beauty

Health and Beauty: Coastal Tea Company Ginger Mint Green Tea

September 18, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Last week I eagerly clicked a link on what models were drinking to achieve their luminous skin during NYFW. It was…green tea. Didn’t we know this already? Whether you are new to the skin and health wonders of green tea or a tea devotee, you should definitely try Coastal Tea Company Ginger Mint Green Tea.

OVERVIEW: This is a tangy and crisp Green Tea, perfect for the end of summer, beginning of autumn.

Coastal Tea Company Ginger Mint Green Tea

WHY WE LIKE GREEN TEA:
On average, we try to drink two cups of Green Tea per day. Green Tea makes for glowing, youthful skin; as it reduces inflammation (such as puffy undereye bags), rids the cells of aging free radicals and helps boost the metabolism resulting in more energy and weight management. Green Tea also has health benefits for heart and brain health and is considered beneficial for cancer prevention.

The Green Tea that one drinks can make all the difference in gaining benefits. To get real beauty and health benefits from Green Tea, it takes two things: 1) find a reputable company that produces safe, quality, fresh green tea from whole leaves, not “tea dust” and 2) find an enjoyable flavor you will enjoy drinking consistently

FINDING A REPUTABLE GREEN TEA COMPANY FOR QUALITY TEA:
Two key considerations when seeking a good tea brand is the quality of the tea and the safety of the tea.

TEA SAFETY: StyleChicks recently reviewed the Coastal Tea Company, and we were very impressed with the efforts they take to produce tea that is not only high quality, fresh whole leaf tea, but they strictly regulate their production to sell only small-batch, fresh tea with no trace of radiation or lead. Tea leaves, like other vegetation, is subject to soaking in the nutrients from the ground. Sometimes that ground contains metal traces including lead, and some areas where tea is grown have been subject to high levels of radiation. Coastal Tea Company takes extensive measures to avoid both risks, see more about the Coastal Tea Company here in our review of their Mango Green Tea.

TEA QUALITY: The most value from Green Tea comes from fresh, full leaves containing the highest levels of EGCG (Epigallocatechin Gallate) and polyphenols (the chief antioxidants). These high levels are not found in green tea “dust,” or the leftover remaindered older teas. Look for loose tea that has large, fresh pieces of dried leaves visible within the tea mix and a low amount of “dust” in the mix. Any inclusions to flavor the tea, such as dried fruit, nuts, or petals, should be generous in size and fresh. A fresh tea has a tasty, full aroma.

FINDING A FLAVOR OF TEA YOU LIKE
It is important to find an enjoyable flavor of Green Tea because Green Tea is for some, an acquired taste. It may, in fact, not be YOUR cup of tea if you don’t enjoy drinking it. Green Tea can taste somewhat vegetal, and often requires some sweetener or flavoring to enhance it, especially for someone new to drinking full leaf, fresh green tea. Fresh Green Tea has a richer, fuller taste than many commercially pre-bottled, pre- sweetened sugar drinks with Green Tea as an ingredient.

WHAT MAKES COASTAL TEA COMPANY GINGER MINT GREEN TEA SPECIAL?

Coastal Tea Company’s Ginger Mint Green Tea is a 100% loose leaf sencha green tea blend with dried ginger pieces, lemongrass, and Moroccan Mint. It has a crisp taste without being too tart or bitter. The Ginger is nicely tempered by the mellow Moroccan Mint, which surprised me as a tasty combination of flavors. The Lemongrass was a surprise enhancing ingredient in this blend because typically lemongrass tastes just plain grassy to me. But in this tea blend, playing off the other flavors, it is quite good – sort of a crisp tanginess without being bitter. For those new to Green Tea, a small amount of sugar or honey could be added, but even our non-Tea loving friends and family have enjoyed this blend.

Coastal Tea Company Ginger Mint Green Tea

INCLUSION: Any inclusions to flavor the tea should look fresh as well. The chunks of ginger are plentiful and big. They are full, solid chunk slices, not gritty partial crumbling shards of ginger. How they appear in the pictures is how the tea looks poured directly out of the bag. The lemongrass pieces are plentiful and unbruised. The mint leaves were large pieces of fuller leaves. Notice how all the pieces of tea and inclusions are in good shape, they look fresh and there is no tea dust.

Coastal Tea Company Ginger Mint Green Tea

NATURAL FLAVORS: Coastal Tea Company uses all natural flavorings. There are no chemicals or additives; the flavor comes just from the inclusion ingredients, in this case, the Lemongrass, Ginger and the Mint.

TASTY: Not everyone likes the taste of Green Tea. This Ginger Mint has a crisp, tangy taste; the sweet Moroccan Mint balances the tart taste of the ginger surprisingly well.

FULL LOOSE LEAVES: The tea is actual large leaf and full leave pieces, leaves, not dust or remaindered tea. This is the freshest type of tea, the best of the batch, and it holds the most anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer benefits.

PREPARATION
Bring water to almost the boiling point but not a full boil. This makes Green tea brew better and tastes less bitter. Don’t over steep the brew, brew for no more than 2 – 4 minutes.

The tea has a lovely, pale yellow hue and tastes of ginger, lemongrass, and Moroccan mint. I got a second full-pot brew out of the same leaves that were just a flavorful as the first.

CONCLUSION: A tasty, natural tea that has all the benefits I look for in a green loose leaf tea without any of the risks associated with some loose leaf tea brands. I am impressed by the strict standards and precautions Coastal Tea Company undertakes to ensure their teas are fresh and safe.

Coastal Tea Company Ginger Mint Green Tea

Find this tasty tea at Amazon.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYyVSm2UCG8[/embedyt]

I received this product for testing and review purposes. If you have any questions about my experience with it, leave it in the comments section below, and Iâ€™ll do my best to answer it!

Tea Tuesday: Coastal Tea Company Mango Green Tea

September 6, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Coastal Tea Company’s Mango Green Tea

Here at Style Chicks, we drink lots of green tea. Green tea is a beauty powerhouse for youthful, glowing skin as well as a metabolism and energy booster. For example, studies indicate if you have a cup of green tea each day instead of your standard afternoon coffee for a year, that alone can result in up to a ten-pound weight loss. But to get the beauty benefits that green tea can offer, the brand of tea one chooses is critical in order to make sure it is the quality of tea to derive benefits. And, if you are not a fan of green tea, it helps if it is a tasty, flavorful tea. Coastal Tea Company makes a delicious Mango Green worth giving a try.

GREEN TEA
Green Tea has often been touted as the miracle drink for glowing skin, weight control, increased energy, improved immunity, and reducing inflammation. EGCG in doses of green tea shown to be effective in preliminary studies for cancer prevention. Multiple cups of green tea per day are associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers. But not all green teas are created equal when it comes to taste, quality, EGCG levels, freshness, and safety.

WHAT MAKES COASTAL TEA COMPANY MANGO GREEN TEA SPECIAL?

– Coastal Tea Company’s Mango Green Tea is a 100% leaf sencha green tea blend with dried mango pieces with hints of peach and mint. The chunks of mango are plentiful and big, how they appear in the pictures is how the tea looks poured directly out of the bag, they were not “arranged” for the photo. What you see is what you get.

– All natural. There are no artificial flavors, chemicals or additives for flavor.

– It is tasty. Green tea can taste somewhat vegetal and is something of an acquired taste. This mango tea has a sweet mango and peach flavor with a notable mint infusion.

– The tea is actual full leaves, not dust or remaindered tea. This is the freshest type of tea, the best of the batch, and it holds the most benefits. The batches are small batches to ensure freshness and quality.

– In addition to being an organic green tea that is tasty, low caffeine and healthy, Coastal Tea Company takes special efforts to avoid the risks associated with green tea: lead and radiation.

Coastal Tea Company’s Mango Green Tea

LEAD
A concern with the otherwise incredible health benefits of green full leaf tea is the level of lead it can contain. This problem is inherent to green tea, as it is highly prone to absorb chemical pollution, especially so in leaves picked in China. This problem exists in many brands of tea. The cost of the tea is not necessarily always correlated to the probability of higher levels lead, but small batch, hand-picked teas had the least possibility of containing lead.

According to the New York Times Well Blog, an independent study analyzed the lead content of various brands of green tea leaves. The study stated that the leaves in the Lipton and Bigelow tea bags contained 1.25 to 2.5 micrograms of lead per serving. (Whatâ€™s in Your Green Tea?, May 23, 1013)

Coastal Tea screens their tea leaves for lead and metal traces by running it through a metal detector, a sorting machine, and a heavy magnet to sort out any tea leaves that have absorbed any lead or metals. I haven’t heard of a company taking such efforts to screen their tea leaves, but it gives me much more confidence that Coastal Tea Co teas are safe.

RADIATION
Another risk for green tea leaves is it is susceptible to absorbing radiation. While this is chiefly a concern with matchas (because the leaf is actually consumed not just steeped), it is something to be aware of in the selection of tea. Coastal Tea tests tea for radiation levels, as well as only selects tea leaves from areas that are known as safe (Uju City) and have never had reports of radiated tea.

TASTE
Brewed for 2-5 minutes, the tea has a lovely, golden-yellow hue and tastes of peach, mango, and a crisp, fresh-tasting mint. I got a second brew out of the same leaves that were just a flavorful as the first.

Coastal Tea Company’s Mango Green Tea

Find this tasty tea at Amazon.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggqv2SkshiQ[/embedyt]

I received this product for testing and review purposes. If you have any questions about my experience with it, leave it in the comments section below, and Iâ€™ll do my best to answer it!

Tea Tree Oil: How to Use Tea Tree Oil

July 22, 2016 · 2 Comments

Brooklyn Botany Tea Tree Oil

Tea Tree Oil is well known for its’ antiseptic, antibacterial, antivirus properties, as well as having a scent that repels mosquitos, Tea Tree Oil also has several beauty and health applications that make it a powerful multi-tasker in your beauty arsenal.

Tea Tree Oil Beauty Uses for Skin and Hair

Read ways to use Tea Tree Oil in this post entitled How to Use Tea Tree Oil for Skin and Hair.

ABOUT BROOKLYN BOTANY TEA TREE OIL

This Ultra Pure Essential Oil is 45% Terpinen-4-ol, the active ingredient in Tea Tree Oil. This is a Therapeutic Grade Oil, suitable for use on hair and skin.

It comes sealed with a cap and overwrap in an amber bottle. There is an included glass dropper for once the bottle is unsealed. It is one ounce.

CONCLUSION

A very useful product, this Brooklyn Botany Tea Tree Oil is a high enough grade oil to be used on skin and hair. Good price and well-packaged.

Where to buy it

Find it at Amazon.com.

I received this product in exchange for testing and review purposes. If you have any questions about my experience with it, leave it in the comments section below, and Iâ€™ll do my best to answer it!

The Kermax Hair Loss System: Three Months Later

May 13, 2016 · Leave a Comment

It’s been three months since I started using the KerMaxÂ Hair Loss System â€“ time flies! I am quite impressed with the KerMax line in reducing my hair loss issue.

The great part about the regime is the ease of use. The shampoo and conditioner are no-brainer replacements for your standard shower routine, and the day and night treatments are simple and non-greasy. In fact, using them takes far less time than futile attempts to style your hair into looking fuller and covering thinned out spots.

Let’s talk about the shampoo and conditioner first. The first time I used the shampoo, I squirted out way too much. Give the bottle a gentle squeeze: it is a lightweight formulation, not a thick, heavy cream. You also don’t need much of the shampoo to get your hair clean. It doesn’t lather, but you can feel it in your hair, so don’t worry about missing spots. It also washes out quickly and cleanly: no rough scrubbing is necessary, just gently massage it out of your hair. It won’t give you a squeaky clean feel, but really, that isn’t good for your hair whether you have a hair loss issue or not. My hair felt clean and soft from the first use.

The same goes for the conditioner. It is a lightweight formula, but it gets the job done. My hair was shiny and bouncy after using this conditioner, and it didn’t take long to wash out. It also washed out cleanly and didn’t leave residue behind. So not only did my shampoo and conditioning routine leave my hair in great condition, but it shaved time off of my shower in the morning. Can’t beat that!

The two treatment products are just as easy to use. The Essential Day Foam is a quick and easy morning treatment on areas that need some rejuvenation. It dries down with no stickiness or residue, which surprised and delighted me. I put it on when my hair is wet to get maximum coverage of the scalp, and then proceed with styling. The hair it gets on looks just as clean and shiny as the rest of my hair, which is nice. The nighttime treatment, the Thickening hair serum, is a little thicker and leave a bit more residue behind, but it isn’t significant, and it didn’t affect the appearance of my hair on the mornings where I used it at night and wasn’t able to wash my hair in the morning.

Of course, the ease of use means nothing unless the product line delivers results. KerMax absolutely does! In the first month and a half or so I knew that I was gentler on my hair since I didn’t have to be as rough on my hair in the shower, and that would help slow my hair loss. Then I started noticing something: there was far less hair left in my brush after I used it. I went from a disturbing amount of hair coming out in the shower to virtually none. I didn’t have to use a lint brush to remove hairs from my clothes during the day. In short, my hair shedding reduced dramatically. WOW!

Top: My hairline before I started using KerMax. Bottom: My current hairline thanks to the Kermax System!

I am very impressed with the KerMax line. While my hairline has not returned to its full former glory, it is making its way back to healthy hair, and KerMax has been a huge part of that. Really, to have ANY restoration in a short three month’s time is practically unheard of, so I am really looking forward to seeing what happens with continued use, and the fact that KerMax is an all natural line is a significant bonus for me. For anyone suffering hair loss or thinning, I wholeheartedly recommend the KerMax line!

KerMax available in Canada at all Shoppers Drug Mart locations, and in the United States at all CVS locations, and CVS online. Find more information about KerMax at Kermax.com!Â Also,Â learn more about KerMax on theirÂ website,Â Facebook,Â Twitter, andÂ Youtube!

KerMax Product Line

I was compensated for my time and effort; however, my experience with the product and the opinions expressed in this review are 100% mine.

The KerMax Hair Loss System

February 19, 2016 · 10 Comments

I hope if you saw me on the street you wouldnâ€™t think â€œshe has a problem with hair loss.â€

ME AND MY HAIR

For many people, thick full hair equates to beauty and youth. The women in my family have always had thick, strong, full, and silky hair. Strangers regularly compliment my hair. Well into her 80â€™s, my Grandmotherâ€™s hair was silky, dark and thick â€“ you would never have guessed her age from her hairline, practically no thinning, sparseness, or loss of density. I always considered my hair one of the best, if not my best, feature. I always take good care of my hair with quality brushes, shampoos, treatments and avoided damaging treatments. No styles that pull on my hair, and no hot irons or harsh chemicals on my scalp.

So you can imagine my surprise when otherwise healthy and looks conscious me started to lose my thick, full hair – I had hair thinning in spots that became hard to conceal.

MY HAIR THINNING STORY

We donâ€™t hear much about women losing their hair: but it is common, as many as 40-50% of women experience hair thinning (also known as FPHL or Female Pattern Hair Loss). And many of these are not older women who are experiencing hair loss as a normal part of aging: it happens to younger, active women even in their thirties, like me. Some women lose for known medical reasons, others due to stress, medications, pregnancy or even rapid weight loss.

The reason for my hair loss is a common stressor that at some point affects almost all of us: the death of a loved one. In my case, my hair loss happened after the sudden illness and death of my beloved father. After nearly two months of staying at the hospital with him nearly around the clock, subsisting on coffee, barely eating or sleeping through the ups and downs and all the stress, I rapidly lost weight from my poor diet, and my hair became noticeably thin in spots.

I went to the doctor. The bloodwork and tests showed nothing hormonally or otherwise wrong with me that would cause hair loss at my age and my health â€“ but he did tell me about the impact of all that stress, the physical exhaustion, and the grief. The same stress that caused the loss of sleep and poor nutrition that resulted in the rapid weight loss caused my hair to become thinner in a way that became hard to conceal by just by altering my hairstyle to conceal the thinning sections. I thought that it would improve over time, like how I got my back to my normal, healthy weight. But the hair loss hasnâ€™t markedly improved over time. I began to investigate my options.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT MY HAIR LOSS?

I knew what I didnâ€™t want: I was not interested in any kind of hair extension or makeup to conceal the scalp skin; I wanted to deal with the problem, not cover it. I didnâ€™t want to do anything risky with medications or treatments. I wanted a treatment that was safe for women, preferably natural because I didnâ€™t want to involve hormones or chemicals. I wanted it to work quickly. And I wanted to be able to read the research and science behind the solution.

I knew I did not want side effects like scalp redness or irritation, and I didnâ€™t want it to cause inflammation that affected healthy hair follicles. If a product had natural ingredients, it would be fantastic.

So as you might guess I was thrilled when I heard about the KerMax Hairloss System.

HOW KerMax WORKS:

Keramax is four products system: a shampoo, a conditioner to replace your current shampoo/conditioner regiment, plus a nighttime hair thickening serum and a daytime foam treatment. It is safe to use, and I havenâ€™t had any bad reactions in the few days Iâ€™ve been using it so far. The foam and serum absorb nicely and is undetectable when dry. No greasy treatment area!

In the scientific study, participants used this regiment for 12 weeks, and all the participants experienced less hair loss. Pretty nice to be able to stop hair loss in its tracks!

Iâ€™m really excited to try out the Kermax line and see if I can get my healthy hair back to itsâ€™ former glory! I’ll be updating you on the result in 12 weeks, so stay tuned!

The Entire KerMax Line

Hereâ€™s a video of me applying the foam for the first time:

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHcHjp630cY[/embedyt]

WHERE TO GET KERMAX:

In Canada: Available at all Shopper Drug Mart Locations and in the United States at all CVS locations and CVS online.

Learn more about KerMax on their website, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube!

GIVEAWAY:

Weâ€™ve teamed up with KerMax to give away the four products (a $150 value) to a Style Chicks reader! There are two ways to enter:

1) Instagram: Follow Style Chicks on Instagram (if you arenâ€™t following us already, find us at https://www.instagram.com/stylechicksdotcom/) and like the giveaway post. If you canâ€™t find it immediately, search under the hashtag #StyleChicksKerMaxGiveaway.

2) If you arenâ€™t on Instagram, you can send us an email at [email protected].

The Giveaway will run from today, February 19th at 7 PM to Friday, February 26th at 7 PM EST. We wonâ€™t publish your name, and will only pass your information onto the company to send you your KerMax System!

This post was written by me. While I was compensated for my time and effort, all opinions remain 100% mine.