How Old Is Your Skin?

HERE'S A LITTLE TEST. Using your right thumb and index finger, pinch the skin on the back of your left hand for five seconds. Let go and see how many seconds it takes for your skin to completely flatten out. The quicker this happens, the younger the functional age of your skin. No cheating!

     TIME                                      FUNCTIONAL AGE
1-2 seconds                                     Under 30 years
3-4 seconds                                     30-44 years
5-9 seconds                                     45-50 years
10-15 seconds                                 60 years
16-55 seconds                                 70 years
56 or more                                       Over 70

How'd you do?

The first time I did this, my skin age was 50. EEK! I did the test several times just to make sure. Yep. 50.

That is not OK!

If you'd like to regain some youthfulness in your skin, one of the best things you can do is stop using your body lotion (most likely packed with chemicals and toxins) and start using organic, virgin coconut oil.

Remember, your skin is your largest organ. It sucks in anything you put on its surface.

If you can't eat it, you shouldn't be putting it on your skin.

Look at the back label of your lotion. Any long words you can't pronounce? Probably a chemical. Would you eat a tablespoon of your lotion? Probably not.

I've used coconut oil on my skin off and on over the years. I started using it again because I found a raw 100% cold-pressed extra virgin organic coconut oil by Artisana.

Raw means no heat was used to process it. I'm big into raw right now and playing with adding more raw foods to my meals. Why? Because that's were all the enzymes are and they make you healthy, youthful-looking and vibrant with energy.

Cold-pressed means it was minimally processed (they press the oil out of the coconut meat vs. using a chemical treatment). That's good because the oil maintains the antioxidant properties that counteract oxidation and free radical destruction.

Extra virgin refers to the highest quality. In fact, quality virgin coconut oil has a shelf life of up to 10 years; you can't say that about your vegetable oil.

Organic means no nasty chemicals.

And just so you know, coconut oil is non-hydrogenated (hydrogenated oils are the dangerous ones you must avoid), cholesterol free (yep, it's true) and rich in medium-chain fatty acids (vs. long-chain fatty acids; in fact, people have lost weight when switching to coconut oil in their cooking).

It's vey stable, meaning it won't break down and become rancid as quickly as other oils. If you smell your other oil and it stinks, don't use it. It's rancid (bad). It'll have tons of free radicals that will damage your cells.

I'm big into coconut oil and not just for my skin. I'll tell you more about it later.

I've been using it on my face in the morning and at night. Bachan said she thought something was wrong with her eyes because my skin looked so good. I told her it wasn't her eyes, it was the coconut oil I'd been using for about a week.

Run down to your fav health food store and grab a glass (not plastic; plastic is extremely toxic) jar of raw organic extra virgin coconut oil and start looking younger today.

May youthfulness surround you,


Catherine

P.S. After using the coconut oil on the back of my hand for just 1 day (once in the morning and once at night), after I pinch my skin, it flattens out in 1 second vs. 9 seconds! That's what I call fast results.