Make Up Video Tips

Archive for September, 2010

The word perfume is from a Latin phrase meaning “through smoke” and was thought to have been invented by the ancient Egyptians who burned fragrant woods and plants for their pleasant odors. Over the years perfume has been used, refined and enhanced by every major civilization and today perfume as we know it is a very big business.

Today’s modern perfume has three main components:

The scent – Virtually anything natural or synthetic that has an odor can be used in the making of perfume. Typically scents are made from flowers, citrus, spices, woods and sometimes even leather.

The fixative – These ingredients act to stabilize the aromatic compound and help to make the scent last longer.

The solvent – This is usually alcohol and keeps bacteria from forming and helps maintain an even consistency so it can be easily applied.

The category a fragrance belongs to is defined by how much of the scent (or aromatic compound) is used in the product. This also plays a factor in determining the price as the higher the concentration of scent the more expensive the fragrance will be:

Lotions and aftershaves generally have a 1 to 2% scent base

Eau de Cologne products are generally 2 to 3% pure scent

Eau de Toilettes run between 5 to 20% scent

Eau de Parfums will have from 10 to 30% aromatic compound in them

Perfume Extract or Parfum has the greatest concentration of scent, between 20 and 40%

Women’s products are usually categorized as perfume, eau de parfum, toilet water, and cologne and for men’s products are sold as perfume, cologne, and aftershave.

Surprisingly fragrances and music share a common term, notes. Perfumes are often described by the different “notes” that make up the scent. These notes are designed to emerge at different times during the scent span of a fragrance just as an orchestra will have different instruments playing throughout a musical composition.

Top Notes are the strongest scents but do not last very long. This is the initial burst of smell you get when you first take a sniff of your favorite perfume or cologne. The top notes are often spice or citrus based.

Middle (or heart notes) makes up the main part of the scent that emerges after the top notes start to fade away and are usually softer and mellower than the initial scent. These scents are usually floral in nature.

Bass notes form the foundation of the scent and are usually deep and musky in nature and emerge to blend with the middle notes not to replace them.

Fragrances are very complex products that go through many stages of development before reaching the consumer. There are tens of thousands of different perfumes and colognes available today, each one having its own unique scent signature and what once was reserved for the wealthy and privileged is now available to everyone.

Nasal surgery (Rhinoplasty Surgery), the most common form of plastic surgery practiced in America today, is a procedure that alters the framework of the nose, manipulating the bone and cartilage structure and the skin to improve the appearance of the nose. It can be used to change the overall appearance of the face from one where the focus of attention was placed on the nose to one where the attention is drawn away from the nose and towards the eyes, a more natural, pleasing occurrence. When the focus of attention is directed towards any other feature on the face other than the eyes, the face is said to be out of “harmony”. Rhinoplasty surgery, when performed correctly, improves the harmony of the facial features.

Common defects corrected through the use of rhinoplasty surgery include but are not limited to a nose that is too large, too small, crooked or may contain an unwanted hump, birth defect or other deformity. If the nose has been damaged by physical trauma, the surgery may be more intensive than a mere straightening or reduction and may involve an area wider than the nose to fully reconstruct the damage, but it is still rhinoplasty surgery.

Rhinoplasty surgery is a delicate, complex undertaking and should not be entered into without thorough investigation and due diligence. You and your doctor should have many conversations about exactly what you want done and exactly how the doctor is going to accomplish fulfilling your request. Remember this: rhinoplasty surgery is both a science and an art, as is any plastic surgery. Any other surgeon has to be only competent – a plastic surgeon has to be competent and have artistic talent. It is important that the finished product create a harmonious balance with the rest of your face, be natural looking and last forever as well as being medically sound.

Rhinoplasty is different from the surgical procedure used to repair a deviated septum to improve a patient’s breathing. Although the two are quite often done simultaneously and more often than not, a simple rhinoplasty is billed to insurance companies as a deviated septum repair, one has nothing to do with the other. Repairing one’s nose to improve aesthetic appearance and surgery performed on a deviated septum to improve breathing and air flow into the lungs are completely different procedures. In the case of many rhinoplastic surgeries, the complete operation can be performed without any external incisions. And furthermore, many rhinoplasties are performed in the doctor’s office and the patient goes home after a short recovery period of several hours following the surgery, returning to work in a matter of a few days. A splint is placed around the outside of the nose for protection and is usually removed after about a week. With advanced surgical techniques, unless the reconstruction has been extensive, the need for “nose packing” to keep things in place after the surgery has been drastically reduced. There is typically some swelling after the procedure, however, after about one week your new nose will be completely presentable and most people find the return to their jobs goes smoothly and easily.

How did we as a people get to the point where we spend billions of dollars annually on cosmetics and it became the social norm for women to wear cosmetics everyday Assuredly a female way back in history did not  simply wake up one day and decide to apply eyelashes, lipstick, eyeliner, foundation, and rouge all at once. No, it was, like many things, a culmination of happenings from past times.

The Egyptians were the first to use cosmetics. That was  four thousand years ago. Good hygeine and looks were terribly serious to the people of Egypt. Egyptians had the belief that the appearance had a direct juncture with the constitution of the soul. They attempted to constantly appear neat and smell pleasant. And with a society who values their appearance, you are invariably going to have humans who are going to attempt to stand out. The Egyptians, being the inventive culture they were, used cosmetics for reasons that were even smarter than just trying to look great.

Mesdemet was the most original kind of eye shadow- a combination of copper and lead ore. The dark hues they believed would ward off evil eyes from their own. It was also a great cleaner and bug deterrent. Kohl was a dark substance that was  put on around the eyes in an oval shape. Kohl was a combination of lead, ash, ochre, copper, and burnt almonds. To further enhance their appearance, Egyptians would apply a mixture of water and red clay to the cheek area. They would also paint their nails shades of orange and yellow with a chemical called henna.

As different groups of people began to interact with each other more often, the art of cosmetics was adapted by the Greeks from the Egyptians. They would color themselves a pale hue with a base that had lead inside. This proved lethal more than once. As the Romans began to pick up the cosmetics habits, the pursuit of beauty became less about practicality and turned into much more exotic routes. The Romans would adorn their nails with a combination of sheeps blood and cooked body fat. An ancient Roman citizen once said, A woman without paint is like food without salt.

A pale face was the style around the world after the Egyptian empire disappeared. Only women who were low-class and had to labor out in the field all day with their husbands had dark, sun dired skin. The upper echelon ladies obviously did not have to endure manual labor like that therefore they stayed under the roof and had light complexions.

Success was often measured by a person’s white skin tone. A person was not obligated to labor if they had enough riches. So it was extremely important for some members of society to have a white complexion. To get this appearance, ladies (and men too) would use a combination of hydroxide, lead oxide, and carbonate in a powder form to paint their faces and bodies. Unfortunately, this lead to a sometimes fatal side effect, lead poisoning.To cure this problem, chemists in the nineteenth century at last found a combination of zinc oxide that made the skin able to breathe and kept people out of that annoying lead poisoning sickness. It was so effective that it is still practiced today by cosmetics makers.

Exttravagant and glamorous parties were held by urban women with disposable wealth in the Edwardian era of London. As hostesses of the party, it was necessary for them to be the most attractive woman at the event, so it was very important for them to look the youngest they possibly could. City and exotic lifestyles with factors like smoggy air produced by the cities at that time, bad diets, and little or no exercise aged the women quickly. Women would need products like anti-aging creams and face creams to help hide their imperfections.  Routine ventures to the salon were also a normal part of the day. It was a bit different in the past than it is today. Ladies would sneak into the back of the salons and cover their faces as they went in. One of the most famous of these secret beauty parlors was the House of Cyclax, that would sell creams and blushes to ladies. Mrs. Henning,  the owner, sold and came out with many products for her frantic customers who did not want everybody to know that they were getting old.

The modern day woman is the benefactor of  years of mistakes with a virtually infinite choice of beauty products for any look they want to get. There are  thousands of cosmetics producers who produce products in this now billion dollar per year industry. Beauty products sell all year and even in times of recession. Therefore ladies, thank your ancestors and their concern for their personal looks for your own that you have nowadays. There were probably mornings when they woke up and didn’t really feel like going through the trouble of putting on their face either.