Category Archives: Featured

Teeth Talks: Dentist Helps Us Brush Up On Our Dental Health

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One in three adults in the UK suffers from some type of gum disease, says, Clinical Director and Lead Dentist at Paste Dental, Dr Alan Clarke.  Teeth play an important role throughout our life, so we asked him all the nitty gritty teeth grinding questions to help improve our overall oral health…

 

Aside from regular trips to the dentist, how can we best take care of our teeth at-home? 

“It is so important to have your own bespoke oral care plan. We are all different, at different stages of life and have specific oral health needs, also linked to our general health and if underlying conditions are present. I love creating a specific routine for my patients at Paste Dental in Belfast, it’s never a one size fits all, and it needs to be reviewed as needs change.

 

Flossing is key! Floss daily, honestly it’s a game changer. Interdental cleaning with floss or inter-dental brushes will reduce plaque loading, freshen your breath and prevent baseline inflammation which can progress to gum disease. Right now I am using CocoFloss products – from the US, a great tool.

 

Friends of mine have just released an unbelievable product from their company Parla (as featured on dragons den) which is 100% biodegradable floss, letting us as professionals continue to promote great oral care while being mindful of the impact single use plastic has on our planet!  Brushing twice daily, a balance diet and education about your own needs will serve your gums and teeth well.

 

Not all toothpaste is created equal, so make sure you’re using one that’s right for you. Whether you need fluoride, sensitivity relief, or whitening, there’s a toothpaste out there for everyone. Even better chat to your dentist and plan a bespoke regime, tailored specifically to you.

 

Two minutes may not seem like a long time, but it’s the recommended amount of time to brush your teeth.

 

Be careful with drinks you assume are super healthy! Acid attacks are very common from this sort of potion, leading to tooth translucency, enamel wear and dentine hypersensitivity.

 

Eating a balanced diet can help maintain healthy teeth and gums. Foods rich in calcium, such as dairy products, leafy greens, and almonds, can help maintain bone density. Additionally, eating crunchy fruits and vegetables, such as apples and carrots, can help stimulate saliva production and clean teeth naturally.

 

Drinking plenty of water can help alleviate dry mouth and prevent tooth decay. Carry a water bottle with you throughout the day and sip water regularly.

 

What are the dos and don’ts of brushing? 

Brush for 2 minutes when you wake up and 2 minutes before you go to sleep – that’s a great start. I recommend an electric brush (it can easily regulate the force – preventing over-brushing) and with AI now it can show you where you missed in real time.

 

Spit don’t rinse your paste! Leave that gritty texture and coating on your teeth, it will help remineralise, block dentinal tubules to reduce sensitivity and maintain a fresh breath for longer.

 

For a manual brushing fan, check the bristles and make sure they are not frayed or splayed – usually every 6 weeks we should swap to a new brush.

 

Store you brush away from the toilet, not in a closed container and firmness of bristles is really a personal preference. Also hopefully it goes without saying but don’t share your toothbrush! I love the Te-pe manual brushes because you can steep the toothbrush head in boiling water without damaging the bristles, no fear of bacterial contamination here.

 

What are the worst habits we should break for better dental hygiene? 

Not flossing enough! Honestly. It’s the one thing I tell my patients. I would prefer they floss over anything else. Once you personally get into a great interdental cleaning habit, bleeding gums are gone, fresh breath is back and a clean mouth reigns. It will also save you thousands in dental bills in the future, trust me!

 

How often should we floss? What are the signs of gum disease and how can we prevent it?

Daily!  Everyday! – twice if you can! Gum disease is multi-factorial. With genetic components, the presence of specific oral pathogenic bacteria, smoking and oral hygiene playing a role we as professional try to cut through the noise and find out objectively what is the root cause. A great tool we now use is salivary micro biome testing. This objective data will let patients see exactly what bacteria is present and if it is having a truely damaging affect on their oral health.

 

Signs such as chronic bleeding gums, bad breath, mobility of teeth and more seriously tooth loss are all linked to gum disease!

Interestingly we also find patients who have active gum disease present have significantly lower health outcomes in terms of heart disease, diabetes and COVID-19. Our body is a system and as a cosmetic dentist but primarily a dental health professional it’s important that we join the dots for patients and help foster holistic treatment planning. I believe we can help prevent gum disease through patient education on their own health, the causes and risk factors of gum disease, a bespoke oral care plan and patient understanding to self manage at home!

 

What are the benefits of interdental brushes? Should we use them alongside flossing? Can children use them?

As we get older, spaces can develop between our teeth as the jaw bone grows overtime. Tooth loss also creates odd spaces as teeth drift or change position. We don’t need to worry but certainly need to be aware of how to look after our mouth as this happens. Floss is great for small spaces but as the bone reduces in height and remodels larges spaces can appear which need a much larger tool for effective cleaning. Floss and interdental brushes are so necessary. You want to use the biggest brush that fits into the space comfortably, with bristles sweeping under the gum line and around each tooth margin. Revise and resize. Every 3 months it is vital you, or ideally in partnership with your dental/hygienist or dental therapist, revise and resize your brushes (spaces will increase as inflammation reduces), we want your cleaning to remain efficient and effective. Children don’t need this level of cleaning as their teeth are much more compactly placed together.

 

What are the benefits of a water flosser? Should we be using one daily?

I’m not a major fan of waterflossers as a tool on their own but some patients swear by them for removing food particles and debris. Certainly not a replacement for effective interdental cleaning but maybe a nice add on to help maintain a fresh breath!

 

How can women best look after their teeth during significant life milestones such as pregnancy and the menopause? Can HRT affect teeth & gums?

Menopause and pregnancy bring a variety of challenges to oral health. Blood flow levels in the oral mucosa and gingiva change, gingivitis and inflammation can increase and deficiencies in vitamins and minerals can cause ulcerative flare ups lasting several weeks. My advice is to try your best to maintain your oral health routine, don’t beat yourself up about missing some element, life is complicated and don’t let perfect be the enemy of simplicity and consistency.

If morning sickness is causing havoc, try to brush at a different time of the day, adapt your routine to suit you but try to aim for some sort of consistency that is achievable! Life is amazing, you are smashing it, remember that!

 

What are the most common dental mistakes / misconceptions you’ve heard about or seen with your patients?

1. People fear judgment from us firstly. At Paste Dental Belfast we cast that aside from the minute people walk into our clinic. As dentists we are here to give you information, to guide but to help you make informed choices for your own health! Don’t fear judgment.

2. Vaping is totally safe, actually not quite true! Also I am seeing an emerging trend towards Swedish tobacco pouches, again not safe (major oral cancer link).

3. Dentistry is expensive! Yes – but a good structured oral care plan will help avoid the need for expensive dentistry in the future.

4. Sugar is evil. Again, no!  A balanced diet is key, it’s all about the frequency of sugar exposures and length of time taken for oral bacterial acid levels to neutralise.”

Frost Loves Beautiful and Functional Yoga Mats From Yoga Design Lab

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I absolutely love Yoga Design Lab yoga mats. They’re stylish, beautiful and sustainable. They’re available for adults and children. They are great mats which are also eco-friendly. I also found them to be light and easy to travel with.

Whether you’re an experienced yogis or new to yoga practice, giving the gift of eco-friendly yoga gear is a great way to support health and wellness, express our appreciation, and deepen our bonds by contributing to a more sustainable future together.

Yoga Design Lab creates vibrant, high-performance yoga mats and accessories by using sustainable materials like recycled microfiber, renewable cork, natural rubber, and water-based inks, making them safe yet stylish options for adults and children alike.

The Combo Mat, voted by Vogue as one of the “18 Best Yoga Mats in 2022,” is an excellent choice for eco-conscious mothers, while the Combo Kids Mat encourages children to explore yoga in an engaging way with playful colors and designs.

Yoga promotes a wide array of physical and mental benefits — including increased strength and mobility, less stress and anxiety, and a greater sense of calm and peace — and can be practiced almost anywhere, with many different styles and flows to try, making it accessible to all ages and preferences.

“Practicing yoga with our mothers is a beautiful way to connect and strengthen our relationships with one another,” said Yoga Design Lab’s Bianca Fesenbeckh. “It’s a meaningful and deeply nurturing experience to share, and we believe using yoga products created with materials sourced from mother nature only elevates that.”

Yoga Design Lab offers a diverse selection of more than 20 unique designs, ensuring that you can easily find the perfect product that suits your mother’s or wife’s individual style. By gifting them with YDL’s eco-friendly yoga gear, you’re not only showing them how much you care, but also giving them the gift of “me time” to find peace and tranquility amidst the chaos of daily life.

 

About Yoga Design Lab

Yoga Design Lab creates yoga mats and accessories that balance sustainability with style and performance – without having to sacrifice one for another.  Founded in 2015 and based in Illinois, Yoga Design Lab is committed to using recycled, recyclable and renewable materials in all yoga products. The vision is to create a better world for the next generation by providing products that preserve the planet while helping people Live. Beautiful.® each and every day. For more information, go to yogadesignlab.com or follow at @yogadesignlab.

Spotlight on Priest and Poet Ian Tattum

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I have long been a fan of writer Ian Tattum. Ian is incredibly intelligent and a keen observer. Ian’s poems have been published in a number of magazines and it’s easy to see why. Ian’s talent is outstanding and his poems stay with you for a long time after you have read them. I cannot recommend his poems enough, nor insist enough that you keep an eye out for what he does in the future.

It was hard to find just three poems to publish here. I loved them all. One such line ‘for a bruised heart will kill first what others love’ had a huge impact on me. Ian’s poems are full of truth and beauty. He is a fantastic nature writer and a wonderful person. May we may have more like him. Now. Thank you.

Ian Tattum, poet, priest, nature, writer

Nativity

I didn’t croak, I cried.
Long armed and long legged,
and long breathed.
It was not an amphibious belch,
but a human yell
as I left my pond for the world.
And my arrival wasn’t
a leap but a tumble.
I was not smooth and green,
but red and wrinkled.
My mother objected when my father said, ‘he looks like a frog’, but looking closer she saw his point, and kept her silence.

For my mother
JOAN TATTUM

Landlocked at Olney

The Ouse lives up to its name,
slowly winding through a gentle valley.
Overlooked by the modest high point of Clifton Reynes,
and windmills that march without moving.
It floods less now, hardly a boot covering but
wild swimming still provides the odd drowning.
A snaking mirror of the sky and trees,
of barely rippled blues, greys and greens.
Where a damselfly’s stained-glass wing or a sudden kingfisher
can arrest your attention without troubling it.
A place for a closer walk with God,
where the breeze curtains out the traffic
as it did for Cowper the noise of industry and cart.
But the river leads to the sea,
one hundred and forty-three miles east.
To a place where the water and the sands move,
footing is unsure, and the tides are wilful.

Attic Verses. Cowboys and Indians

I rarely felt the cold in those days before central heating,
when the coal fireplace in the front room was only lit
for necessity and the kitchen harboured the hypnotic
skin-searing paraffin stove.
When my bedroom was icy my mind was warmed by travel.
I knelt on the carpet moving my soldiers across prairies,
and over rivers and hiding them in clefts in the rock.
Some would take refuge in a cardboard stockade,
while others whooped from plastic horses,
in circling menace.
In TV Western Land even when it snowed
it was always temperate.
There were countless deaths, but no one ever died.
Until my brother, proving how wrong Wilde was,
instituted an irreparable massacre by beheading;
for a bruised heart will kill first what others love.

Ian Tattum is a priest in the Church of England, who writes mainly about nature, local history literature- including a recent essay for Little Toller’s ‘The Clearing’. His poetry has previously been published by Spelt Magazine , The Pilgrim and Black Bough Poetry. He is a Fellow of the Linnaean Society. https://stbarnabas-southfields.org.uk/essays-and-
reviews/
Follow Ian on Twitter at @ITattum.

What I Learned About Resilience After The Worst Year of My Life

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TW: baby loss.

We all have fears in life and if we are lucky enough we don’t experience them. Although I have experienced anxiety in my life I thought I was one of those lucky people. It was November 2019 and I lived my life in a cosy bubble. Bad things had happened in my life, and I had lost people I loved, but I felt happy and lucky.

Two months earlier my husband and I had decided to try for a third baby. I was thirty-five but I got pregnant immediately. I was over the moon and slightly smug. Geriatric pregnancy my arse. Later, I was exercising and I felt something weird happen in my body. Like a pop. I immediately stopped and put my hand to where the weird pain had happened. Then I brushed it away.  There was a weird uncomfortable pain in my entire body. It felt like a balloon was filling up. I couldn’t sit down properly. Then when I went to the bathroom there was blood. The blood was very dark and it freaked me out. I went to A&E. They didn’t even scan me and sent me home. Despite the fact I could barely walk and was in a lot of pain. I have a high pain threshold and I felt like they didn’t see that I was suffering enough.

The next day I went to the early pregnancy unit and they thought the pregnancy was an ecoptic pregnancy. I’m not going into detail about all of it in this piece because it is an entire article in it’s own. I started feeling the pain on Monday and it was Friday afternoon when I finally got my ’emergency’ surgery and one of the first things the surgeon said to me when I come to was that they caught it ‘just in time.’ My fallopian tube had ruptured and I was bleeding internally. I had been walking around bleeding internally for days while being told to ‘go home.’

There are snapshots of this time that haunt me: the registrar stroking her very pregnant belly while asking what I wanted to do with the remains of my baby, the fear when they sent me home that I would die in my sleep. Waking up and not being pregnant anymore. Notably the fact that they kept sending me home and eventually, days later, I refused to go home and made them scan me again. On the day of my surgery I almost passed out numerous times and the nurse kept bringing my back with oxygen, refusing to let me faint on her watch.

Mostly I remember the grief. There is no pain like losing a baby. I always thought people who killed themselves before that were selfish, now I know they are just in so much pain that they want to leave their bodies. I was completely and utterly broken. The only thing that brought me through were my other children. I figured if I could just put my feet onto the floor every morning and then get out of bed, I could survive. I only had to put one foot in front of the other.

In the blur of everything I took care of my children and tried to make sure they couldn’t see my pain. I didn’t want them to suffer, and I refused to let them see their mother depressed or spending days in bed. I knew that I had to structure my days. I had to get out of bed and smile at my children. Play with them, read them books. I took up Spanish and started doing yoga. It helped that we were moving house and I had to pack up and deal with all of that.

Just as the surgery scars started to heal a little I got ill. really ill. I had this continuous cough that wouldn’t go away. I spent boxing day with my mother-in-law and my husband’s aunt, uncle and their children. I had to find an emergency doctor’s appointment and fainted at the pharmacy getting antibiotics. I somehow managed to walk home although I have no idea how.

A few days later I was going to take my children to bed when I felt a sharp pain in my chest. It took my breathe away and then I couldn’t breathe. I was on the floor crying, barely able to breathe, begging my husband to help me. He called an ambulance and long story short I had double pneumonia, just as rumours of a SARS like illness started in China. I was unable to eat anything or lie down flat. I spent the next six months recovering as the world went into lockdown.

It was now July and my world started to come together again just as I noticed my period was late. I took a test and I was pregnant again. The happiness I felt was like nothing else.  But then weeks later I started bleeding. I made my way to the hospital, desperate to hold onto this baby, only to lose another one.  A few of my amazing friends told me they were pregnant and I didn’t want to tell them about my miscarriage because I didn’t want to scare them, or take away their joy. I would see pregnant women on the street and feel a bitterness that made me not recognise myself. I was full of hate and pain. I found women who were pregnant with their third child, or who had one, especially triggering. The pain of a miscarriage is hard to describe. It wasn’t as tough as the ectopic pregnancy, but the emotional pain of waiting for your baby to pass through you is sharp and brutal. The loss is acute.

I got up, homeschooled my oldest until 2pm and then focused on my toddler for a few hours. Then I forced myself to write three thousand words a day. I started another novel which I finished in six weeks.Then one day I walked out into my garden and the world seemed so beautiful. I sat down to take it in and I saw dew on the blades of grass. I thought about how cruel it was that my baby never got to experience a moment of this world, and yet I knew the world was still beautiful and that life went on. Even if the pain never really goes away.

I started to hate who I was becoming so I stopped. I decided that I didn’t want anyone else to feel this pain that I was feeling. I wanted to put positivity and love out into the world. To spread nothing but kindness. In this I finally found myself again. There is nothing uglier than bitterness or hate and my refusal to let it consume me was a turning point. I donated to charity and did everything I could to spread community and love. I kept writing and I started submitting my novel to agents and publishers. I went after every dream I had and I worked hard.

It has been two years now since my grief threatened to swallow me whole and I look back at that time and it still hurts, but I’m proud of myself. My Spanish is still mediocre and my yoga is not great, but I got a book deal and my novel Ember published in March 2022 to great acclaim. Ember has a character in it who had a miscarriage in the past and the lead character is also an obstetrician. I almost abandoned the book after my ectopic as I found editing it so painful, I put all of my pain into it. It was like therapy. I persevered and I’m proud I did. More importantly, in June 2021 I had my gorgeous and beautiful rainbow baby who I am grateful for every day. A little boy who is sunshine personified.

I didn’t let my pain break me or change who I was. The worse things got the harder I reached for the best. The negativity made me search for the positive. Faith and love helped me reach the other side and I know that life is always beautiful and precious. I promised myself I would always live my life to the full and never take it for granted. I won’t break it.

COSRX’s 5-Star Rated BHA Blackhead Power Liquid is Taking Over the Internet With This Surprising Hack

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Both blackheads and in-grown hairs are beauty bugbears. When it comes to underground beauty hacks, Reddit is often the place to go, and with summer fast approaching this hack is re-emerging as the go-to solution for ingrown hair.

No-one likes ingrown hairs, especially on sensitive areas such as the bikini line, and women have taken to the Skincare Addiction subreddit to hail their miracle cure –The COSRX BHA Blackhead Power Liquid.

Posting on the subreddit, one user claimed: “I started using is as an after-shave with surprising success! No irritation, ingrown hairs have lessened a fair bit.” 

Another wrote: “I’ve used BHA successfully on ingrowns. You probably just don’t want it too close to any super sensitive parts.”

How does it work?

 

BHA’s are effective and powerful chemical exfoliants which gently slough away dead skin which clogs pores. They can penetrate skin and unclog pores which may be why Reddit users are hailing it’s ingrown-fighting abilities.

 

Julia Marinkovich, COSRX UK Representative explains; “BHAs are oil-soluble and can therefore penetrate deep into pores helping to unclog them and remove dead skin, which means they will likely be successful at soothing and clearing the inflamed, irritating clear little bumps left from shaving. However, there is no medical or scientific evidence that it can remove or loosen ingrown hairs.”

 

More Skin Benefits

 

 

The serum contains 4% natural Betaine Salicylate, an exfoliant which not only gets rid of blackheads and sebum inside of the pores, but also prevents sebum turning into blackheads via oxidation, and helps skin rebuild its moisture barrier. The light serum also contains White Willow Bark, which can help to decrease redness and inflammation, as well as Niacinamide and Sodium Hyaluronate, working together to fight acne, brighten, smooth and hydrate dull skin.

 

COSRX has a huge global cult following and sells out as soon as it is replenished. It has sold out 6 times already in 2022, with consumer demand outweighing supply. 

My Writing Process Tetyana Denford

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I remember when my mother called me, because the weather had been mild and the air smelled of the coming Spring. It was 2015, and we were living in the UK, so the 5 hour time difference meant that it was already late in New York when I heard her voice on the phone. Her tone was tender, and not a little bit numb and distant, and I would soon understand why: a family secret.

I had grown up in a relatively standard Ukrainian family: I was raised within the language, the traditions, and as I was an only child, my parents would make sure Ukrainian was the world that I knew and flourished within. We lived with my maternal grandmother, Yulia, and whilst her stories of wartime Ukraine were harrowing, nothing was ever out of the ordinary.

And then, we all learned something about her past that seemed more like a movie script than anything we’d ever imagined in real life. For me, my status as an only child, and a writer, meant that it was up to me to write the story down, for the family, for myself, and for my children to know our family story in detail. But could I do it justice? The impostor syndrome was very real, as most writers can attest to on their best days.

The first thing that I learned about writing a book is that the first few drafts are always the story, not the ‘book’; chronological, sometimes painful, but always the purest form. Once I started researching Ukraine, World War II, passenger lists on post-war ships heading to Australia, and New York in the 1960s… the book started coming to life. I’ll admit it felt like it took a solid two years to finish the first few drafts because at the time, my three children were all under eight years old, and my husband was travelling for work constantly, so I had very little time to write apart from very early in the morning or very late at night. It wasn’t easy, but I knew in my bones that this story was an important one to memorialize, because if I didn’t, it would disappear with the passage of time, like so many other family stories.

My grandmother was still alive and still had a semblance of memories stitching her life together in her mind whilst I was writing this, so old photographs and conversations were priceless for me to be able to place myself in her mindset when she was living through all of these painful periods in her life, and what fascinates me now, looking back, is that the current newsreel detailing the war in Ukraine runs in stark parallel to what she and generations of her family had lived through and fought against in the early 1900s and all through the second world war. And we are reminded now that history has a long pattern of repeating itself, because no one seems to remember how hard people fought for their sovereignty.

And now, now I feel proud of knowing that as a younger generation Ukrainian, I have written a story, a whole book, of what people are discovering about Ukraine and its people: their pride, their loyalty to the country that made them, their generosity in standing up for any people who are marginalized and forgotten, their fierce love for their family and friends, and their stubborn refusal to ever back down in their music, their art, their willingness to hope.

I am not an anomaly: there are so many Ukrainian writers and authors and translators who are now taking up the fight and using their voices as a war effort, when they are living all across the world worrying about their friends and their families in danger. We are the future, our stories begin with emotional phone calls, our writings are stitched together with anger and hope, and our platforms are flooded with calls to action from not only Ukrainians but anyone who chooses to stand on the right side of humanity and amplify the stories that make us who we are.

Our words are the weapons we choose to affect the hearts and minds of the entire world, not just to support Ukraine but to remember that all of our family stories are the threads that bind us and remind us to wish for a better future. 

Author Bio

Tetyana Denford grew up in a small town in New York, and is a Ukrainian-American author, translator, and freelance writer. She grew up with her Ukrainian heritage at the forefront of her childhood, and it led to her being fascinated with how storytellers in various cultures passed down their lives to future generations; life stories are where we learn about ourselves, each other, and are the things that matter most, in a world where things move so quickly.

Her debut novel, Motherland was self-published in March 2020 to critical success and longlisted for The Readers Digest Self Published Book Awards. It was based on an incredible family secret that was revealed by her maternal grandmother, Julia, only recently, and has been described by people as ‘haunting’, ‘powerful and devastating’, and ‘a fragile and hopeful story of an immigrant family’. In March 2022, Tetyana signed a 2-book deal with Bookcouture, an imprint of Hachette, and Motherland will be re-released in July 2022 with a new title and cover.

She also works with Frontline News as a translator, has been featured in The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Flock Magazine and Mother Tongue Magazine, and speaks several languages. She also hosts a YouTube show called ‘The Craft and Business of Books’ that helps writers understand both the creative side and the business side of the book world. Her series of ‘conversation books’, collections of poetry and prose about Grief, Motherhood, and Love, were published in 2021.

Tetyana currently lives in New York with her husband and three children.

About the Book

Ukraine, 1940. She cups her daughter’s face with her trembling hands, imprinting it on her mind. ‘I love you. Be brave, ’she whispers through her tears, her heart breaking into a thousand pieces. Sending her child away is the only way to keep her safe. But will she ever see her again?

When war rips their country apart, Julia is sent away by her tearful parents in the dead of night, clutching her mother’s necklace and longing for one last embrace. But soon she is captured by Nazi soldiers and forced into a German labour camp, where behind a tall fence topped with cruel barbed wire, she has never felt more alone.

Just as she begins to give up on all hope, Julia meets Henry, a young man from her village who shares her heart full of dreams. And when she feels a fluttering in her belly that grows and grows, she longs to escape the camp and begin a new life with their child. But then Julia is forced to make a terrible choice. A choice no mother should have to make.

New York, 2011. With her heart shattered and her life changed forever by the shadows of war, as the years go by Julia thinks she will never be whole again. For decades she has been carrying a terrible secret with her, her every moment tainted by tragedy and loss since those dark days of the war.

But when she receives a phone call in the middle of the night, far away from the home and family she lost in the war, will Julia finally be reunited with the missing piece of her heart? Or is it too late for her wounds to heal?

Based on the incredible true story of the author’s grandparents, The Child of Ukraine is a breathtakingly powerful tale of love, loss and family secrets, perfect for fans of The Four Winds, The Last Green Valley, and The Nightingale.

 
This novel was previously published under the name Motherland.

SKINTELLIGENT: What you really need to know to get great skin

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SKINTELLIGENT

What you really need to know to get great skin

By Dr Natalia Spierings

 

Published by Vermilion.

Trade Paperback priced £16.99

The first entirely evidence-based skincare guide written by a real expert that explains how skin actually works, how to navigate the confusing world of Big Skincare and what you really need to do to achieve healthy, glowing skin – throughout your life.

 

This is the first book about skincare based on fact, not fiction

 There is no such thing as ‘essential’ skincare; almost all skincare should be viewed as a ‘luxury good’ and therefore, in fact, absolutely not essential!

  • Scared of using Vaseline? Don’t be – it’s the best moisturiser on the market, also the cheapest, it doesn’t ‘clog pores’ or cause pimples and it is totally safe to use. Plus, it is in every single moisturiser on the market anyway.
  • You don’t need to buy a separate product to use around your eyes, just use your regular moisturiser around your eyes; ‘eye creams’ are a scam
  • Facials are a waste of time and money
  • When it comes to skincare, less is always more
  • Expensive skincare is never better than cheaper skincare

 

Consultant Dermatologist Dr Natalia Spierings of Channel 5’s Skin A&E has announced the launch of her new book, Skintelligent: what you really need to know to get great skin, published by Vermilion. Dr Natalia Spierings is here to shake things up in the skincare world and isn’t afraid to tell the truth and call out the BS about all things related to skincare. Drawing on a decade of work as a practicing consultant dermatologist, helping thousands of people achieve great skin, she will empower you with the knowledge to navigate the confusing world of skincare so you never get fooled into buying hundreds of pounds of disappointing cosmetic skincare products again. If you have a problem with your skin – whether it is pimples, pigmentation, overly dry skin, large pores or whatever – the problem you have needs to be viewed as a skin abnormality or even a disease and therefore cannot be corrected with a three-step skincare regime you buy at a department store.

 

Dr Natalia Spierings said: “I wrote this book with the aim of answering all the hundreds of questions I get every day from my patients and through social media about skincare; there is too much misinformation being thrown at us about skincare from people who just don’t know what they are talking about, merely to sell products. It’s time to empower the skincare consumer with facts and the correct information so we all stopping wasting our money (and our hope) on products that don’t deliver on their (often outlandish) claims.”

Using an unbiased, evidence-based approach and cutting through the pseudo-science, she explains:

–        how skin actually works

–        which skincare products are proven to be effective for all of major facial skin complaints

–        what trendy skincare ingredients do or don’t do what they promise and why

–        what you can do to manage everything from acne to rosacea to melasma as well as wrinkles and sun-damage

 

Bringing together years of experience treating a huge range of skin problems, Skintelligent is the only book you will ever need to read to get great skin.

 

“Buying this book will be a great investment; following Natalia’s advice will save you money on your skincare whilst helping you to look your best.”

Dr Andrew Birnie, Consultant Dermatologist & Founder of Altruist Sunscreen

 

“Dr Natalia Spierings is a terrific consultant dermatologist with a very clear – and utterly science-based — approach to skincare which many people will find refreshing.”

Alice Hart-Davis, founder of thetweakmentsguide.com

 

About the Author

 

Dr Natalia Spierings is a Consultant Dermatologist with a Master’s Degree in Aesthetic Medicine. A unique combination of technical skill, depth of knowledge, aesthetic sensibility and communication skills has positioned her globally as a leading dermatologist. She currently splits her clinical time between both the NHS and private sector in London, and at Kings College Hospital in Dubai. @drnataliaspierings

 

 

The Bay by Allie Reynolds Book Review

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The Bay by Allie Reynolds is the second novel from the author of the widely acclaimed chiller thriller, Shiver. I LOVED her first novel and was so excited to receive The Bay. Thankfully I wasn’t disappointed. Allie Reynolds has a way of writing a pacy, sporty thriller like no one else. This is a tense and absorbing story about what happens when Type A sporty athletes get thrown together. The Bay is paradise to them, the ultimate surfing spot and they will do anything to protect it.

You are never sure who to trust or what is going to happen. The Bay will have you by the throat until the very last page. I am not sure how Allie Reynolds does it, but I’m glad she does. Her high-octant sporty thrillers are as brilliant as they are unique. Truly stunning. Get a copy now.

 
The Bay, Allie Reynolds, Book review

The Bay is an addictive summer thriller where the waves are to die for at the wild and beautiful Sorrow Bay, a remote surfing spot paradise that a mysterious group of people will do anything to keep a secret.

 

Allie has a trademark ability to pair isolated and dangerous natural landscapes with high-stakes, extreme sports to rewrite the popular locked-room mystery with an elegant, high-octane twist. She has received wide praise from the world of crime writing, including Peter James (‘sensational’), Harriet Tyce (‘a knife-sharp locked room mystery’) and Sarah Pearse (‘nail-bitingly tense’).

 

Ideal for slipping in holiday beach bags, The Bay is filled with sun, sea, suspense and a sinister cast of characters driven by obsession and perfection.