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What’s Up With Needling Your Skin???

September 26, 2016 by Wendei Leave a Comment

Want younger looking skin but don’t want the high risk, sun sensitivity, or fillers?

By Wendei Smith

We’ve got it! Microneedling is just as effective as laser but, unlike laser, it can be repeatedly indefinitely.

Skin needling is also called microneedling therapy or collagen induction therapy (CIT). It is a minimally invasive non-surgical and non-ablative procedure for skin rejuvenation that involves the use of a microneedling device to penetrate the epidermis and create a controlled skin injury without the heat from Laser treatments. Microneedling causes the release of growth

factors that promote scar-less healing and the deposition of normal woven collagen rather than scar collagen that can happen with CO2, Fraxel, Pixel and Laser treatments.

In the realm of skin rejuvenation treatments available, microneedling has been around for decades and has recently gained popularity and become the easiest, most effective must have skin rejuvenation treatment available for the stars like Gwenyth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston.

Microneedling creates thousands of tiny superficial micro channels in the skin by using a micropen device or dermal roller. The micro wound process stimulates your body’s natural ability to heal itself to create a thicker dermis, improved blood supply, soften wrinkles and scars as well as produce new collagen and elastin.

What are the benefits of Microneedling?

  •   Better absorption of active ingredients in creams and topical serums
  •   Improves blood supply and circulation (neo-angiogenesis)
  •   Increases the production of collagen through stimulation of Fibroblasts
  •   Safe for all types of skin
  •   Natural/Holistic and effective treatment
  •   Less expensive than Laser resurfacing treatments
  •   Minimal discomfort and downtime with better results than traditional lasers: CO2,

    Fraxel, Pixel and Photo facials

    Microneedling results are both immediate and progressive, its effect on your skin is best combined with prescribed home care and supplements for a few weeks before hand. Treatment results are cumulative over a 3 to 6 month time line, every four weeks for optimal results.

    Microneedling is also much more cost effective than laser treatments with way less downtime too. Darker skin types are more afraid of laser treatments as they know the risk of heat induced pigmentation can or will occur, so needling is a much safer alternative.

    Want to get started?

Content Copyright © 2016, Peace of Mind wellness

PERMISSION TO REPRINT: You may use any items from this article in your print, blog, magazine or electronic newsletter. But in order to do so, you must include the following paragraph, including a link to www.peaceofmindwellness.com

“Information is courtesy of www.peaceofmindwellness.com , a website with skin care tips, products based on nine skin types and advice from skin care expert and licensed esthetician, Wendei  Smith.”

Filed Under: Professional Techniques

Karen Brodie on Lessons from an Emergency C-Section

April 2, 2014 by Wendei Leave a Comment

Seventeen years ago, while I was going through my first bout of true depression, a therapist introduced me to a new method of dealing with anxiety and panic attacks. It’s called EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Technique, also known as Tapping. I was blown away how well this method worked in reducing the intensity of my anxiety and was truly instrumental in getting me through this dark time in my life.

Years later, “tapping” has become quite mainstream with books about EFT on the bestseller lists. EFT involves tapping on specific meridians on the body and saying affirmations. It can be used to deal with trauma, anxiety, weight loss, finances, etc. I have taught both my kids how to tap and my son who has Sensory Processing Disorder can calm himself within a few minutes by tapping.

I am thrilled to introduce EFT practitioner, Karen Brodie, to the Peace of Mind wellness family. If you suffer from anxiety or are stuck in any areas in your life, I strongly encourage you to schedule a session with Karen.

To learn more, please visit Karen’s website at www.karenlbrodie.com.

–Wendei

Karen Brodie EFT practitionerI can’t believe I am sharing this story on the internet, but it is time to come clean. Thirteen years ago, I almost killed my baby.

I didn’t do it out of anger, or neglect, or a moment of carelessness. I did it because I hadn’t learned how to take responsibility for myself, let alone someone else. I hadn’t learned to stand up to authority when authority is wrong or to challenge the status quo when the status quo is all wrong. In short, I was a child lodged in a woman’s body.

My story starts the day I went into labor with my daughter, at about 5:00 on a Thursday afternoon. From the start, my labor was weak; it never really went anywhere. The midwife we had hired showed up with her assistant on Friday afternoon. And no, this is not an article about the dangers of homebirth, because that was not the problem.

By Friday at 5:00 I had put in a solid 24 hours of really painful labor with no food and no sleep. I knew this baby wasn’t going to come on its own, so I told the midwife that I wanted to go to the hospital. Simple, right? My body, my baby, my budding mother’s wisdom. Except that this midwife refused to transport me. She told me that it would be too dangerous because the baby would be here at any minute and we couldn’t risk the baby being born on the road. Later, she defended her actions by saying that she thought I was caving in to the pain and she wanted to make sure I had the home birth I had originally said I wanted.

I knew the baby wouldn’t be coming without medical intervention, but with contractions coming every two minutes (even though they weren’t getting the job done, they really hurt!), it was hard to argue. So after a couple more half-hearted requests to go to the hospital, I sank into the damaged silence that we had perfected in my family of origin. Hours passed. The midwife and her assistant got bored and began to whisper together over People magazines while I writhed and squirmed, trying to get comfortable.

While they were distracted, I quietly told my husband that we really needed to get to the hospital. To my surprise, he refused and insisted that we defer to the midwife. I was in no condition to drive myself, so there I stayed. Around 11:30 that night, everybody but me found a corner of our little apartment to sleep in, while I was left to struggle on my own with a night of pain. And by the time the silence of sleep had descended on our apartment, I had resigned myself to death. I could feel my body running out of energy and I knew that without proper medical care, I would die.

At 6:00 on Saturday morning, the midwife woke up and checked the baby’s vital signs. And, Glory Hallelujah, the baby had joined me in Distress. We were going to the hospital. At the hospital, the midwife argued with the nurse assigned to me about whether she could stay with me during any medical procedures. Their conversation went on for so long that, by the time it was over, the doctor on duty had already passed through the ward. Still no medical care for me. We would have to wait over an hour for him to return. I desperately wanted the midwife to leave, but I was afraid of hurting her feelings or making a scene, so I did not speak up.

The rest of the memory is blurry, because soon thereafter I was rushed into the operating room for an emergency C-section under general anesthetic. I am told that my baby was pulled from my body, limp and blue, her lungs filled with meconium. After the surgery, I went into a code something, where everyone is supposed to drop what they are doing and come help. Thank God for modern medicine, because whatever they did pulled me out of a very bad spot. (All I remember is feeling completely loved and cared for in the midst of great chaos, and that the ministrations of the staff involved a suppository – ew.)

When I woke up, the midwife was finally gone and my new doctor was there in her place. Clearly, after 42 hours of labor, my luck had changed. My doctor was everything the midwife wasn’t – competent, kind, honest and encouraging. I was so thankful for his presence that for a moment I considered naming our daughter after him. Luckily, she just didn’t seem like a Ramon to me!

After a week in the hospital, I returned home with a slit carved into my abdomen, antibiotics for the remains of a raging infection, and PTSD. Lilly, my baby, was fresh out of Neonatal Intensive Care, with 13 tiny scabs on her feet from where they had drawn blood, plus whatever gets injured inside a baby when she spends her first week in an incubator instead of in loving arms. I was the walking wounded and Lilly was the lying-down wounded, but even in our ragged condition, the love between us was divine.

Thirteen years later, I can look back and see the long, winding road I took to recover from this event (and others) and get back to emotional health and wellness. I began that journey the day after my daughter was born. The midwife visited me in the hospital, which completed her contractual obligation to us, and I told her that she had put my daughter and me at risk by refusing to transport us. After a certain amount of conversation, she apologized – in a baby voice. It was a weird moment. A couple of years later, I told my story to a sympathetic group of women online, which helped a bit. My healing took a step backwards when I received a subpoena for my medical records from the District Attorney’s office. This same midwife had lost an unborn baby during another client’s labor, and the D.A. wanted to investigate other medical histories relating to her. The beginning of the end of the trauma, however, was the discovery of my magical, beloved Emotional Freedom Technique. I initially discovered it because of an ear infection that wouldn’t go away, and after the ear infection healed through tapping, I proceeded to tap my way through a lot of old childhood wounding and on through the nightmare of my daughter’s birth experience.

I eventually began sharing the joy of EFT with friends and family, and then branched out to people I didn’t know, and now I am a full-time EFT Practitioner who has had the privilege of helping hundreds of people over the years. However, even with intensive training in EFT and many other modalities as well, each of which has led me back to myself and my history over and over again, the most important piece of this story eluded me until just a few months ago. One day, out of the blue, I had one earth-shattering revelation about this experience, and this is it: When the midwife refused to transport me, I could have called 911, or even just threatened to call. I could have called a friend or a neighbor and told them that I needed a ride to the hospital. There were so many ways I could have gotten help, but none of them entered my mind. I never even had the thoughts that could have coalesced into action. At the time, my deepest beliefs were that I was powerless, that it was up to other people to take care of me (or not), and that I would always be somebody’s victim. I also believed that people who drew attention to themselves for any reason were pathetic and “just trying to get attention.” ( At the time, “just trying to get attention” was the crown jewel of bad things to do in my personal philosophy.) And as always happens, the people around me played out the roles that allowed those beliefs to represent themselves physically as the circumstances of my life.

Yes, my midwife was incompetent. I don’t think she cared much about me or my family or the job she had agreed to do. But her part in the drama was completed before my daughter was one day old. For the next 13 years, I slumbered on in the role of her victim, feeling angry and hurt about her defects and ignoring mine. And because of my laser focus on this woman and her shortcomings, I spent an enormous amount of energy feeling guilty and remorseful about various aspects of the past, which I couldn’t do anything about: that out of all the midwives in Los Angeles, most of whom are competent and caring, my husband and I had chosen this one; that my husband believed her and not me about whether I should go to the hospital; that she never sincerely apologized for the damage she caused. And worst of all, that I had never even thought to lodge a formal complaint against her, perhaps endangering another woman’s baby.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

When my daughter was about two, we took a few mommy and me yoga classes from a woman in a turban. When I told her that I was struggling to recover from the circumstances of my daughter’s birth, she simply said that each mother and child have the birth experience they were meant to have. After thinking it over for about a decade, I’m ready to say that I disagree with her. I think we all have the experiences that we are manufacturing based on the individual realities that we project out into the world, not that we are necessarily predestined to have. We are not stuck in some calcified cosmic game plan. If we don’t like the experiences we are creating, we can learn to change them. But we have to change our beliefs about who we are and how we must be treated before we can change how those things actually play themselves out. And becoming aware of and changing our belief system is tricky because we humans are plagued with blind spots.

I am finally at peace with my daughter’s birth experience. I have a new understanding of what I was projecting out all those years ago, and it has brought a ripple effect of healing into my life as old memories surface and I explore them through this new lens. In so many situations, as in this one, I was a victim just waiting around for my perpetrator. Time after time, my ignorance brought me, not bliss, but relationships that stalled and then turned on me, precisely following the blueprint of my internal world.

In the end, the two things I learned sound like cliches because I have heard them so many times: There are no victims, there are no accidents. These are empty, even hurtful, words if there is no real understanding; but they are life-changing words once we really see how these universal laws work. Once we are able to apply these truths 100 percent in any situation, we are free of it. All that remains is the love.

Karen Brodie is a top EFT Practitioner is Los Angeles, California. In her private practice, she helps people who are struggling in any of the areas of health, finances, spirituality, career, and relationships. For more information, please visit www.KarenLBrodie.com.

Filed Under: Case Studies, Healthful Tips, Life Enhancing Tips, Peaceful Referrals, Professional Techniques Tagged With: peace of mind is a quality of life, peaceful offerings

Do You Really Need to Wash Your Face?

February 18, 2014 by Wendei Leave a Comment

I get this question a lot. Or, more often this: “I just wash my face with water… do I really need a cleanser?”

My new analogy is this: If you were at a fabulous restaurant and ate a delicious meal and then discovered that the dishes were never washed with soap, they were only rinsed off with water, what would you think? Would ever go back to that restaurant again? Would you even be able to hold down the terrific meal you just ate off that gross plate?

We live in a city filled with smog. Even on a clear day we’re exposed to car exhausts, dust from construction, people that may still have a cold or virus kissing us, etc. We touch our face more than we’d like to admit… more than we think we do. After touching food, papers, countertops, other people’s bodies, the dog that just rolled around in dirt, etc. You get the point.

Sorry to gross you out, but the truth is that most people aren’t washing their face properly, so here are some simple tips:

1)   Use a cleanser designed for your face. Not Ivory soap, not Dove body wash or face oil–which seems to be the new hot thing. Oil doesn’t break down oil. Use a facial cleanser that’s pH balanced for your skin, meaning it’s a little more acidic than your skin so that it can break up oils and slough off dead skin cells.

2)   Work the cleanser in for at least a minute or two. I know it sounds frivolous, but we don’t brush our teeth in 20 seconds. Just like most of us have learned the two minute rule for our teeth, the same applies to our face.

3)   Use a wash cloth to remove the cleanser. Just splashing water on your face isn’t going to remove all the cleanser and you’ll be left with residue from your soap along with dead skin cells and dirt that didn’t come off with the water.

4)   Use a toner. I used to think this wasn’t an important step, but I’ve changed my mind. Especially after realizing that most people just don’t know how to wash their face properly. There are toners for all different skin types. The best way to use a toner is to apply it with a folded up four by four square of gauze and don’t be afraid to use a little pressure. Keep applying until the gauze is clean.

5)   Make sure you repeat the above steps morning AND night.

Come by the studio and we’ll be happy to help you choose the perfect cleanser and toner for your skin issues.

 

Happy cleansing!!!

Filed Under: Healthful Tips, Life Enhancing Tips, Professional Techniques, Your Skincare Regimen Tagged With: beauty regimen, natural beauty, replenish & renew your skin, skin care, skin care regimen

Are Professional Products Really That Different From Over The Counter?

January 21, 2014 by Wendei Leave a Comment

I can’t tell you how many times in the past nineteen years that I’ve been an esthetician that I’ve gotten this question: “Is there something cheaper that I can buy at Walgreens or Whole Foods that will work as well as your products?” And the answer is always an emphatic “NO!”

This doesn’t mean that you need to spend $50 on a cleanser…that’s just crazy. And I have yet to find a moisturizer that costs hundreds of dollars (can you say “La Mer?”) that is worth the money.

BUT, the truth is that there really is a difference between OTC (over the counter) products and professional products that you purchase from an esthetician. The biggest difference is in the active ingredients. These ingredients are the main reason you should be purchasing the product. Actually not so much the ingredients but what results these ingredients will give you.

Certain ingredients don’t even begin to have an effect in the skin unless they are at a certain percentage or concentration. Other ingredients don’t do anything for the skin unless they are used in a delivery system that can actually penetrate the stratum corneum (the upper layers of your skin). And certain ingredients like Vitamin C come in many different forms but only some forms are recognized by the skin, and THEN they need to be used at the proper pH or stabilized so they don’t oxidize and actually make your skin worse.

There are several reasons that OTC products can never give you the true results you desire. First, OTC products are sold in huge retail chains so the manufacturers are selling to millions of customers. These retailers assume that clients know what type of skin they have and what types of products they should be using. They are able to keep the costs down because 1) they are using a very low percentage of the active ingredients and 2) Most of the inactive ingredients are things you can’t even pronounce and probably don’t really want to put on your face.

These large manufacturers mean well, but they don’t want to put enough of an active ingredient in a product to cause too much of a difference in the skin. Why? Because if they put too much then someone can have a really bad reaction and they can get sued. Ingredients like glycolic acid and retinol and benzoyl peroxide MUST be prescribed by an esthetician so that you know how often to use them, what time of day, and when not to use. For example, retinol and acids should ONLY be used at night and if you’re not using something with SPF every day, there’s a real chance you can burn. Professional strength retinol products should generally be started every other night so the skin can build up a tolerance and then usage can be increased to every night. There is no one in Rite-Aid to analyze your skin, tell you how to get the results you want and how to use the products. This is how they keep costs down.

What if you are purchasing “all natural” products from Whole Foods? Well most of you already know how I feel about “all natural.” They may feel good and smell good, but they ain’t gonna keep you from looking older and they certainly aren’t going to clear up your acne.

Estheticians are also available by phone or sometimes email or text to answer your questions if you forget what order to put your products on and to advise you if you have a bad reaction. They can also monitor your skin’s progress and make adjustments depending on how your products are working. You don’t get THAT from Rite-Aid!

Professional products are very concentrated so a little goes a long way. Ultimately they end up being a better value for your money as they last longer than OTC products, but most important, they give you the results you want.

Any questions? Please feel free to comment or ask questions either on this blog or on our Facebook page.

Filed Under: Life Enhancing Tips, Professional Techniques, Your Skincare Regimen

Day Spa Magazine takes note!

January 28, 2013 by Wendei Leave a Comment

Wendei gets noticed… here she is in Day Spa Magazine!

Peace of Mind Wellness • Body Care is your best resource for Hydropepitde in Los Angeles.

DAYSPA Jan 2013_Wendei Smith       Wendei Smith is Featured in Day Spa Magazine

Filed Under: Professional Techniques

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Studio City Facials, Tanning, Waxing and more

Peace of Mind Skin & Body Care in Studio City specializes in corrective facials and body care, but don’t be fooled by our amazing results-oriented treatments – we provide an incredibly pampering spa experience with customized aromatherapy blends and yummy massage in a relaxing and welcoming environment.

We offer everything from very basic but pampering deep cleansing facials and hydrating facials to micro phototherapy, LED, micro current, & oxygen infusion facials. We also offer the best waxing and spray tanning in Studio City.We are Los Angeles’ most experienced estheticians trained in Collagen Induction Therapy aka micro or dermal needling.

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