Halo Beauty Hair Skin Nails Booster – Weeks 2 & 3 Results

Hello and welcome back, lovelies! I have completed Weeks 2 and 3 of my 3 month challenge taking the Halo Beauty Hair Skin Nails Booster supplement. Read my Challenge post here. The clicky clicky will open in a separate window. 🙂

The product is $39.95 plus $4.95 shipping which made my total $44.90 for a 30 day supply. The daily intake is two capsules per day. I take two each morning with breakfast.

I still have not had any weird side effects, other than bright yellow pee about 30 minutes to an hour after taking the supplement. 🙂 Others have noted the same, so I’m not concerned.

Starting Week 2, I have experienced a slight bout with tiny whiteheads on my face, but they go away in 2-3 days. The breakouts haven’t been enough for me to stop taking the supplements. I am still experiencing the breakouts on Week 3, but again, I don’t know if the pimples are from the supplement and they’re not that bad. My routine has not changed; I wash my face in the morning and in the evening before bed. I also do a sheet mask 2-3 times a week.

I have not used foundation for just over a month now. I have been moisturizing, using primer, a highlight, blush and mascara.

Here are my BEFORE photos:

Here are my Week 2 results:You can definitely see my skin is brighter in the Week 2 photos. The discoloration and my unsightly age spots have lightened.  The cystic acne on my chin is still gone, however, you can see the two pimples that only lasted 2-3 days. I also have noticed the fine lines around my lips have slightly diminished.

I forgot to take a photo of my nails at Week 2, but I will admit that I have not yet noticed much difference. The growth has not improved and they’re still brittle and peeling. I really don’t expect much for another couple of weeks. I also have not noticed much where my hair is concerned. The hair will be a bit tricky to document because my hair is already pretty healthy and soft, but I will do the best I can to provide updates.

Overall, my skin looks and feels soft. I have eczema breakouts every so often but have noticed that the dry, scaly skin has improved. I get patches under my arms, in my armpits and on my legs. I dry brush 2-3 times a week which also helps in maintaining soft, healthy looking skin.

Here are my Week 3 results: My skin has been freshly cleansed and I moisturized after I took the photos. My skin looks brighter and my age spots look as if they’re continuing to get lighter in color. My redness isn’t quite as noticeable. I still have patchy discoloration on my cheeks, though it looks to be improving. I continue to get compliments on my skin at work. No one knows that I am taking a supplement. My nails have improved a little since starting the supplements. My cuticles aren’t as dry; upon inspection as I write this, my cuticles aren’t dry at all. My nail beds are a soft pink and actually look really good. I expect the nails to take a few more weeks before I growth results. When my nails are healthy, I keep them at an active length. Right now, as they are brittle and peeling, I keep them short.

At the 1 month mark, I will post all first month results side by side in one post. If you wish to see my Week 1 results, click here. The clicky clicky will open in a separate window.

I am excited to complete Month 1! Bottle #2 arrived yesterday!

What do you think of my Week 2 and 3 results? Are you taking the Halo Beauty Hair Skin Nails Booster supplement or any other supplement? What are your thoughts on supplements?

Thank you for reading!

Halo Beauty Hair Skin Nails Booster -Week 1

Hello, lovelies! I have completed week 1 of my 3 month challenge taking the Halo Beauty Hair Skin Nails Booster supplement. Read my Challenge post here. The clicky clicky will open in a separate window. 🙂

I take two supplements each morning with breakfast.

I have not had any weird side effects, other than bright yellow pee about 30 minutes to an hour after taking the supplement. I have noticed a slight increase in my energy. I am usually yawny by early afternoon and have not been since day 1 of taking the supplement. I have also been going to the gym daily, which may have a part in my increased energy.

About three weeks before receiving my Halo Beauty supplements, I decided to stop using foundation. I have only been cleansing each morning, moisturizing, priming, using highlight and blush, as well as mascara and setting spray. I cleanse and moisturize my skin at night before bed. My skin did not improve from not using foundation. The only difference I noticed was that I didn’t have makeup settling into my fine lines and wrinkles making my skin appear younger. My before photos are taken the day before my Day 1 of taking the supplement.

Here are my week 1 photos:

You can see that the cystic acne on my chin has almost cleared up. The redness has greatly diminished. The slight redness on my cheeks has faded. My wrinkled forehead is still a wrinkled forehead. 😉  In these photos my skin is freshly cleansed and not yet moisturized. 

In all the below photos, my skin in the before photos is freshly cleansed and moisturized. The BEFORE photos are taken the day before Day 1 of taking the Halo Beauty supplement. In the week 1 result photos, my skin is freshly cleansed but NOT moisturized.

The cystic acne on my chin is almost cleared up. The two little bumps are no longer raised and red. I am a bit more red in the before photo. I also had a patch of dry skin on my chin from using hydrogen peroxide and apple cider vinegar prior to receiving my Halo Beauty Supplements. The dry skin cleared up after two days of taking the Halo Beauty Supplement.

I don’t see much difference yet, other than my face isn’t as red. It has only been one week, though.  I am confident that my skin will continue to improve.

The left top and bottom photos are before Halo Beauty.  The right top and bottom are my 1 week results. 

I have watched many reviews on Youtube and know that it will take weeks for any improvement to my hair and nails, however, I decided to post the before and week 1 results of my nails.

Looking at my before and week 1 results, I can’t really complain about my skin as it really isn’t that bad. I have slight redness, sun spots and wrinkles. I am also 45 years old and didn’t really take care of my skin for the better part of 20+ years. It could be worse. My expectations for this supplement are to strengthen my brittle nails, improve redness and cystic acne on my face, as well as help with dry skin on my entire body. I do not expect my wrinkles to disappear, though I would like for my fine lines to diminish. 🙂 We’ll see!

I am surprised that I have not had an allergic reaction to any of the ingredients considering I am allergic to most things that are natural and good for me. 😉

Continue following for weekly updates!

What do you think of my week 1 results? What are your thoughts on taking supplements?

Thank you for reading!

 

Dry Brushing

As a little girl, my mother used to do this process on me called dry brushing.

I was born with eczema on over 90% of my body and suffered with dry, scaly skin. I also had hyper-pigmentation on my neck which is a condition where patches of skin are darker than the surrounding skin. The darkening occurs when an excess of melanin, the brown pigment that produces normal skin color, forms deposits in the skin. I had this across my neck, and in the 70’s there weren’t lasers to help. Once my eczema would dry and scale over, my mother used a dry brush to scrub the dry skin from the eczema off my body and to scrub the pigmentation off my neck. It was an incredibly painful process that left my neck red and raw for a few days, but it worked. I certainly would NOT recommend dry brushing skin with eczema and using the process to remove hyper-pigmentation.

I had forgotten all about dry brushing until I watched Tati discuss it in one of her recent skin care YouTube videos. The first thing Tati talks about in this video is her dry brushing process. lilykoi hawaii also has an exceptional video on dry brushing. I actually prefer Lily’s video. I made the decision to start dry brushing so I headed out to the store to pick one up.  I bought the ecoTools dry body brush.

 

Natural bristles are recommended, but this one is made with cruelty-free synthetic bristles. I would rather have natural bristles; I ordered this trio from Amazon:

The ecoTools brush works pretty well, but I don’t feel like it does much on my feet.  After each brushing, my skin from my calves up to my neck tingled. I felt as though my skin was awakened. My colored tattoo looks brighter and the overall appearance of my skin is brighter and healthier.

Once I received my dry brushing trio, I decided to try dry brushing my face. I wasn’t quite sold on dragging a dry brush across my face, but I did it first thing in the morning after dry brushing my body and it felt amazing! After my shower, my face appeared brighter and I noticed fewer blackheads (gross, I know) on my nose. I just take the brush and brush my face in circular motions, including my chin and even my ears.  I’ve been dry brushing my face daily now for two weeks and my skin is brighter, the blackheads on my nose have greatly diminished, the cystic acne I had on my chin for months is almost gone and the overall appearance of my skin is incredible!  I swear if you told me there’d be a day that I’d be dragging a dry brush across my face, I’d think you were freekin’ nuts. I thought my battery-operated facial brush was giving my face a good clean, but it really isn’t. I’ll dry brush and continue to use my battery-operated facial brush for cleansing, but I owe the refreshed, bright, blackhead-free face to my dry brushing.  I do use the gloves to wash my body, and they’re amazing. I am more than pleased with this product.

Here are great tips on dry brushing from Organic Spa Magazine (click here for more):

1. Beginning with the soles of your feet, use swift upward strokes and brush from the feet up the legs, working toward your heart. Repeat five times.
2. Brush from the ankles to the knees on all sides of the legs. Repeat five times.
3. Once you’ve covered your lower body, move to your hands and work up your arms. Brush from the wrist to the elbow on each surface of the arm (front, back, inside, outside) and repeat for the area between the elbow and shoulder. Repeat five times.
4. Next, using a long-handle brush—or ask your partner to help—brush your back. Beginning with your lower back, stroke from the bottom of the spine up to the bottom of the shoulders blades, or as high as you can reach. Do this for the center, left and right sides of the lower back. Repeat five times.
5. Last, work on your abdomen (moving in a clockwise direction to follow the movement of the colon), chest and neck. It’s best to avoid your face as facial skin is
   too sensitive.
6. Brush for about three to five minutes until your skin is slightly tingly.
7. Shower after you’ve dry brushed your entire body to wash off dead skin. Alternate between the hottest water temperature and the coldest. This stimulates circulation, bringing more blood to the top layers of the skin.

Dry brushing is said to not only exfoliate, but also improves blood circulation, breaks down cellulite, and helps skin to absorb nutrients by unclogging pores. I highly recommend dry brushing for all the incredible benefits aside from smooth and soft skin. I have had such amazing results in just a few weeks of dry brushing.

Do you dry brush? How has dry brushing helped your skin?

❤ Cherilyn 

Blogmas! (Day 15) Another Early Christmas Present to Myself

This Blogmas post is going to be a bit different. We’re going to get a little serious here. I titled this Another Early Christmas Present to Myself because I was going to wait until the first of the year. But this is something that can’t wait, and though money is tight during the holidays, this was a gift I needed to give myself. Here’s how it went down:

A sun spot I have had on my leg for about 7-8 years started to change. At first it developed redness around the top edge, and looked a bit larger. Then within a week, the entire spot was red and itchy. Then a few days later it definitely grew in size and was a dark red.  The photos don’t really show just how dark red it was, but it looked like a blood blister.

During all this spot changing, I was googling like crazy to see if I should be worried or if I should wait until the first of the year when my health insurance kicks in. The answer was a no. The spot would not look the same if it was split in half, it had grown significantly in size and was a deep red in color. It went from a light tan freckle color to blood red in less than two weeks.

I headed to the dermatologist on Friday, December 1st at 9:30am.

The doctor could not say anything other than there was definite cause for concern because of its fast progression. She did a punch biopsy, which removed the entire spot from the inside out, stitched me up with three stitches on the inside of my leg and three on the outside and sent me on my way with instructions to return on December 15th to have the stitches removed.

The biopsy results would take a week, however, the dermatologist called me a few days later with the results:

Precancerous, but the biopsy removed it all.

When I got the call, I was at work, sitting at a poker table. We’re not supposed to be on our phones at the table, but this qualified as a call to take no matter what. After I hung up, I almost started crying because I hadn’t slept in weeks and now I could stop worrying. Under normal circumstances family is the first to find out these things, however, since I was at work and sitting on a poker table,  all my players and coworkers were the first to know. 🙂 I can’t even begin to describe how overjoyed I was, and still am, with the outcome. ❤

My message to you is DO NOT WAIT. If you notice something funny, even a slight change, DO NOT WAIT to have it checked. I had three spots checked and the other two were nothing. Even better if it turns out to be absolutely nothing. Please know that melanoma is a fast and aggressive cancer. Who knows what the outcome would have been had I waited a couple more months? The spot had changed so quickly in a 2 week period that had I waited, I don’t want to think about it because I didn’t wait. And the spot was removed. And those precancerous cells are no longer there.

This would qualify as the best early Christmas present to myself EVER.

❤ Cherilyn 

I Work Out

Last week I signed up to Crunch Fitness.  Tomorrow night I do my first Belly Butt and Thighs Bootcamp class.  I’m looking forward to it, but I’m not looking forward to it.  I mean, I’m going to hurt afterwards.  While the reward will be worth it, all I’ll be thinking about while sweating away the Snickers bar I had for lunch is stopping at the gas station on the way home and buying another Snickers bar.

I kid, I kid.  While I do partake in eating unhealthy food from time to time, I do not partake often because I don’t like the way I feel after; sluggish and heavy.

It’s been about 2 years since I’ve worked out in a gym atmosphere.  I’m not easily intimidated by things, but my anxiety likes to tell me that I am.

I don’t much do or keep to New Year resolutions.  I tend to create goals later in the year to avoid the pressure. 🙂

Do you work out?  What goal(s) do you have for yourself, fitness wise? Do you have a favorite class or routine?