Beauty Tips for Ministers

Smoothy Faces, Beards And Goatees

For people who shave their faces,

My old pal Jud from Naples, Florida swears that Neutrogena products are THE way to go. And he has oodles of dough to buy whatever skin products his little heart desires, so I’ll take that compliment to Neutrogena as pretty high praise.

Remember to rinse well and MOISTURIZE with an SPF product! An eye cream wouldn’t hurt you, either! It’s not make-up, it absorbs nicely into the skin, and it will give you a nice, “Gee Sam, you look well-rested today” glow.

Guys with goatees, I have a question for you: are you aware that if your goatee if half-grey and half brown/black/auburn, it will look splotchy and unkempt from the back row of the church or from any kind of distance? PeaceBang thinks that well-groomed goatees are very handsome, but she does want to whisper in your ear that if you were to comb a little bit of touch-up color into it on Sundays (especially if you serve a large, more formal congregation), no one could fault you.

While a nice goatee is a sexy, virile statement (a full beard seems to PeaceBang a more patriarchal statement, and not in a “DOWN WITH THE PATRIARCHY” way - more like a Biblical patriarch way), it needs to be carefully groomed. ‘Nuff said? And if you’re under 30, watch it with the facial hair. Baby faced preachers sporting beards make PeaceBang want to pet their heads and say, “There, there, son, I know you desperately want us to take you vewy sewiously, but you’re trying way too hard. Shave the punim already and let your words show us how mature you are.”

Body Scrubs

As long as we’re on the subject of scrubs, do remember that dry brushing your body is a very good and ancient way of ridding the dermis of dead cells. This isn’t just for vanity’s sake — everyone likes a silky smooth bod, of course, but your skin is doing a lot of hard work eliminating toxins from your body, so help it along every now and then. Dry brushes can be found at any health food store. I’ve had mine for years and while dry brushing isn’t exactly pleasant, it does stimulate circulation and can be a good way to boost the immune system. I always give myself a good dry-brushing if I have a cold coming on before climbing into a (not too) hot bath full of therapeutic salts. I drink tons of water and get to bed early, and it seems to help. The thing is, showering every day does not exfoliate the skin; there isn’t time. Even if you scrub with a washcloth, the skin needs to soak for awhile before it’s really ready to discard those dead cells. I read this somewhere and if I’m wrong, please correct me.

For the more luxuriant of you, I must tell you about these two scrumptious products I smelled and tested at the Origins counter Dillards in Florida recently:

First, this matcha tea based oily scrub that comes in a pretty glass container and smells like a soft-scented heaven where they have tea ceremony every day through eternity,

And, more to PeaceBang’s personal olfactory preference, this totally yumby cocoa body scrub that tempted me to lick it off my fingers,

I am waiting hopefully for the day that the ingrates at Origins realize what a huge fan I am and how much free advertising they get from me, and start sending me care packages of all these products every month. Corporate HQ, are you listening?

“Please Stop Scrubbing Me So Hard,” Love, Your Face

Dearly beloveds,

There are a thousand facial scrubs on the market and most of them are FAR too rough for your soft little punim. Believe me, PeaceBang remembers how deeply satisfying it can feel to get out the old tub of St.Ives Apricot Scrub and to scrub the bejeesus out of her face, but that was 25 years ago and none of us should be getting anywhere near anything that harsh at our ages.

Exfoliation is the key to a healthy glow and the best starting antidote to haggard, tired faces in our beauty arsenal. If we don’t exfoliate, our moisturizing and anti-oxidant products can’t absorb nearly as well, so we should all use something gentle to help slough off the dead cells.

PeaceBang has extremely sensitive skin, so she really can’t use anything with microbeads in it, including Origins terrific “Modern Friction” rice-based masque. It’s a fantastic product but more than once initiated one of my dreaded Hideous Facial Blisters, so I had to quit after concluding that as gentle as it is, it still wasn’t gentle enough for my sensitive spots (near my nose).

I have reviewed Aveda’s Tourmaline Radiance Masque on this blog already and still give it a great thumbs up for once or twice a week exfoliation: it is wonderful.

And now I’d like to recommend this papaya-based product by Zia, which I used even when on vacation and after some days in the sun when my skin was looking blotchy and threatened an outbreak:

It’s about $15 — not a bank breaker, but there’s also not a lot of product in that little tube. I’d say it’s good for about 5-6 uses, so do the math.

You put it on a damp, clean face, leave it on for 10-15 minutes, add a bit of water and rub it around, then rinse. I apply an anti-oxidant immediately afterward, followed by an emollient skin cream, and have been very happy with the results. Make-up goes on better, skin is smoother, and I’m a fan of Zia in general.

So please, sweetpeas, stay away from those Marquis de Scrubs. Cripes, you’d do better buying a sander at Home Depot and running that across your face. Now get glowing already.

Tulips Are In!

Greetings to my post-holiday, perhaps more-than-slightly exhausted darlings,

About six years ago, PeaceBang took a “vacation” after the holidays which consisted of driving to New Hampshire (2 hours or so away), staying in a hotel, eating meals alone, and sliding home down the highway through a blizzard two nights later. This experience was more depressing than 21 straight days of rain in May (that happened one memorable year, too, and just the memory of it makes me want to stick a fork in my eye), and the following year PeaceBang said to her Board of Trustees and Worship Committee, “I’d like to take two weeks of my vacation time in January, if you please.” Because they are good and wise people, they said, “Why, certainly.” I gratefully packed myself off to Mexico, and a January vacation has remained a cherished institution in my life since then. Not only restful but productive: I outlined no fewer than four sermons after good, long, uninterrupted afternoon naps, and read several eminently preachable books and articles.
We NEED TIME OFF AND AWAY, my doves. We are not automatons, we cannot drive to the great spiritual filling station on a random busy afternoon and expect to get a full tank of the Holy Spirit and drive away humming “How Great Thou Art.” The body gets tired, the brain gets weary, the spirit starts to drag and stagger, and the psyche craves deep time in the well of silence and restorative sleep.

You must advocate for vacation time for yourself. You must put aside savings for it. You must understand that you need and deserve REAL time off. No, Jesus did not go on vacation. But let’s remember how short his earthly ministry was, my friends. You are in this for the duration and the last time I looked, none of ya’ll could walk on water, either.

So PeaceBang came home from vacation and noticed today that the TULIPS ARE BACK in the florist shops, a fact that made her sigh with rapturous, sensual pleasure (oh, those oranges! those lipstick pinks! Delicious!) and a blunt, creaturely yearning for beauty. She filled her eyes with their saturated colors and thought of all of you, all of us, and wished this wish:

“I hope my powder pigeons are right now pushing their chairs back from their desks, looking out the window for a friendly chickadee or slash of turquoise sky, laughing belly laughs with a trusted friend, feeding themselves with something exquisite and nourishing instead of grabbing a granola bar in the car, and taking a few moments on the way out of the hospital to stop in the gift shop to play with the stuffed animals before they head to their next meeting. I hope some of them are stopping to inhale the smell of their children’s nap-sweaty heads, getting a massage, painting their toenails Dutch Tulip red, sneaking off for an afternoon at the movies, stirring a pot of intoxicating chowder for a posse of pals, or making love. I hope they are stopping to breathe, to absorb color and light, to let music wash over them like a divine anointing, and allowing themselves uninterrupted moments of simple human pleasure.”

Here in the northeast we’re just starting the Drab Time of year. So from here on in until the chinook starts blowing in, I will try to have tulips in my home to remind me of all the glory that abounds, even under the tired-looking snow and in the austere New England winter landscape.

Be beautiful!

Super Eye/Lip Cream

I also tested this wonderful product, Hope In A Tube by Philosophy while on vacation and am rather disappointed that I have plenty of lip moisturizers and eye creams on hand already, or I’d love an excuse to buy it. It is incredibly emollient but sinks right into the skin without leaving a greasy residue. The scent is very, very subtle so this is something I would recommend to our fellas, too.

I suspect that this eye cream would be doing even better things for my crow’s feet than my current Roc product with retinoids in it, but I’m not about to spend $33 to switch now. I’ll wait until my Roc is finished, which should be in about four months. So far I’m not impressed with it, but you do need to use an eye cream for awhile to see real benefits. I use some kind of eye cream religiously and I think it’s paying off, since a Florida woman at the karaoke bar the other night said she thought that I was TWENTY THREE or so!! God bless her dear, overly-tanned heart!! Speaking of which, the sun does still shine in the winter months, northern people, so let’s not forego our SPF protection as an excuse. PeaceBang is watching!

Jonathan Silky Dirt: PeaceBang Review

My exquisite lovelies!

PeaceBang has been away, yes, but she brought oodles of testers with her and wants to share some of the stash with you!

First of all, I am in love with this product by Jonathan,
whose enormous ego and chic Beverly Hills salon were featured on a Bravo reality TV show a few seasons back, if memory serves.

It’s expensive, but you use a very little at a time, emulsify in your palms for awhile before distributing through damp or dry hair. Be sure to towel dry before using if you want to get the best effect.