I'll tell you what!
Getting a cold on Wednesday evening and being better by Saturday afternoon. Though this was not the sort of 3 day weekend I enjoy having, the rest was super important and the headaches would have made me a miserable person to be around anyway. So really I did everyone a favor, they maybe just don't know it. And knowing that the person that gave you the cold still doesn't feel well tells you your immune system flippin rocks.
Side note: I love run on sentences that should include a ; or a : but don't.
It's Father's Day. I'm off to see "Men In Black III" with my dad and stepmother. The movie choice was neither mine nor his but should be entertaining nonetheless. He is a good sport.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Safe Tanning...Part 1. (What is not safe?)
Oh my goodness, this is going to be a long post. And get this, I'm actually going to write about something semi serious. Is the way I eat and the way I take care of myself serious? Sure, for me anyway. Is what I think about why we do what we do when it comes to picking a mate, organizing our culture and so forth serious? Ummm, debatable. My opinion is not likely to influence yours in those areas at least.
But this is serious. Because it has to do with very basic health. I opened Yahoo! the other day to be confronted with a headline that read something to the effect of "Is sunless tanning safe?" I thought, hmmmm, interesting question. Safe as opposed to what? Spending time in the sun without "protection"? Sticking your arm in a vat of flesh eating bacteria? I would argue one of those things is in fact a really good idea (and that would not have anything to do with bacteria). So click away Hussy. Click away.
Click I do. Apparently ABC has gone undercover at a bunch of NYC spray tan salons. And they found the people that work there are maybe not PhD material. That's not to say most of them are not at least as smart as everyone else (though really that's not necessarily being kind either), but they've clearly fallen into the trap of believing what they've been told without question. Which frankly, most of us have at some point, and perhaps that's why there are so few PhD's in this world...Anyway.
We learn that the ingredient in sunless tanning lotions and sprays is called dihydroxyacetone. DHA for short. This will come into the story later, so just remember dihydroxyacetone is also known as DHA. We learn that DHA was approved for topical use waaaaaaaaay back in the 70's (in fact, before I was born). Since it's been used in spray tanning it has been an off label use. What does that mean?
Let's take the example of Botox for a moment. It was originally approved for use by the FDA for muscle spasms (basically). One of the approved uses was to treat twitchy eyes (frankly they'd have to be pretty damn twitchy for me to agree to allow someone to inject a poison so close to my eyes, but I do not judge-I'm betting the people who used it in such a manner were really really twitchy. Moving on.). Somewhere along the line someone thought, "Hey! This stuff seems to help smooth wrinkles when injected so close to the eye! I wonder..." and a multi-billion dollar off use was born.
Back to industrial chemical DHA. So back in the 70's the FDA approved it for topical use but sometime recently (can't find a definitve date, but it's been within the last 10-15 years, I don't think longer than that.) some smart person figured out how to make the stuff come out of a spray nozzle and an industry was born.
So we're back to the question: is this stuff safe?
Have you smelled that shit? Hells to the no, that stuff is not safe! It is stinky and makes you cough. Now, I'm not saying that everything stinky is bad for you. If it weren't for some brave soul that got past the stink of curdled milk, we wouldn't have yoghurt. Also, Durian fruit, AKA stink fruit is apparently quite good (though an acquired taste perhaps?), and has lots of lovely antioxidants. So no, stinky does not always mean bad-when it comes to nature. When someone made it in a lab? Probably not so good. But if you were to listen to the people in the tanning salons, it's as safe as safe is safe. It's probably even safer than sleeping! Ok, so they don't say that, but you do get various claims that it's a treatment for cancer(?!?!) and totally all kinds of safe for the preggers among us.
Now it's one thing to put that stuff on top of your skin, as you would in a lotion (though I have to say here, skin is SEMI-permeable. It does let some stuff in. That's why your fingers get wrinkly in the bath...your skin is allowing the water to soak in-just not enough to make you a watery blob.). It's quite another thing to inhale a bajillion aerosoled particles that were never approved for inhalation in the first place. They do go on to mention in the report that some studies may or may not show that this crap does penetrate beyond the stratum cornium (that's fancy people talk for the uppermost layer of skin. Which by the way is made up of dead cells so it shouldn't matter too too much what you put on it if it's not just going to burn straight through...goodness I love to talk about skin. I should stop now!), and may or may not in fact enact changes within the living cells below. May or may not? Possibly maybe????? Sounds like possibly maybe you should just say no to DHA in general.
The main focus of the story though is breathing-that-poop-in (on a side note, this is also why you should close the lid before you flush - aerosoled poop all up on your bathroom surfaces!). Your lungs seriously have, like, no protection peoples! It's your nose hairs and that's about it. Sure, there's some mucous membranes between your nose and the insides of your lungs, but they're just not equipped to deal with A BAJILLION AEROSOLED PARTICLES OF DUBIOUS INTENTIONS. They deal mostly with cold air and the random germ. It's bringing a knife to the gun fight guys. No bueno. This stuff is shown in the lab to maybe possibly damage and mutate cells. That's bad. That's super bad when those cells are in your lungs. I can't think of a better place for them to be inside the body at the moment, but I know my lungs are not going to be my first choice.
So they show all these studies to doctors and whatnot. None are too thrilled and are now going to recommend all their patients be white as a ghost and to just take Vitamin D because our bodies may have evolved under that most blessed life giving orb of warmness, but they're clearly too stupid to not develop cancer from the merest thought of the sun's rays.
Part 2 will be my opinion on all that mess. I have a feeling though you can guess what that opinion may be.
The undercover reporter decides to go back to some of the tanning salons with these studies in hand. Ok, so this is my favorite part. And when I say favorite it's like saying "I really enjoyed the train wreck you're about to see". They go to the dude that said it's safe for pregnant women and show him the studies and ask if they change his mind. Holy hell's bells you guys...he opens a bottle of the tanning spray and DRINKS IT. He drinks it! Oh. My. God. It's been days and I am seriously still not over this. But then again, he probably isn't either ;)
I wonder if he's already procreated, or has done us all a favor with that stunt by removing himself from the gene pool. Oh, he happens to be the head trainer for a string of tanning salons. That's just great.
You'll remember earlier that I made kinda a big deal about the abbreviation for this industrial chemical as being DHA. DHA may ring a bell for you. It is also the abbreviation of one of the oh so good for you long chain essential fatty acids found in fish. Fish oil, industrial chemical...totally the same thing right?!
Ok, so you think, well these people are maybe a bit dim and somehow are confusing one DHA for the other. I totally get their confusion. Not really. My initials are MLH, that does not mean anyone else with said initials is me. Nope. Only I am me. That's a little bit of truth right there.
You're saying now, "Hussy, some people are just dumb though right?". Well yeah, but critical thinking comes at a premium in this day and age. While you or I would not think that all things that can abbreviate to DHA are the same, most people just believe what they're told, and that seems to be the case here.
So who the flip told these people DHA is used in cancer treatment (may I also note here that chemotherapy and radiation are used in cancer treatment? Don't count on me signing up for a round of either any time soon), is approved as a food grade material, and is way super totally safe? Oh, that would be Norvell Skin Solutions. Apparently they're one of the largest manufacturers of the shit. What's that you say Roche/FDA? Accutane is way super safe too? Oh, good to know, I'll use that the next time I have a breakout then. For sure.
In an effort to make sure their customers are educated on their product, Norvell apparently runs what they call Norvell University. This is quite common, and I'm not bashing them for this. Though I am giving them poop for calling it University. Please! This is spray tanning people, not science. Anyway. I cannot tell you how many product knowledge seminars and whatnot I attended when I was a full time esthetician. They're good things. Unless they're telling you major stupid shit like the stuff in spry tans that turns your skin orange is the same thing in fish oil. Then that's not so much a good thing at all because there are not enough critical thinkers that want to work at a tanning salon. There just aren't. These kids just wanted a "cool" easy job and that's it.
Norvell "University" won't be telling people that now. Apparently they were confused by the whole "this DHA is not like the other" too. Why? I couldn't tell you, being that they must have at least one chemist on staff...don't think too hard on it Hussy, you'll get yourself in trouble! But no worries, because ABC news set them straight. Why a news organization had to do that...once again, I admonish myself to not think too hard on it. I don't make enough money for that kind of trouble.
Bottom line, if it was created in a chemical factory, maybe not so good to put all over your body and breathe in? Maybe?
But this is serious. Because it has to do with very basic health. I opened Yahoo! the other day to be confronted with a headline that read something to the effect of "Is sunless tanning safe?" I thought, hmmmm, interesting question. Safe as opposed to what? Spending time in the sun without "protection"? Sticking your arm in a vat of flesh eating bacteria? I would argue one of those things is in fact a really good idea (and that would not have anything to do with bacteria). So click away Hussy. Click away.
Click I do. Apparently ABC has gone undercover at a bunch of NYC spray tan salons. And they found the people that work there are maybe not PhD material. That's not to say most of them are not at least as smart as everyone else (though really that's not necessarily being kind either), but they've clearly fallen into the trap of believing what they've been told without question. Which frankly, most of us have at some point, and perhaps that's why there are so few PhD's in this world...Anyway.
We learn that the ingredient in sunless tanning lotions and sprays is called dihydroxyacetone. DHA for short. This will come into the story later, so just remember dihydroxyacetone is also known as DHA. We learn that DHA was approved for topical use waaaaaaaaay back in the 70's (in fact, before I was born). Since it's been used in spray tanning it has been an off label use. What does that mean?
Let's take the example of Botox for a moment. It was originally approved for use by the FDA for muscle spasms (basically). One of the approved uses was to treat twitchy eyes (frankly they'd have to be pretty damn twitchy for me to agree to allow someone to inject a poison so close to my eyes, but I do not judge-I'm betting the people who used it in such a manner were really really twitchy. Moving on.). Somewhere along the line someone thought, "Hey! This stuff seems to help smooth wrinkles when injected so close to the eye! I wonder..." and a multi-billion dollar off use was born.
Back to industrial chemical DHA. So back in the 70's the FDA approved it for topical use but sometime recently (can't find a definitve date, but it's been within the last 10-15 years, I don't think longer than that.) some smart person figured out how to make the stuff come out of a spray nozzle and an industry was born.
So we're back to the question: is this stuff safe?
Have you smelled that shit? Hells to the no, that stuff is not safe! It is stinky and makes you cough. Now, I'm not saying that everything stinky is bad for you. If it weren't for some brave soul that got past the stink of curdled milk, we wouldn't have yoghurt. Also, Durian fruit, AKA stink fruit is apparently quite good (though an acquired taste perhaps?), and has lots of lovely antioxidants. So no, stinky does not always mean bad-when it comes to nature. When someone made it in a lab? Probably not so good. But if you were to listen to the people in the tanning salons, it's as safe as safe is safe. It's probably even safer than sleeping! Ok, so they don't say that, but you do get various claims that it's a treatment for cancer(?!?!) and totally all kinds of safe for the preggers among us.
Now it's one thing to put that stuff on top of your skin, as you would in a lotion (though I have to say here, skin is SEMI-permeable. It does let some stuff in. That's why your fingers get wrinkly in the bath...your skin is allowing the water to soak in-just not enough to make you a watery blob.). It's quite another thing to inhale a bajillion aerosoled particles that were never approved for inhalation in the first place. They do go on to mention in the report that some studies may or may not show that this crap does penetrate beyond the stratum cornium (that's fancy people talk for the uppermost layer of skin. Which by the way is made up of dead cells so it shouldn't matter too too much what you put on it if it's not just going to burn straight through...goodness I love to talk about skin. I should stop now!), and may or may not in fact enact changes within the living cells below. May or may not? Possibly maybe????? Sounds like possibly maybe you should just say no to DHA in general.
The main focus of the story though is breathing-that-poop-in (on a side note, this is also why you should close the lid before you flush - aerosoled poop all up on your bathroom surfaces!). Your lungs seriously have, like, no protection peoples! It's your nose hairs and that's about it. Sure, there's some mucous membranes between your nose and the insides of your lungs, but they're just not equipped to deal with A BAJILLION AEROSOLED PARTICLES OF DUBIOUS INTENTIONS. They deal mostly with cold air and the random germ. It's bringing a knife to the gun fight guys. No bueno. This stuff is shown in the lab to maybe possibly damage and mutate cells. That's bad. That's super bad when those cells are in your lungs. I can't think of a better place for them to be inside the body at the moment, but I know my lungs are not going to be my first choice.
So they show all these studies to doctors and whatnot. None are too thrilled and are now going to recommend all their patients be white as a ghost and to just take Vitamin D because our bodies may have evolved under that most blessed life giving orb of warmness, but they're clearly too stupid to not develop cancer from the merest thought of the sun's rays.
Part 2 will be my opinion on all that mess. I have a feeling though you can guess what that opinion may be.
The undercover reporter decides to go back to some of the tanning salons with these studies in hand. Ok, so this is my favorite part. And when I say favorite it's like saying "I really enjoyed the train wreck you're about to see". They go to the dude that said it's safe for pregnant women and show him the studies and ask if they change his mind. Holy hell's bells you guys...he opens a bottle of the tanning spray and DRINKS IT. He drinks it! Oh. My. God. It's been days and I am seriously still not over this. But then again, he probably isn't either ;)
I wonder if he's already procreated, or has done us all a favor with that stunt by removing himself from the gene pool. Oh, he happens to be the head trainer for a string of tanning salons. That's just great.
You'll remember earlier that I made kinda a big deal about the abbreviation for this industrial chemical as being DHA. DHA may ring a bell for you. It is also the abbreviation of one of the oh so good for you long chain essential fatty acids found in fish. Fish oil, industrial chemical...totally the same thing right?!
Ok, so you think, well these people are maybe a bit dim and somehow are confusing one DHA for the other. I totally get their confusion. Not really. My initials are MLH, that does not mean anyone else with said initials is me. Nope. Only I am me. That's a little bit of truth right there.
You're saying now, "Hussy, some people are just dumb though right?". Well yeah, but critical thinking comes at a premium in this day and age. While you or I would not think that all things that can abbreviate to DHA are the same, most people just believe what they're told, and that seems to be the case here.
So who the flip told these people DHA is used in cancer treatment (may I also note here that chemotherapy and radiation are used in cancer treatment? Don't count on me signing up for a round of either any time soon), is approved as a food grade material, and is way super totally safe? Oh, that would be Norvell Skin Solutions. Apparently they're one of the largest manufacturers of the shit. What's that you say Roche/FDA? Accutane is way super safe too? Oh, good to know, I'll use that the next time I have a breakout then. For sure.
In an effort to make sure their customers are educated on their product, Norvell apparently runs what they call Norvell University. This is quite common, and I'm not bashing them for this. Though I am giving them poop for calling it University. Please! This is spray tanning people, not science. Anyway. I cannot tell you how many product knowledge seminars and whatnot I attended when I was a full time esthetician. They're good things. Unless they're telling you major stupid shit like the stuff in spry tans that turns your skin orange is the same thing in fish oil. Then that's not so much a good thing at all because there are not enough critical thinkers that want to work at a tanning salon. There just aren't. These kids just wanted a "cool" easy job and that's it.
Norvell "University" won't be telling people that now. Apparently they were confused by the whole "this DHA is not like the other" too. Why? I couldn't tell you, being that they must have at least one chemist on staff...don't think too hard on it Hussy, you'll get yourself in trouble! But no worries, because ABC news set them straight. Why a news organization had to do that...once again, I admonish myself to not think too hard on it. I don't make enough money for that kind of trouble.
Bottom line, if it was created in a chemical factory, maybe not so good to put all over your body and breathe in? Maybe?
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Hypopigmentation achived...yay!
Why on earth would I be happy about white spots on my rapidly tanning body? Because it means a spot is healed. Not just ANY spot either. The test spot. Now there's just a white spot. I'll take it. It will brown up shortly. That is all. Probably not. But that is all for this post.
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