Violeta A. (TimeTravelRomanceRea) reviewed The Medically Based No-Nonsense Beauty Book on + 53 more book reviews
below are the contents and introduction sections:
Contents
Author's Note and Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xiii
I / THE SKIN
1 / What the Skin Is Made of and How It Grows 3
The Epidermis 4
The Acid Mantle 6
The Dermis 7
2 / The Basics of Skin Care 11
Cleansing 11
Oil-balance Control 15
Toning 19
The Care of Body Skin 24
3 / Typing and the Care of Your Skin 26
Normal Skin 28
Dry Skin 35
Oily Skin 44
4 / Acne: The Most Common Skin Problem 51
The Causes of Acne 51
The Care of Adolescent Acne 55
The Treatment of Acne Scars 63
Special Cases of Acne 67
5 / Problems of the Mature Skin 77
Fine Lines 11
Wrinkles 88
Brown Spots, Freckles, Little Red Lines 94
6 / Cosmetic Surgery: Features to Fit Your Face 99
The Kinds of Facial Problems
That Can Be Helped 102
Cosmetic Surgery-A Moral Discussion 108
7 / Skin Sensitivity 111
Red Splotches on Thin Skin 111
Skin Damage by Chemical Burns 113
Allergic Reactions 113
8 / Outside Influences on the Skin 128
Sun and the Skin 128
Smoking, Alcohol, Drugs-And Your Skin 134
9 / Special Problems of the Skin 139
Excess Hair 139
Enlarged Pores 147
Sallow Skin 150
II / THE EYES
10 / Beauty Problems of the Eyes and Eye Area 157
The Eyes 157
The Eye Area 158
III / THE HAIR
11 / What the Hair Is Made of and How It Grows 165
The Anatomy of a Hair Strand 165
The Oil Glands of the Scalp 168
Hair Characteristics 168
12 / The Basics of Hair Care 174
Brushing and Combing 174
Shampooing 176
Conditioning 179
Setting the Hair 182
Massaging 185
13/MajorHair Problems 187
Oily Hair 187
Dry Hair 190
Dandruff 198
Thin and Thinning Hair 202
14/ Special Hair Problems 212
Gray Hair 212
Baby-fine Hair 215
Hair and the Sun 217
Split Ends 220
Dull Hair 222
15 / Processed Hair 225
Hair Coloring 225
Permanent-waving 243
Hair Straightening 252
Glossary of Cosmetic Ingredients and Terminology 259
Bibliography 281
Index follows page 285
Introduction
This book has been designed to give the average woman the hows and whys of beauty care that have long been known to physicians and cosmetic chemists.
Although this is not a book on science, it does offer, in everyÂday language, many of the factual, no-nonsense answers science has provided for some of the common beauty questions, such as:
The people who are best trained to answer these and hunÂdreds of other beauty questions that are dealt with in this book- the dermatologists, internists, endocrinologists, plastic surgeons, and cosmetic chemists-quite properly see themselves as physicians and scientists and not as cosmetologists. However, precisely because they are occupied with the responsibilities of helping seriously ill
xiii I Introduction
people or studying basic science, the field of beauty advice is frequently left to sell-trained cosmeticians and sale, people -ii retail counters and to the imaginative advertising copy writers who I "in pose the print, radio, and television advertisements For cosmetics and other beauty products. Their answers to the spoken and unÂspoken beauty questions of upward of a hundred million American women are designed to sell specific products. This they do, even if the same products prove to be scientifically unsound, functionally worthless, and highly overpriced.
Today, women invest hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours annually in the relentless pursuit of beauty and good groomÂing. In 1970 alone, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, American women spent a total of fourteen billion dollars on cosÂmetics and other beauty aids.
As various consumer-oriented books have shown in recent years, much of this money is spent on scandalously overpriced prodÂucts and procedures whose claims are often spurious and which can sometimes be disfiguring. On the other hand, many commercial products and new grooming techniques can be of real value. This book sorts through much of the current beauty literature, separatÂing fact from fantasy, to provide women with an accurate, easy-to-understand manual of total beauty care.
Essentially, this book is a manual of beauty care, based on the best and most advanced medical knowledge available today. It is not meant to be a challenge to the cosmetic or beauty care indusÂtries. Parts of this book, however, do run contrary to the estabÂlished, popular, and often dated ideas of beauty care, some of which are widely promoted by the cosmetic, appliance, and beauty estabÂlishments.
The last fifty years have been a time of vast increases in new knowledge in biology and medicine. In fact, 90 percent of all modÂern scientific knowledge has been acquired since the end of World War I. But far too few of the revolutionary advances in the medÂical and other sciences are currently reflected in the day-to-day grooming ideas and practices of the average woman. The cosmetic industry has barely scratched the surface of the useful scientific knowledge available. For many reasons, chiefly economic, manufacturers are unwilling to invest the often enormous amounts of time a"«l money in the basic research required to come up with a truly
revolutionary face cream, soap, or hair conditioner. Since profit is the
xiv Introduction
moving force behind the cosmetic industry, as in every other industry, success goes to those companies that sell the most goods, and to most manufacturers this means that success lies in turning out the most appealing, marketable products at the lowest possible production costs. By and large, while the packaging has grown fanÂcier and the advertising costlier, the average line of beauty products on the market today derives from formulas and grooming techÂniques developed around the turn of this century-and earlier.
For example, the concept of facial massage flourished in the early 1900's. In its time, it was considered a revolutionary, scienÂtific approach to skin care. That was also a time when there were no antibiotics; when tuberculosis was a major cause of death; diabetes and pneumonia were nearly always fatal diseases; and there were no polio, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, and rubella vaccines. Today, in the era of organ transplants, open-heart surgery, and hormone therapy, we have new knowledge of skin and muscle biology that proves facial massage to cause far more harm than good; yet this out-of-date technique is still stubbornly held to be a valuable beauty aid.
Some cosmetic techniques used today are even older than facial massage. Various animal and vegetable oils were used to soften their skins by the women of Egypt over five thousand years ago. The formula for cold cream was invented in a.d. 200 by Galen, the Roman physician, and it is still the basis for many beauty creams used today.
The current fad for cosmetics compounded of herbs is 'based on the herbal knowledge of early sixteenth-century Europe- an era when the life span of the average human being was less than half as long as it is today in America and Europe.
With what has been learned about skin biology and chemÂistry in even the past twenty years, it seems shameful to continue to rely on old formulas and concepts that owe as much to witchcraft and superstition as they do to practical knowledge, let alone science.
Most of the research dollar of the cosmetic industry goes into the problems of manufacturing and packaging the same old products. Cosmetic executives are primarily concerned with the chemical problems of keeping emulsions stable, the engineering problems of preparing huge batches of soap, or the physical probÂlems of preventing the discoloration of a beauty product as it sits on a store shelf.
xv Introduction
Because they feel women are easily bored by last year's beauty preparation (possibly because the women are weary of it not working as promised), they are perpetually introducing new products. These new items will often be almost identical in formula to the older products they replace, differing only in their new "image"-a quality created solely by advertising writers, not by cosmetic chemists. They will, naturally, be marketed in entirely new containers, and launched with dazzingly new and novel advertising themes: The sun-dappled country girl in blue jeans; the "Cosmo" super swinger with a plunging neckline, or the elegantly groomed young matron.
When a formula works well in one form, cosmetic chemists are assigned to see if the same formula can be put up as a lotion, gel, ointment, cream, aerosol spray, soap, or milky cleanser. They thin it out; put it in a spray; add vitamins to one formula, sea salts to another. They take out the perfumes and call it hypo-allergenic. They put in extracts of cucumbers or strawberries and call it organic.
The number of creams, lotions, soaps, and masks becomes endless. One medium-sized manufacturer offers, for dry skin, in just one series of its multiple line of products, five cleansers, three astringents, thirteen creams and lotions, and two face masks.
Not all traditional cosmetics, of course, are out of date, and there have been some valuable advances in the qualities and the benefits of many commercial beauty products. One of the major aims of this book is to guide the woman through this labyrinth of beauty products and techniques to take sensible advantage of twentieth-century biology and medicine.
It will acquaint her with the ingredients of these cosmetics, and evaluate them in terms of her own individual beauty and grooming problems. A woman will be able, with the help of this book, to create her own programs of skin and hair care, and learn what practices and products to avoid.
Women today are better educated and better informed than ever before. They have the intelligence to understand the scientific and medical facts of beauty care and deserve better than the misÂconceptions and half truths that now pass for beauty knowledge. The Medically Based No-nonsense Beauty Book will give her just such information.
Contents
Author's Note and Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xiii
I / THE SKIN
1 / What the Skin Is Made of and How It Grows 3
The Epidermis 4
The Acid Mantle 6
The Dermis 7
2 / The Basics of Skin Care 11
Cleansing 11
Oil-balance Control 15
Toning 19
The Care of Body Skin 24
3 / Typing and the Care of Your Skin 26
Normal Skin 28
Dry Skin 35
Oily Skin 44
4 / Acne: The Most Common Skin Problem 51
The Causes of Acne 51
The Care of Adolescent Acne 55
The Treatment of Acne Scars 63
Special Cases of Acne 67
5 / Problems of the Mature Skin 77
Fine Lines 11
Wrinkles 88
Brown Spots, Freckles, Little Red Lines 94
6 / Cosmetic Surgery: Features to Fit Your Face 99
The Kinds of Facial Problems
That Can Be Helped 102
Cosmetic Surgery-A Moral Discussion 108
7 / Skin Sensitivity 111
Red Splotches on Thin Skin 111
Skin Damage by Chemical Burns 113
Allergic Reactions 113
8 / Outside Influences on the Skin 128
Sun and the Skin 128
Smoking, Alcohol, Drugs-And Your Skin 134
9 / Special Problems of the Skin 139
Excess Hair 139
Enlarged Pores 147
Sallow Skin 150
II / THE EYES
10 / Beauty Problems of the Eyes and Eye Area 157
The Eyes 157
The Eye Area 158
III / THE HAIR
11 / What the Hair Is Made of and How It Grows 165
The Anatomy of a Hair Strand 165
The Oil Glands of the Scalp 168
Hair Characteristics 168
12 / The Basics of Hair Care 174
Brushing and Combing 174
Shampooing 176
Conditioning 179
Setting the Hair 182
Massaging 185
13/MajorHair Problems 187
Oily Hair 187
Dry Hair 190
Dandruff 198
Thin and Thinning Hair 202
14/ Special Hair Problems 212
Gray Hair 212
Baby-fine Hair 215
Hair and the Sun 217
Split Ends 220
Dull Hair 222
15 / Processed Hair 225
Hair Coloring 225
Permanent-waving 243
Hair Straightening 252
Glossary of Cosmetic Ingredients and Terminology 259
Bibliography 281
Index follows page 285
Introduction
This book has been designed to give the average woman the hows and whys of beauty care that have long been known to physicians and cosmetic chemists.
Although this is not a book on science, it does offer, in everyÂday language, many of the factual, no-nonsense answers science has provided for some of the common beauty questions, such as:
- What causes dry skin?
- What causes hair to grow in gray?
- What is the difference between paste, cream, and liquid
shampoos?
- How does a facial astringent work?
- Are there different kinds of acne? And, if so, how should
each be treated?
- Do facial exercises help wrinkles?
- What does menopause do to a woman's skin and hair?
- Why does a conditioner make dull hair shiny?
- Can birth control pills help your skin?
- What is dandruff and what can be done about it?
- How does a face mask act on the skin?
- Which is the best night cream for lines ?
- Do the words "hypo-allergenic" on the label of a beauty
product mean anything? And, if so, what?
The people who are best trained to answer these and hunÂdreds of other beauty questions that are dealt with in this book- the dermatologists, internists, endocrinologists, plastic surgeons, and cosmetic chemists-quite properly see themselves as physicians and scientists and not as cosmetologists. However, precisely because they are occupied with the responsibilities of helping seriously ill
xiii I Introduction
people or studying basic science, the field of beauty advice is frequently left to sell-trained cosmeticians and sale, people -ii retail counters and to the imaginative advertising copy writers who I "in pose the print, radio, and television advertisements For cosmetics and other beauty products. Their answers to the spoken and unÂspoken beauty questions of upward of a hundred million American women are designed to sell specific products. This they do, even if the same products prove to be scientifically unsound, functionally worthless, and highly overpriced.
Today, women invest hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours annually in the relentless pursuit of beauty and good groomÂing. In 1970 alone, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, American women spent a total of fourteen billion dollars on cosÂmetics and other beauty aids.
As various consumer-oriented books have shown in recent years, much of this money is spent on scandalously overpriced prodÂucts and procedures whose claims are often spurious and which can sometimes be disfiguring. On the other hand, many commercial products and new grooming techniques can be of real value. This book sorts through much of the current beauty literature, separatÂing fact from fantasy, to provide women with an accurate, easy-to-understand manual of total beauty care.
Essentially, this book is a manual of beauty care, based on the best and most advanced medical knowledge available today. It is not meant to be a challenge to the cosmetic or beauty care indusÂtries. Parts of this book, however, do run contrary to the estabÂlished, popular, and often dated ideas of beauty care, some of which are widely promoted by the cosmetic, appliance, and beauty estabÂlishments.
The last fifty years have been a time of vast increases in new knowledge in biology and medicine. In fact, 90 percent of all modÂern scientific knowledge has been acquired since the end of World War I. But far too few of the revolutionary advances in the medÂical and other sciences are currently reflected in the day-to-day grooming ideas and practices of the average woman. The cosmetic industry has barely scratched the surface of the useful scientific knowledge available. For many reasons, chiefly economic, manufacturers are unwilling to invest the often enormous amounts of time a"«l money in the basic research required to come up with a truly
revolutionary face cream, soap, or hair conditioner. Since profit is the
xiv Introduction
moving force behind the cosmetic industry, as in every other industry, success goes to those companies that sell the most goods, and to most manufacturers this means that success lies in turning out the most appealing, marketable products at the lowest possible production costs. By and large, while the packaging has grown fanÂcier and the advertising costlier, the average line of beauty products on the market today derives from formulas and grooming techÂniques developed around the turn of this century-and earlier.
For example, the concept of facial massage flourished in the early 1900's. In its time, it was considered a revolutionary, scienÂtific approach to skin care. That was also a time when there were no antibiotics; when tuberculosis was a major cause of death; diabetes and pneumonia were nearly always fatal diseases; and there were no polio, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, and rubella vaccines. Today, in the era of organ transplants, open-heart surgery, and hormone therapy, we have new knowledge of skin and muscle biology that proves facial massage to cause far more harm than good; yet this out-of-date technique is still stubbornly held to be a valuable beauty aid.
Some cosmetic techniques used today are even older than facial massage. Various animal and vegetable oils were used to soften their skins by the women of Egypt over five thousand years ago. The formula for cold cream was invented in a.d. 200 by Galen, the Roman physician, and it is still the basis for many beauty creams used today.
The current fad for cosmetics compounded of herbs is 'based on the herbal knowledge of early sixteenth-century Europe- an era when the life span of the average human being was less than half as long as it is today in America and Europe.
With what has been learned about skin biology and chemÂistry in even the past twenty years, it seems shameful to continue to rely on old formulas and concepts that owe as much to witchcraft and superstition as they do to practical knowledge, let alone science.
Most of the research dollar of the cosmetic industry goes into the problems of manufacturing and packaging the same old products. Cosmetic executives are primarily concerned with the chemical problems of keeping emulsions stable, the engineering problems of preparing huge batches of soap, or the physical probÂlems of preventing the discoloration of a beauty product as it sits on a store shelf.
xv Introduction
Because they feel women are easily bored by last year's beauty preparation (possibly because the women are weary of it not working as promised), they are perpetually introducing new products. These new items will often be almost identical in formula to the older products they replace, differing only in their new "image"-a quality created solely by advertising writers, not by cosmetic chemists. They will, naturally, be marketed in entirely new containers, and launched with dazzingly new and novel advertising themes: The sun-dappled country girl in blue jeans; the "Cosmo" super swinger with a plunging neckline, or the elegantly groomed young matron.
When a formula works well in one form, cosmetic chemists are assigned to see if the same formula can be put up as a lotion, gel, ointment, cream, aerosol spray, soap, or milky cleanser. They thin it out; put it in a spray; add vitamins to one formula, sea salts to another. They take out the perfumes and call it hypo-allergenic. They put in extracts of cucumbers or strawberries and call it organic.
The number of creams, lotions, soaps, and masks becomes endless. One medium-sized manufacturer offers, for dry skin, in just one series of its multiple line of products, five cleansers, three astringents, thirteen creams and lotions, and two face masks.
Not all traditional cosmetics, of course, are out of date, and there have been some valuable advances in the qualities and the benefits of many commercial beauty products. One of the major aims of this book is to guide the woman through this labyrinth of beauty products and techniques to take sensible advantage of twentieth-century biology and medicine.
It will acquaint her with the ingredients of these cosmetics, and evaluate them in terms of her own individual beauty and grooming problems. A woman will be able, with the help of this book, to create her own programs of skin and hair care, and learn what practices and products to avoid.
Women today are better educated and better informed than ever before. They have the intelligence to understand the scientific and medical facts of beauty care and deserve better than the misÂconceptions and half truths that now pass for beauty knowledge. The Medically Based No-nonsense Beauty Book will give her just such information.
