When a Friend is Pregnant

I just read a wonderful article called What If You Were That Friend? by Tricia Goyer. Tricia offers 6 specific steps you can take to be the kind of friend Jesus would want you to be when you find out a friend is pregnant. She knows what she is talking about, having "been there" herself.

For a chance to win Tricia's amazing book, My Life Unscripted: Who's Writing Your Life?, please leave a comment here (with a valid email address so that I can contact you if you win) by Jan 31, 2008. If you post a link to this thread somewhere and send me the link, you will earn an additional entry in the drawing for each link you send me. I will gladly share this book with one blog reader when I draw a name in early February.

Gonna Wash That Dullness Right Out of My Hair!

Ever wonder how to get your hair a bit shinner? There is one very simple trick that can help. Wash and condition your hair in nice warm water, being sure to rinse, rinse, rinse it well! (You probably need to rinse about twice as long as you think you do in order to get all the soap out.) Then do a final rinse with cool to cold water. This will help close down the hair follicles and help turn dullness to beautiful shine!

While rinsing with cold water, use this same technique with your skin as well. Wash your face with a gentle soap and warm water. Rinse well, then splash you face with an invigorating splash of very cold water to help keep your skin healthy and fight away dirt and grime.

TBIO (Turn Beauty Inside Out)

What a great site! TBIO was started a group of girls, ages 8-16, "to invite people everywhere to join us in celebrating Inner Beauty - the beauty of conviction, caring and action. Girls and boys (not to speak of women and men) need a definition of beauty that focuses on who they are and what they do, not on how they look." Activities of TBIO include looking for "Bad Ads" and mailing them back to the creators with "GirlCaught" Stickers to let advertisers know that we won't buy into messages that promote unhealthy self-images or other poor values! Be sure to visit TBIO today!

Clean, Tone, Moisturize

There are 3 basic steps every woman should observe when it comes to beauty, the building blocks that create the healthy skin needed before any beauty products go on the face. These are clean, tone and moisturize.

To do these things step by step, first you start by cleaning, washing away old layers of beauty products, dirt, oil, and the yucky stuff of daily life that clings to you.

Then, with clean pores and fresh face, toning tightens those pores back down, preventing new polution from too easily settling in and infecting those freshly cleaned places of vunerability.

And finally you follow these steps with a refreshing moisturizer, preferably oil-free especially for young skin, that will help your thirsty face drink in healthy nurishment. It may seem strange to moisturize your face when you have just stripped away your own natural oils, but suprisingly moisturizing actually will help keep your face from a vicious cycle of overproduction of your own pore-clogging oil. Left to tackle the dried out skin on it's own, your face will actually do itself more harm than good in oil production. Sun protection with your moisturizer offers you even more protection against the attack of the emements against your skin!

Believe it or not these same three steps can be applied to our quest for inner beauty. First we must come before God with all the yucky stuff in our life, our unkind thoughts, our unkind actions, our failures of all kinds, and ask His forgiveness. His Son, Jesus Christ is the only perfect person in all history, yet He died a criminal's death to pay the consequences for every wrong I will ever do. By admitting to God that I know I've messed up in life and asking His forgiveness, I am forgiven and made "clean" on the inside, forever!

While His forgiveness in forever I will unfortunately continue to blow it in life, making mistake after mistake. Since forgiveness does not make me perfect in the way I live my life, I need to continue to go to Him and admit to Him when I have made wrong choices. Just as my face feels freed from the grime of life and refreshed with soap and water, confessing to God my failures makes me feel freed and cleaned within too.

As I get to know God and ask Him for wisdom each day to live my life, He will put a greater and greater desire with in me to make better choices. This is much like the toning stage of beauty. The Bible tells me to " put on the full armor of God" every day to protect myself from those things that try to make me "dirty" again. I do this by seeking truthfulnees, righteousness (living a right life for God), remebering the love of God that would allow Him to take the punishment I deserve, and seeking to spend time with God daily.

If I have my "pores tightened down" to keep yucky stuff out, I also need to be "moisturizing" to put good stuff in so that I'm not messing things up more by trying to do it all on my own. How can I "moisturize" my heart? Jesus, who not only died to pay the price for the worst things I could ever do, but who also has power over death and lives again now and forever, calls Himself the "Living Water"! I can't think of any better "moisturizer" than that!!! To apply this kind of protection to my heart, I need to spend as much time with God as I can both talking to Him and listening to what He wants to say back to me.

What girl doesn't love to read a love letter? That's really what the Bible is, God's love letter to us, explaining just what Jesus did, why He did it, and the amazing love that would take all my dirt and make me His beautiful bride. I listen to what God wants to tell me by reading His Word, the Bible. Prayer is simply talking with God and sharing my heart with Him too. This is the best kind of beauty I could ever hope for!

Radiant Beauty

No matter how much makeup or what outward beauty steps you try, if you aren't at peace inside, that radiant joy won't shine through. But isn't it wonderful that God does bless us with the ability to enhance the skin He has given us when it doesn't quite reflect the beauty we feel inside? Just for fun, today I wanted to share with you pictures of my skin both before and after a simple treatment of mineral makeup.







It is my prayer that, with or without outward adornment, my face always reflects Jesus. What are you radiating today?

Anything and Everything For and About Dolls!

I've had so much fun playing around the Doll Diaries website today! Packed with articles, links and resources for everything doll-related, this is a great find for any American Girl or other doll lover.

Who's The Fairest?

You remember the storybook from when you were a kid. But when you stop being "Daddys Little Princess" and grow up to find that the mirror doesn't like you anymore...

My latest article on being "Beautifully Imperfect" is now available here.

Free Drawing for God Wants You to Shine

My friend Michelle Sutton is hosting a drawing for a free book happening from today only through Tuesday, July 31.

Author Stephanie Perry Moore weaves another great tale with 14-year old Faith Thomas, daughter of a popular Christian musician. She and friends Nellie, Hope, and Kendal face struggles that test their beliefs and their sense of worth. Through it all, Faith learns to trust God with everything from the trials of friendship to feelings for boys to the pressure of a beauty pageant. This unforgettable journey through a calendar year leads Faith and teen readers to discover the unique way God wants them to shine!

To enter the drawing, go to her Shoutlife page and sign her and leave a reply on her blog.

Feeling Like You Are Not Pretty Enough?

In a world where we are continually being told and shown what beautiful should look like, here is a reality check. What you see on t.v. the internet and magazines is NOT REAL!!! Watch these videos and you will see the computer process for making those pictures in process. Real beauty doesn't need computer enhancement.



"Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised."
- Proverbs 31:30 (NIV)

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight."
- 1 Peter 3:3-4 (NIV)

Do you ShoutLife?

Looking to meet other Christian kids online? Check out ShoutLife by starting with a safe site you know and working your way through our list of friends and quality teen groups linked there. This site is kind of like the idea of "MySpace" but with clear rules about content that is honoring to God. Be sure to check with your Mom or Dad before you register so that they can set safe limits for you like the ones we have in place for our Little Princess!

New Teen Magazine

While not strictly a "Christian" magazine, there is a new "clean" teen magazine that is "based on Christian principles" and will soon be launching. It's targeted for young men and women ages 13+ (into college years) and I will be contributing a regular column on beauty. Check it out at http://teenage.doubleedgedpublishing.com/

Here's what the publication says about itself. "You're at the hottest site for teen entertainment on the Internet. Here, you'll find fiction, poetry, product reviews, articles, and a lot more! Updated a couple times each week, you'll never have to wait long for new content! TeenAge is run by teens for teens."

Natural Skin Cancer Protection

Skincancer.org has produced an article on Sun Protection and Make Up stating, "Protecting your skin from the sun is one of the most important things you can do to keep your skin looking younger, longer. But it doesn't mean you have to slop heavy, sticky sunscreen on your face every morning. You can get excellent day-to-day sun protection from your cosmetics."

There is a new study out stating that skin cancer is drastically rising for young women. Mineral makeup makeup is formulated to help clear the skin and also contains natural sunscreen to protect us from damaging UV rays. Chemical-Free, broad-spectrum sun protection is found in titanium dioxide and zinc oxide.

Years of being exposed even to little amounts of sun can have deadly effects you may not even realize. Walking your dog, driving a car, and sitting in front of a sunny window are all examples of the type of sun exposure that you might not think of protecting yourself against. A person's risk for skin cancer doubles if he or she has had five or more sunburns. One blistering sunburn in childhood more than doubles a person's chances of developing melanoma later in life.

Salt and Seasoning

You may have noticed the address here is www.mineralz.blogspot.com while the site name is Inner Beauty Girlz. But what do mineralz (minerals) have to do with Inner Beauty? A lot, actually!

While I couldn't find the actual word "minerals" anywhere in my Bible, I did find several different, specific kinds of minerals referenced, and often used with instructions on living a beautiful life. If you want to see a list, check here on the Bible Gateway site (excellent resource for finding out what your Bible has to say about any topic).

We will look at several kinds of minerals in the months to come, but today I would like to start by talking a little about the mineral salt. Salt has been used for centuries to clean, disinfect and protect skin. God uses salt to explain how we should live toward those around us.

In the book of Matthew (5:13) we read, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men." What does this mean?

Have you ever tried to each something bland, like maybe a potato or some chicken noodle soup, without any salt? Imagine french fries without ketchup (yes, there's salt in ketchup) or any kind of seasoning at all. Yuck! That's kind of the idea here. If we just live our lives and never let anyone see God living in us, then we are not living for the purpose God created us and our time on this earth isn't worth very much.

The next verses of Matthew explain, "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." We are to be "salt" and "light" in this world so that through the choices we make, the words we say, the ways we live, our lives continually point others to God.

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Colossians 4:6 (NIV)


As a reminder of how God wants us to be "salt" in this world, enjoy some salts that pamper your skin! Mix equal parts of salt and olive oil, scent with a drop of esscential oil if desired, and enjoy as a luxious srub for your skin in the tub or shower!

Green Slime

From the privacy of my own home an indulgent mud mask might sound inviting. It claims to make me more beautiful, clear my complexion, soften my skin. Put it on, let it do its thing, wash it off, and I'm on my way with glowing skin! Sounds safe enough.

But what if when I went to wash my face, the green slime wouldn't come off? Could I ever go out in public again? Would I be willing to go to school or the mall like this? No way! I wouldn't even want to answer the doorbell!

What I had once thought I could keep private would suddenly be a source of shame! It's kind of the same with envy. While it might feel kind of good to let myself dwell on jealous or greedy thoughts about someone else in the quiet of my own head, what I think about has a way of becoming as obvious to the world as a permanent slime mask.

You've heard the saying, "green with envy" right? Well, think of envy like green mud that won't easily wash off. The Bible says, "A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones" (Proverbs 14:30). Holding envy in my heart not only hurts me inside, but it ultimately hurts my body as well. Only peaceful hearts bring beauty both inside and out!

Emily Rose (affordable doll clothes)

From A Life of Faith dolls, to P31 (Proverbs 31) girls, to the popular AG dolls, everyone seems to love 18-20 inch dolls these days! In addition to the great lines found through the toy companies themselves, "Emily Rose offers unique and affordable doll clothes, accessories and furniture for your American Girl Doll. Our Fine Furniture is always FREE SHIPPING."

Emily Rose - Doll Clothes & Accessories for American Girl

Don't know where to keep your doll and all her beautiful clothes? Have your parents take a look at these instructions for building your own doll cabinet. What a great find!

A Life of Faith encourages Beautiful Girlz

Thursday afternoons are so much fun! Each week I get to meet with six delightful young ladies from our homeschool co-op and explore lessons, games, crafts and activities from our A Life of Faith club. Club meeting are based around the stories Elsie Dinsmore and Millie Keith, two fictional characters from the early 1800s. While the stories are set in a time very different from our own, the concepts of living a life of beauty transcend time. Be sure to drop by the ALOF website and find out more!

Powder and Detail and Kabuki, Oh My! How to choose and use my brushes?

One of the unique features of mineral makeups is that they come in powder form rather than the liquid foundations many of us may be used to. And with powdered makeups come the need to learn about various makeup brushes. So, if you are wondering what the brushes are all about, here's a quick explanation about a few of the most common brushes, created by my friend Teresa:

Kabuki Brush - Foundation, Mineral Veil, Bronzers - Use to belnd and buff your entire face for a perfect finish.

Powder Brush - Foundation, Powder Me Again, Bronzers, Shimmer Powders, Blush

Powder Dispensing Brush - Fill with foundation, veils, blush

Chisel Brush - concealers, eye shadows and foiling the eye shadows, lips

Angle Brush - eyeliners, detailed shimmer powders and eye shadows

Detail Brush - eyeliners, lip liners, detail with eye shadows

Oval Lip Brush - Lip Products

Smudgers - for smudging eye liners and eye shadows right around the eyes, used a lot in smokey looks.

Pro Spoolie - (looks like a mascara brush) eyelashes and great for brushing and grooming (with a little hair spray, gel, etc) eyebrows into shape. Also, to remove powders trapped on eyebrows.

Fan Brushes - Use for blush on cheeks, foundation, etc. These should not move your foundation after it has been applied. Use with shimmers or bronzers also to highlight or contour the face.

"You're Blushing!"

Here's a wonderful article full of beauty tips and tricks, from Brio Magazine. Enjoy You're Blushing! Know of other helpful articles or links for beauty both inside and out? Please reply and share the treasures you have found.

Welcome to "Inner Beauty"

What started out as selling gentle, quality makeup that is great for young skin at affordable prices, has quickly has grown into a mother's passion to teach girls that beauty is much more than skin deep. This "Inner Beauty Blog" is dedicated in loving memory to our first daughter, Noel, who would be entering her "tween" years now. It is joyfully created in partnership with Noel's little sister, our own "Little Princess." To find out more about the concept of Inner Beauty, please visit my Affordable Mineral Makeup websites at InnerBeautyGirls.com and myAdult Inner Beauty Blog too.

Much more information and a ton of great links will be added to this blog in the days to come. Please come back and visit often! And don't forget to "subscribe" to the feed so that you always know when new posts are made.