodness that so many beauty lines now offer full arrays of treatment products for the face, neck and eyes. I had the chance to try a really good eye cream recently – Elizabeth Grant Biocollasis Advanced Cellular Eye Cream.

Review submitted by our product reviewer Eleni

I have to admit that I have more of an issue with lines around my eyes than puffiness but I was interested in trying this nifty new product containing vitamin B and caffeine just to see what would happen. I wanted the “refreshed, awakened eyes” promised in the instructions on the side of the box.

Testing the Garnier Nutritioniste Skin Renew anti-puff eye roller:

I gently rolled this serum under my eyes from the inner to outer corner as instructed. It felt so cool and soothing that I kept doing it for longer than the one or two times recommended. There was no change in the look of my under eye area even after three days.

I haven’t got a clue as to why Elle Macpherson popped into my head a few days ago, but for some strange reason there she was occupying my thoughts. Could it be coincidence that I saw her on the red carpet event while watching one of those entertainment shows or was it simply a reminder that I need to write a post celebrating and glorious Elle looks at 44 (born 29 March 1964)!

If you were a teenager in the 80s, then you remember Elle Macpherson (born Eleanor Nancy Gow) as the leggy gal from down under who adorned the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues in the USA six times (the last time in 2006)! I also remember Elle very well from the many Vogue and Bazaar features because she has an unforgettable face and an unforgettable body.

There is no turning back the clock, winter is here and it’s very cold outside!

This is the time of the year where thermometers are cranked up to the max which means that dehydration is a problem for so many of us.

Protecting your skin during the colder months of the year is essential. Not only can dry skin lead to premature aging, but it’s quite uncomfortable.

Keeping your skin well hydrated is simply a question of taking a few conscious steps in your lifestyle and your diet.

10 tips to hydrating your dry skin:

1) Eat more carbs: Fall and winter bring many seasonal carbs to the market. You’ll definitely want to reach out to squashes and sweet potatoes during the coming months. Not only are they very tasty, but they also will help at nourishing your body because they are moisture-rich-foods.

I had reviewed kettle bells a while back because it was getting a lot of buzz in Hollywood and celebrity trainers were introducing their celebrity clients to kettlebells.

If you missed my original post from 2008, you can still read it: Kettlebells: A workout straight out of Mother Russia

One of the reasons why kettlebells are becoming so popular (especially among women) is because this power-training that originated in Russia improves your cardio while targeting trouble spots to help you get a leaner and toner body. If you remember, in the 1980s athletes from Russia and athletes from the old communist countries used to leave the competition in the dust when it came to winning gold medals … that’s because kettlebells were their secret training weapon of choice.

I think that 2000-2008 can be called the “vanity years”!!!

During the past eight years, we’ve seen non-cosmetic rejuvenation go from being Hollywood’s best kept secret to something soccer-moms in the suburbs do when kids are in school.

There has been a long list of makeover shows on TV where contestants were able to go from ugly ducklings to “beautifully reconstructed” sirens – shows like “Extreme Makeover” and “Dr. 90210″). We’ve all been invited to a Botox party and we’ve seen young women (as young as 18) not preoccupied so much about taking care of themselves because “well, there’s always Botox”. Heck, we’ve even seen straight men take up the vanity industry in the hopes that a “younger looking” version of themselves will help them hold on to that high paying corporate job or get that coveted promotion.

Last month Norah R., who is one of Beauty Match’s readers, gracefully shared her first session and first experience with fraxel laser to help her erase acne scars that have been bothering her for decades now.

I don’t have the type of scaring that Norah has because mine are all at the surface, but because my scars are dark, I have to say that they really bother me. It was so bad this past summer, that it affected the way I dressed because I wasn’t willing to expose my shoulders which were covered with dark hyperpigmentation spots.

I can surely sympathize with Norah and her quest for perfect skin and relief from acne scars.

If you didn’t have a chance to catch Norah’s first post, I’d recommend that you start reading that post first: Have you considered laser resurfacing to get rid of your severe acne scars?

Story submitted by reader Norah R.

New year, new me! Or, at least, that’s the idea.

After my first Fraxel treatment in November, 2008, I can’t honestly say I was looking forward to the next one. It’s painful! And for someone with a low pain threshold like me, the pain was almost unbearable the first time around … how would I react with a higher setting on the laser, as the technician mentioned the last time?

When I first talked about my experience with the Perfect Skin capsules (you can read more on this here: I’m testing Perfect Skin from Genuine Health to control my acne.), I had not yet started taking my daily scoop of Healthy Skin.

Not long ago, I started replacing my regular Greens+ with the Healthy Skin. With Genuine Health’s Healthy Skin you get your daily dosage of Greens+, but you also get the added benefits of all-natural supplements that restore, improve and protect your skin!