Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Beauty Bible



I like to be informed. Being the nerd that I am, I have to resort to reading about beauty in a book! The thing is, I don't trust most people because either they are selling a product and thus are biased or they are parroting back what a salesperson told them and therefore are ignorantly biased. I have to do my own research to try and find out for myself. For some reason I trust the published word over word-of-mouth.

I found a book at our library called "The Beauty Bible." Since I don't have it on me right now, I looked it up at Amazon and I think I found the right one. The author is most likely Paula Begoun. I've found a few helpful things that I'd like to share with those who are interested. It's a huge book and I've only skimmed it, but here are a few things I remember:

Serums:
Apparently more talk than walk. Advertisers use the word "serum" to sell the stuff because it makes it sound good. She wasn't too clear on whether or not it really was a helpful product or not though. It just sounded like perhaps it's not as great as it's hyped up to be. I'll have to find out more about this.

Toners:
A good thing. Need to read more on this; just thought it would be good to know what stuff I use is actually worth using! (Even if I don't really know why...yet).

Eye Creams:
A lot are a scam. People sell a tiny bottle for lots of money (the Arbonne eye cream does contain less than the regular face moisturizer and yet is the same price). Read the ingredients because, according to her, they have the same ingredients as any regular face moisturizer. I checked the Arbonne products the best I could (the lists are mega-long and all the words are totally foreign to me!). The eye cream is similar, but did appear quite different from the moisturizer. Perhaps now-a-days they really can add stuff to help with dark lines and puffiness that makes it better then a regular face cream (the book may be a bit outdated). The author, though, is of the opinion that around the eyes doesn't need anything different than what you would use on the rest of your face. Those of you who are more involved with experimenting with this stuff may have a different opinion. I'd love to hear it!

Warning!
The major problem with eye creams that the author pointed out made so much sense to me. They don't have an SPF!! That means that while you try to cover up and heal wrinkles and such, you are actually creating more wrinkles in the long run by leaving the most sensitive part of your face vulnerable to sunrays. I just make sure to put my face moisturizer (that has an SPF) over the eye cream...do you think that defeats the purpose of the eye cream??

The author explains that sun probably causes most of the damage to our faces and the best way to stay as wrinkle-free as possible is to wear at least an SPF of 15. Arbonne's Anti-aging moisturizer has SPF 8, the Not-So-Basic moisturizer has none, but the foundations appear to all be SPF 15.

That concludes this beauty update. Stay tuned for future broadcasts and be sure to contribute your own tried and true opinions so we can all become more educated.


Friday, December 5, 2008

I hate Our Stupid Insurance!

I just have to vent for a minute. It seems that with every medical bill there is something that drives me crazy! There has been nothing but problems with our Insurance and the most irritating part is that when we reviewed all the plan options for this next year, it was still the best one offered!! I never had any problems with my medical stuff in Utah as a teacher. The benefits were great and if there was ever a mistake, it came out that I owed less than the original amount. In fact, a few days ago I got $40 from my doctor in Utah because somewhere somehow I overpaid one year-and-a-half ago! So much for pleasant surprises! Here, my surprises are all negative and I end up owing up to $400 more than the estimations and the way it all works makes it seem like we're paying more out of our pocket than they are helping! I think I would like to add up what we pay monthly and then what we pay for our deductible (for each person) and then our co-pays and co-insurance and whatever random stuff it seems like we have to pay for and see how much the Insurance really is helping!!

Now I know that we probably have better insurance than a lot of people so I probably shouldn't complain, it's just that coming from my situation as a teacher in Utah where there were no problems, it gets so frustrating!!

The current issue is that I received the bill for Annalee's 18 month check up only to see that the Insurance covered $0.00!! What?! I called the number on the bill and they told me that usually the Insurance companies don't know that there are several mandatory well-visits during the child's second year and so I just needed to tell them it was a mandatory visit and it should be ok. So I call the Insurance and guess what? Our plan only covers two well visits during the second year which were met with her 12 month and 15 month visits! Never mind that she has to have these visits, it's not part of our plan. The crazy thing is that they help with the immunizations, but not the office visit. So can I just take her for the immunizations and not the office visit??

Another irksome thing is that on that particular visit she picked up a bug (I'm assuming it was from that, but I really don't have proof...but it's a safe assumption and was even suggested by the doctor himself!). So for those of you who don't know, Annalee's body overreacts to illness and it gave her a fever that spiked too quickly and made her go into a seizure shortly after we were even aware she was sick! I watched my baby convulse for several terrifying moments as I thought for the second time in her short life that I was going to lose her! The Ambulance showed up and assured us all was ok since her fever had gone done and she stopped convulsing and we just had to keep her fever down. I had to take her back to the doctor two days after her well visit so they could try to figure out what bug she had, if it was serious, and if they could help in some way. After all the extra tests, they couldn't figure it out. Nevertheless, this second visit is on the same bill and guess what? The Insurance covers their part of the charges! So why the heck don't they cover a mandatory regular office visit?? Next time I'm going to tell the doctor that she is sick and they can send the bill in as a sick visit instead of a well visit so the Insurance will pay up!