April/May Favorites: Anti-Aging Retinoid, Killer Workout, Samurai Nail Clippers, and Best Cod Liver Oil Evahhh

Holy cow. I have enough half-finished arti­cles lined up to cause an inter­webs melt­down. I have def­i­nitely been slack­ing on EBG, what with plan­ning the wed­ding, uni­ver­sity classes, and work. Whew. Here’s one hot off the presses.

1. SIRCUIT Skin Infusion-A Inten­sive Retinoid Serum, $80. For sev­eral years I have been wait­ing for effec­tive retinoid prod­ucts that are for­mu­lated in base of nat­ural, “clean” ingre­di­ents. I was impa­tient and even con­sid­ered start­ing a skin care line just to for­mu­late those prod­ucts, but SIRCUIT stepped up to the plate recently and intro­duced a natural-product-lover’s retinoid buf­fet. Imag­ine if you could use some­thing as effec­tive as a “tra­di­tional” retinoid with­out the petro­leum deriv­a­tives, parabens, or side effects like peel­ing and flak­ing. In fact, if you could use just one top­i­cal anti-aging prod­uct, a retinoid would be it. And the younger you start using one, the better.

Retinoids are one of the few anti-aging sub­stances backed by strong sci­en­tific stud­ies and show obvi­ous clin­i­cal results of improved skin appear­ance (e.g. reduced wrin­kles, improved elas­tic­ity, pre­ven­tion of col­la­gen break­down, improved skin tone, reduc­tion of age spots and sun dam­age, etc.). It espe­cially excit­ing because it is excel­lent for every­one and effec­tive on every­one – and if you can start using a retinoid in your early 20s (or even late teens), it will be your best top­i­cal defender against sag­ging, wrin­kling, and sun dam­age. I am all about pre­ven­tion, and your three best lines of defense against los­ing col­la­gen (after all, it’s much eas­ier to pre­vent los­ing it than try­ing to add it back in later) are: excel­lent diet, pre­vent­ing sun dam­age, and retinoids.

Even if you are well past your 20s, reti­nalde­hyde, the form of retinoid that SIRCUIT has employed in their skin care for­mu­la­tions, is “highly effec­tive in reju­ve­nat­ing older skin” (Car­olyn Jacob, MD. for WebMD). “A Swiss study found that among the cos­me­ceu­ti­cals, reti­nalde­hyde is the most effi­cient and well-tolerated retinoid in renew­ing skin cells, fil­ter­ing ultra­vi­o­lent light, pre­vent­ing cell break­down, and improv­ing aging skin.” Upon fur­ther research, I found some­thing else worth of men­tion­ing about reti­naldeyde: if your skin has even been exposed to top­i­cal steroids or has been weak­ened by top­i­cals, reti­naldeyde shows promise in revers­ing atro­phy and restor­ing healthy, plump skin (mice showed improve­ment within 1 month) and has the abil­ity to pre­vent atro­phy when used in con­junc­tion with a top­i­cal steroid (New ther­a­peu­tic tar­gets in der­mato­poro­sis. G. Kaya, Depart­ment of Der­ma­tol­ogy, Uni­ver­sity Hos­pi­tal of Geneva, Switzer­land.). This is excel­lent news, espe­cially for those with eczema, who are fre­quently treated with top­i­cal steroids to the detri­ment of the skin.

Now that I’ve bored you (sorry, I’m excited!), I am happy to say that SIRCUIT’s Infusion-A serum has lived up to my expec­ta­tions. I have always liked their for­mu­la­tions, and my opin­ion is no dif­fer­ent here. I live in a very dry cli­mate, and my skin can get dehy­drated eas­ily and form pre­cur­sors to fine lines around the eyes. This serum was a plea­sure to use – I expe­ri­enced zero peel­ing, zero flak­ing, and a com­plete dis­ap­pear­ance of the dehy­dra­tion lines within a three days. It smells like cit­rus and med­i­cine, but it is not an over­pow­er­ing scent and it does not linger after it absorbs (which is almost instan­ta­neously). Oh, and the large light brown freckle under my right cheek that I’ve had since child­hood is almost entirely gone. My mum even asked me where it went! I also decided to try Infusion-A on my hands to test the atrophy-reversing effects the afore­men­tioned study pro­duced (if you have been a long-time reader and/or have the book, you’ll know I used to have eczema and that it was treated with top­i­cal steroids years ago – since then my hands have been exceed­ingly dry, sen­si­tive, and prone to crack­ing). The serum absorbed imme­di­ately upon appli­ca­tion, leav­ing no residue, oil, or slimy feel­ing (part of the rea­son I despise lotions). I needed zero mois­tur­iz­ing for a full 24 hours after that sin­gle appli­ca­tion. My hands have not been dry and look won­der­ful for the first time in a long time. It’s a hefty price tag, but for all the ben­e­fit it’s given me in such a short time, I am def­i­nitely going to keep this potion around.

My Bot­tle of Cin­na­mon Tin­gle Cod Liver Oil Blend – Nomnom!

2. Green Pas­ture Blue Ice Royal But­ter Oil/Fermented Cod Liver Oil Blend, $49. Okay, I know this sounds bizarre. “But­ter oil? Fer­mented cod liver oil? Uhhhh.” Well, you all know I’m obses­sive about nutri­tion and pour­ing over stud­ies is what I do for fun. For the past three months, I have been read­ing all there is to read on tra­di­tional food prepa­ra­tion, includ­ing fer­men­ta­tion and spe­cially pre­pared foods used as med­i­cines or sup­ple­ments. Fer­mented cod liver oil and but­ter oil kept pop­ping up, so I did some more dig­ging and I have come to this con­clu­sion: con­sum­ing those two foods is down­right one of the best things you can eat for your body and skin. Rich in vit­a­min A, vit­a­min D, vit­a­min K2 (exclu­sive to fer­mented foods), EPA, and DHA, fer­mented cod liver oil/butter oil blends are a tra­di­tion­ally processed food that has not been heat treated and stripped of its micronu­tri­ents. (And don’t worry, there is noth­ing to fear about the vit­a­min A and D con­tent in fer­mented cod liver oil.) These vit­a­mins and fatty acids are essen­tial for beau­ti­ful skin, which as we all know by now, is a result of healthy organs that are get­ting the nutri­ents they need to do their jobs properly.

At first, I was ner­vous about the but­ter oil, since I know I get smat­ter­ings of blem­ishes from almost any kind of dairy except the local raw goat milk I get some­times. How­ever, the but­ter oil works in con­junc­tion with the fer­mented cod liver oil and has caused no issues what­so­ever in the past month or so that I’ve been tak­ing it (I eat 1 tsp. every­day with a meal). My diges­tion has been flaw­less, and I’ve even got­ten away with eat­ing ice cream a few times with­out ANY blem­ishes. The last time I got away with that was when I was 18. My skin stays con­sis­tently smooth and blemish-free. The tex­ture is not greasy or oily, and since I store it in the fridge, it’s a solid, creamy tex­ture. My only prob­lem is the fla­vor options – choco­late cream (not good if you’re sen­si­tive to choco­late, as they use real cocoa pow­der), nat­ural, and cin­na­mon tin­gle. I ordered the cin­na­mon fla­vor, and while I approve of all the ingre­di­ents and it tastes great, it’s just too intense and it burned my tongue. So now I chew it on my back molars to avoid my tongue, and fol­low with the remain­ing bites of my meal to remove any of the cin­na­mon “tingle.”

3. Physique 57 Clas­sic Work­out Com­plete 3-Disc Set, $59. I’ve men­tioned these DVDs before, and after a two-month lapse in work­outs from a pulled ham­string (caused by a sh*tty warmup and a bad instruc­tor), I started up recently and real­ized once again the awe­some­ness that is Physique 57 (or P57, as peo­ple like to call it). I love ballet-type work­outs in gen­eral, but I espe­cially love P57 because it is dif­fi­cult enough to make me sweat (I’m one of those peo­ple who find it dif­fi­cult to get a good sweat going) and I love Tanya’s exu­ber­ant New Yorker per­son­al­ity and instruc­tion. The time flies and the results come incred­i­bly quick and most impor­tantly, they last. I’ve been doing P57 and Bar Method for, oh, maybe two years, and the tone in my legs, stom­ach, and arms never dis­ap­pears in the slight­est, even when I have a two-month lapse. I like to mix it up with box­ing and weight train­ing and what­ever, but I always go back to the barre. It gives me the lean, toned shape I like (dif­fer­ent work­outs will let you design your body in dif­fer­ent ways), it is chal­leng­ing, and you aren’t look­ing at the clock won­der­ing when it’s going to end. But note: you will sweat and your legs and ass will be on fire, and it you will look great for it.

4. Seki Edge Satin Slim Stain­less Steel Clip­per, $19. These nail clip­pers were a sur­prise hit for me because I don’t get along with most beauty tools. I don’t use an eye­lash curler, I barely use a comb (seri­ously, my curly hair hates it), and I have a love-hate rela­tion­ship with my trusty old nail clip­pers. When Seki sent me this lit­tle beauty with the promise that I would adore it, I agreed to give it a shot. First, I was impressed with the design and qual­ity. It is solid and light­weight, with a smooth fin­ish and even smoother clip­ping motion. I should not be sur­prised – this tool, along with their entire range of sharp items, is crafted in Japan by ex-Samurai-sword-makers and their descen­dents, using tra­di­tional crafts­man­ship tech­niques. These are not your aver­age $5 unwieldy drug­store clip­pers that are give you a rough, sharp edge to your nails. This lit­tle clip­per feels solid and satin-y, and cuts smoothly and eas­ily with­out hav­ing to apply much pres­sure, leav­ing no sharp or “fuzzy” edges. And in case you have nail OCD or are just bored, there is a built-in file on the under­side of the han­dle. I give this clip­per two neatly-manicured thumbs up.