How To Get Beautiful Clear Skin By Changing Your Diet

There are many factors which can take a toll on our general skin health and appearance, such as tiredness, everyday stress, pollution from the environment, smoking, exposure to UVA and UVB rays and just advancing age. All of these can give us bags under our eyes, acne and blemishes, dark circles and fine lines, wrinkles and sagging skin. Sounds nice doesn't it?  Pamela, who is 44 and pictured below, has stated that she does not have a skincare program and never uses a sunscreen even though she is often out in the Malibu sunshine which may cause wrinkles and brown spots.

It's now usual to hear that friends and acquaintances are having treatments such as Botox and even facelift surgery to try and turn back the years. But what do you do if you don't want to take risks with procedures on your face, you are worried that they may not look right, or you don't have the money to invest in these treatments? The healthier and safer option is to give yourself a facelift from the inside - by eating the right foods you can drastically improve your appearance, and here are the top five super foods which can give your skin a beautiful and natural boost.

Avocados

Avocados are often thought of as high in fat and calories. However the fat contained in avocados is high in omega-3 fatty acids and an average avocado contains just over 200 calories - think about that when you next dive into a packet of crisps - a juicy avocado could be an alternative. Avocados will help increase collagen production which will prevent wrinkles. Avocados also contain lots of Vitamin E which helps fight off premature ageing and keeps skin healthy. The fruit also has anti-inflammatory properties which will reduce acne and psoriasis.

Bananas

Puffy faces and bags under the eyes are caused by too much water retention. Once you start getting bags under your eyes, this can damage and stretch the skin and cause lines to appear. The major cause of water retention is too much salt in the body, but this can be balanced by reducing your salt intake and increasing your intake of potassium. Bananas are a great morning snack and they are high in potassium too, take one with you to work each day. Other high potassium foods are avocados (see they are amazing fruits), raisins, apricots, baked potatoes, dried prunes and tinned tomatoes. Natalie Portman, who is 30, is a strict vegetarian, and her diet will be rich in vitamins and minerals, which may be one of the reasons she has a beautiful, unlined and blemish free skin.

Garlic

If you suffer from acne then garlic should be your best friend. It is a natural antibiotic which cleanses the blood, helps boost your immune system and has antibacterial properties. If you can eat it raw and crushed it can help reduce future breakouts of acne and its anti-inflammatory properties will help treat any current breakouts. Crushing or chewing the garlic helps to release its healing properties, so unfortunately swallowing a clove whole will not be as effective.

Oysters

This is going to be a food which you either love or hate, but give them a chance. Oysters are high in Vitamin B12 and Iron, and if you have pale lifeless skin and/or dark circles under your eyes it may be due to deficiencies of these nutrients. If you don't like oysters then other foods high in these essential nutrients are salmon, halibut, kidney beans, soy beans, pumpkin seeds, mussels, clams and seaweed.

Spinach

Spinach is just one of the dark green leafy vegetables which is rich in lutein which is an antioxidant (others are kale, green peas and raw broccoli). Lutein can help to prevent wrinkles as it aids the skin to retain moisture and elasticity, increases lipid levels and prevents damage caused by free radicals. Spinach is also high in Vitamins K and C which can help to reduce dark circles beneath the eyes. There can be several causes of dark circles, but one of them can be poor circulation. In cases where this is the problem increasing Vitamin K and C can help by boosting circulation and strengthening capillary walls. Another benefit of lutein is that it can help to keep your eyes healthy too.

Cat Eye Make Up Like Angelina Jolie's And Rihanna's Is Simple To Create And Looks Stunning

Rihanna and Angelina Jolie are both fans of the "cat eye" makeup look. Its a stunning and sultry look that's great for the evening. Best of all its pretty easy to create and small mistakes can be dealt with easily. Here's how to create it:

Prime Your Eyes

Using an eyeshadow primer such as Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion, apply this to your upper eyelid area up to your browline. If you don't have a primer to hand, you can substitute a small amount of concealer, which you need to blend over your upper eye area.

Apply A Neutral Eyeshadow

Using an applicator, apply a neutral (one that matches your own skin tone) eyeshadow over your upper eyelid, and blend up towards your eyebrows.

Highlight Your Eyes

Apply a shimmering or highlighting shadow along your browline, blending as you go.

Define Your Eyes

Next using an eyeshadow which is a couple of shades darker than your neutral one, in a smokey shade, use an eyeshadow brush to apply this colour along the crease line of your eyelid, blending in again.

Line Your Eyes

Using a black liquid or gel eyeliner, line closely along your top and lower lashes, making sure you get right to the inner corner of your eye. When you reach the outer corner of your eye extend the line upwards along a 15 degree angle. Have a look at the picture of Leona Lewis as this is a great example of how the outer eye flick should look. You have now created the basic look, but to get a more dramatic effect you should apply a second layer of black liner around your eyes. You may find that you need to keep your skin held taught (although don't ever stretch the skin around your eyes too much) but this will ensure that your eyeliner does not get jagged or uneven edges.

Setting The Look

Using either a black eyeliner pencil or a small eyeliner brush dipped in black eyeshadow, go over the gel eyeliner to set the look.

Using Colour With The Cat Eye Make Up Look

Rihanna also has a vibrant blue colour along her upper lids. To create this look use a bright blue sparkling liner when you create your second line around your eye. Collection 2000 do some great sparkling liners if a wide range of colours that are very easy to use and low priced if you want to experiment with different colours. When you set this look use either an eyeliner pencil or shadow in a similar colour to set the look.

Cleaning Up Any Mistakes

If you have made any smudges or mistakes, these can easily be corrected using a cotton bud dipped in eye makeup remover.

Finish Your Look With Lashings Of Mascara

Apply two or three coats of lash building mascara to both your top and bottom lashes to finish your look.

The Top Foods That Will Help You Stay Young Inside And Out

Everyone knows that a healthy and balanced diet is important to keep your body, including your hair, skin and nails, in great condition. However, there are some super-foods which can not only keep you healthy, but which are just bursting with anti-aging ingredients, which can help you look and feel younger and just altogether more beautiful inside and out. It is surprising how many of these foods are consumed by celebrities. Even though they have the cash to splash out on treatments and surgery, even they seem to prefer the natural options to help keep them young and beautiful rather than resorting to injections and surgery.

Here Are Seven Anti-Aging Food and Drinks Which Will Give You A Boost of Youthfulness

Green tea

This is surely the king of all super drinks - green tea comes top of the anti-aging list. Amongst its qualities, it helps regulate blood pressure, lowers blood sugar and cholesterol, it boosts the immune system protecting you against infections, and it can possibly help protect against certain types of cancer. It can also raise the metabolic rate slightly, which helps you burn extra pounds - Courtney Cox and Courtney Love are both fans of the drink. If you don't like the taste of green tea, try white tea which has all the same benefits, and even more.

Green Leafy Vegetables

Don't think boiled green cabage, but crispy healthy stir fried greens, flavoured with herbs and spices. Spinach is great with pepper and a light dressing of olive oil and boosts your immune system. Other greens like kale and collard greens are high in folate which helps prevent DNA and blood vessel damage - ie it looks after your circulatory system, protecting against high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney disease and dementia.

Dark Chocolate

Yes, this is in the list really because of its high cocoa content. Cocoa is rich in antioxidants called flavinoids which help preserve healthy function of the blood vessels. Look for the over 70% cocoa bars and eat around one square a day.

Soy Products

Soy products like tofu are a great source of protein and an alternative to red meat and dairy as they have little or no fat. The Japanese diet promotes longevity, and soya is a staple of their diet, it helps to keep down cholesterol.

Yoghurt

Eat lots of low fat youghurt, as it is really full of "good" bacteria. Ignore some of the advertisements which promote certain brands, you can buy a big pot of plain old yoghurt and it will contain the "good" bacteria which will help regulate your immune system to help out your gut. Yoghurt is also a great source of calcium which helps keep bones strong.

Red wine

If you are a white wine drinker you might want to think of switching to red wine, as it is full of anti-aging elements including antioxidants, minerals, polyphenols and resveratrol. Yes, resveratrol, its a funny word, but its a great super food as it helps increase your good cholesterol levels, helps women during the menopause by reducing the risk of breast cancer and osteoporosis - the suggested intake is around a glass a day.

Water

Believe it or not after all that has been written about drinking enough water, people are still not doing it. Increasing your fluid intake will increase energy levels, aid digestion, boost your skins radiance and altogether up your anti-aging armoury. Drink little and often throughout the day - if possible keep a water bottle with you and sip at it regularly. Increasing your intake of fruit and vegetables will also increase your water intake too.

Hollywood A-List Beauty Secrets That We Can All Try - Especially Over The Holiday Party Season

Have you ever wondered how our Hollywood A-List ladies manage to look practically perfect every time they place a dainty Laboutin on the red carpet. Yes, admitedly, they do have the help of make up artists and personal dressers, but there are also lots of weird and wonderful Hollywood secrets which have been around since the era of Hollywood starlets began that are still being used today. Some of them may have you raising more than your eyebrows ...

The Vaseline Smile

Yes, but we're not actually talking about using it on the lips to make them shine, but inside the lips and over the teeth, not only to stop lipstick getting on the teeth but to make all that repeated smiling and pouting much easier to keep doing again and again ...

Look No Sweat - Literally

How often do you see a starlet sweating through her designer gown - is that never? Well apart from Halle Berry showing off her rather perspiring armpits on the Ellen DeGeneres' show that is. It seems that the tip of the day here is to attach panty liners to the inside your dress on the underarm region, thereby keeping all sweating and perspiring subtly hidden from public view - amazing - or is that amazingly weird?

Eyeshadow Helps To Cover Grey Hair and Roots

Maybe not so weird this one - more kind of inventive! If you are attending a big event, but don't have time to have your roots touched up at the hairdressers, try this little trick. Style your hair as you want it then hairspray lightly particularly over the roots you want to cover. Then brush a golden eyeshadow over the root area to disguise - voila, perfect hair. This should work for both blondes and brunettes - but we can say how your pillow case will look the next morning though!

Starchy Styles

Talking of pillow cases - you know the spray starch you can buy to keep them crisp and pristine - try it out on your hair. Too much hairspray can become overworked and "solid" looking, starch on your hair keeps flyaways at bay, but allows hair to move naturally.

Watch Out For Those Bees - They Might Sting Your Lips

We could try and blame it on Angelina Jolie, but unfortunately (or fortunately if you are so blessed) bee-stung lips have been desirable for much longer than Angelina has been around - remember Marilyn Munroe! Those pumped up collagen lips are about as desirable now as, well probably Halle Berry's armpits I would say, so Hollywood has returned to more natural ways to produce the desirable pout, including using both chilli oil and also cinnamon oil applied to the lips (the second of which is much more yummy in my opinion). Cinnamon oil applied to the lips is a mild irritant which causes a minor immune response sending blood rushing to the lips causing them to swell slightly - it's the active ingredient in the Lip Venom lip plumping product.

How To Keep Your Face Smooth and Wrinkle Free

We love this picture of SJP because for once here we can see her eyes (normally covered in large oversize sunnies), and she looks beautifully natural, with minimum makeup and wavy hair. But SJP is now in her 40s, so lines and wrinkles are definitely a possibility for her in the coming years. SJP seems to be able to keep major lines and wrinkles at bay, and like her, there are things we can all do to prevent lines and crow's feet forming around the eyes, and if you do have them already, there are remedies which can improve their appearance. SJP swears by maximising her sunscreen whatever the weather and she is a very sensible girl, as sun exposure is the main cause of ageing. Covering up with big sunglasses gives even more UVA/UVB protection for the eye area. Be like SJP and follow the tips below to keep the skin around your eyes beautiful and unlined:

• Wear your sunglasses winter and summer, as well as protecting you from the sun's rays, they also prevent you squinting in bright light, increasing the potential for lines around the eyes.
• Use an anti-ageing serum, these are stronger formulations than moisturisers and will pack a punch for the eye area, infusing anti-oxidants and cell regeneration products.
• Take a multi-vitamin and mineral tablet each day, these will help supply your skin with the nutrients it needs to keep renewing it's cells.
• Massage your forehead from left to right with your fingertips for about 30 seconds and then in circular motions for a further 30 seconds. This will encourage bloodflow to the muscles in your forehead, reviviing them. Frowning and allowing your forehead to become stressed and tired will create crow's feet.
• Exercise your eyes to eliminate crows feet. Simply open and close your eyes - open them wide for 3 seconds then close them tight for 3 seconds. Repeat this ten times.
• Drink lots and lots of water and herbal teas. Moisture within your body plumps up skin and softens any lines on your face.