This is the year you vow to eat right, exercise, take care of your skin, and try something now. Well we don’t have all of the answers for you but we can certainly help with some key products that will get you on your way to your new resolutions.

So you want to eat right? At SkinStore.com we have a large assortment of supplements to help you with everything from aging skin to weight management from all of your favorite brands like Perricone MD, GliSODin, Pure Inventions, Thalgo and many more!

How about more exercise? You’ve been working out and feel that you need to kick it up a notch because you are just not seeing the result you want, sound familiar? Never fear SkinStore is here with some fine tools to get your bum in shape. The Wellbox Lipomassage Machine is one of our more popular cellulite and anti-aging tools available. In the privacy of your home, you can use the Wellbox improve the appearance of cellulite, re-contour your skin, and when the Lift Treatment Head is used on the face you will visibly see a brightening and glowing effect on your skin giving you a rested and healthful appearance.  We also carry a wonderful new body buffer by BelleCore called the HoneyBelle BodyBuffer kit and the babyBelle BodyBuffer.

Ah, skin care! It’s easy to find great products at SkinStore to help you take good care of your skin. We offer a wide range of product from light treatment, to micro currents, microdermabrasion and everything in between. Some great new year’s resolutions tools to help you both take care of your skin AND to accomplish trying something new are the Baby Quasar MD, the NuFace Device and the Personal Microderm Tool Kit. These easy to use tools all offer different benefits from anti-aging to gentle resurfacing of your skin. Check them out to get all of the details and benefits, then, try something new!

What’s your New Year’s resolution for 2012? Share with us on our facebook page or right here on our blog by leaving a comment.

Our SkinStore.com blog has provided our readers with a post each week day since September of 2009. After two full years of education and sharing we wanted to highlight some of our favorites!

Among the most educational posts was our skin condition series this past September where our estheticians picked a skin condition and provided back ground information for our readers. Below are the featured articles, to read more simply click on the subject.

Seborrhoeic Dermatitis was featured on September 30, 2011 and contained information about this leading cause of dry, itchy, flakey skin. To learn more, I highly recommend reading this article.

Psoriasis was featured on September 29, 2011 and the article covered the various types of psoriasis like Guttate, Inverse, Pustular and Erythrodermic. Read this article to find out more about the different characteristics of each form of psoriasis.

Ringworm & Skin Fungus was featured on September 28, 2011. This article covered the types of ringworm, how you catch it, and how to prevent it. This is a must read for anyone with kids or who is responsible for the care of kids and older ones who may become exposed to ringworm.

Rashes was featured on September 27, 2011. The article covered a number of rashes including diaper rash, rashes caused by allergic reactions, and even swimmers itch. Read this article to learn more about common rashes.

Eczema was featured on September 26, 2011 and the article was timely as some research seems to indicate that eczema is on the rise in areas of the world. Read more about eczema and its effects on the skin in this article.

Do you have a favorite SkinStore blog? We’d love to know!

At SkinStore we take a lot of pride in being able to provide our customers and beauty buffs with information that is educational and informative. Its not surprising that we have an amazing assortment of beauty tips right at your fingertips.  When you visit SkinStore.com, and you see the “beauty center” listed on the upper right side of the department navigation bar, you will find a drop down that includes “beauty tips”, click it. Once in the beauty tips section you will see a plethora of topics like skin care tips, natural tips, and tool tips among many other topics. There are so many wonderful tips to browse; I can’t possibly select even one to feature because they are all so interesting! Come on by and check it out!

Living organisms that infest or otherwise “bug” humans (pun intended!) have been around since the dawn of time. With so many forms of itches, rashes, bumps, and other skin irritations we thought it may be helpful to provide a basic understanding of scabies.

What is scabies? The skin condition described as “Scabies” is caused by a tiny parasitic mite called Sarcoptes scabiei. The female mite is predominately the cause of the initial infection when she uses her mouthparts and front legs to tunnel under the skin. Once in the skin, she lays 2-3 eggs a day while continuing to burrow across the skin of her human host. She lives for about 2 months and spends her days and nights loading her host up with eggs that hatch to become larva, that then transition to nymphs and eventually become adult Sarcoptes scabiei which then start the process again. The sex of the mite is determined by how many times the parasite molts, once for a male and twice for female so the females tend to be twice the size of the males. Okay, enough about the bugs, you are probably wonder how you get it and what the skin looks like right?!

How do you get it? The Sarcoptes scabiei mite is transmitted via direct skin to skin contact and is highly contagious. Outbreaks can commonly occur in hospitals and care facilities where people have close contact, conditions are unhygienic, or where high concentrations of people are in close proximity, though non-intimate casual contact is generally not a method of contracting scabies.

What are the symptoms? Once you are exposed and have become host to a fertile female Sarcoptes scabiei it can take up to six weeks for an itchy red rash to appear on your skin. Though no other symptoms may be present during the first six weeks other people having close contact with the host can become infected and spread the parasite further. If you’ve had contact with someone who has been recently diagnosed, be sure to tell you physician if you too should become symptomatic. The itch can start as mild irritation accompanied with redness and then intensify to unbearable itching with increased intensity at night. Intensity can be so unbearable that the host may not even be able to sleep.

If you experience any of the above symptoms you should contact your physician. It’s important to note that only a doctor can prescribe treatments that are effective in battling scabies.

For minor itches and irritation year round I keep my paraben-free ATOPALM Intensive Moisturizing Cream handy! It’s a multipurpose moisturizer that really works well to relieve irritation and redness associated with seasonal factors and even summer bug bites like mosquitos and chiggers.

Sources: Parasitesinhumans.org, Scabiesweb.org, Medicinenet.com.

Here at SkinStore, we believe knowledge is key when it comes to skincare and beauty! That’s why we have created Product Talk, an interactive Q&A feature for our customers. It’s a powerful, yet simple tool!

Here’s how it works: While on SkinStore, find a product that you would like to learn more about. Click the “Product Talk” tab under the product photo to access the tool. To ask a question, click the “Ask a New Question” button. To answer, click the question to open it, and click the “Answer this Question” button. You can even also vote for the best answers to questions. It’s your community.

Now is your chance to help us build the beauty community and to be a voice! We pulled a few unanswered questions from community members who would love to hear about your beauty experience and get your feedback on some products that you may have already tried. We encourage you to share your knowledge and experience.  Click on the questions below to answer them (you may be asked to log in or register).

Click on the questions below to answer them.

UPDATE: (8/31)  These questions have been answered! Thanks to CindyS, Jofab and jd584 for sharing your answers.

Thanks for helping to build the community!

Running short on time for your skin care regimen? Multi-taskers are great time savers and they can be just as effective as any other single products applied separately. For your eyes and lips, nothing beats the Caudalie Anti-Aging Serum Eyes and Lips. Not only is this a great natural product that will save you time, it also gets a 5 out of 5 star user rating!

Apply a small amount of Caudalie Anti-Aging Serum Eyes and Lips both morning and evening to help improve the appearance of puffiness, dark circles, and fine lines around the lips and eyes. This is a great product for any age.

Key ingredients in this product include witch hazel, squalane, resveratrol and palmytoyl tetrapeptide-3. Witch hazel has medicinal uses as it is an astringent and helps to normalize the size of blood vessels, the common cause of dark circles. Squalane helps reduce dryness and wrinkles as it hydrates your skin much like your own natural oils. Resveratrol is a natural ingredient derived from the grape vine that helps to strengthen the skin while stimulating cell longevity. Palmytoyl tetrapeptide-3 inhibits damage caused by glycation. Glycation breaks down your skins support system including your collagen, elastin and proteins.

This multi-tasker packs a powerful punch that is sure to add value to your anti-aging skin care regimen.

Click here for more helpful Quick Tips!

Many skin care products use an air pump mechanism as the delivery method for some of you’re your favorite products. An air pump can be a tricky little thing…it does not use a tube so the cause of a malfunction may be elusive. Here’s the skinny, very often an air bubble will form inside the product container causing what seems to be a broken pump…next time your pump stops working don’t panic! To get the product to dispense, cap it, turn it upside down and tap it against a hard surface 10-15 times, then try to pump it again, it should begin to work properly. If that doesn’t do the trick, check the date of purchase, you may just be out of your product! If that is the case, then you can panic!

The SkinCeuticals Retinol is just one example of a product that uses an air pump delivery system. You can’t tell that it is an air pump when you look at the product, all the magic is inside the container.

Click here for more helpful Quick Tips!

Recently the ladies from Peter Thomas Roth were here at SkinStore sharing their skin care knowledge and experience with us, we got to play with all of the PTR products, and it was so much fun! While they were here, I tried the Mega Rich Intensive Anti-Aging Cellular Cream and I have to admit I was sold. For those of you who follow us, you know I have true dry skin (it’s a desert), and I am no spring chicken. Dry skin and wrinkles are my major skin care concerns. My new skin care love –  Mega Rich.

Mega Rich has the patent pending PTR Firma-CELL-4 peptide technology that stimulate collagen and elastin function, so my skin looks and feels good, not tight, stingy and blotchy like it normally would this time of year. Based on my own personal experience with the Mega Rich, I love it for my dry skin, the feel and consistency and feel reminds me of Crème de la Mer.

Click here for more helpful Quick Tips!

Besides the great prices, free shipping on orders over $49USD, and great customer support, there are a lot of fantastic features at SkinStore that make it a great shopping environment.    

For those of you who are regular SkinStore shoppers, you have seen that over the last 10+ years we have consistently made site enhancements. For our newest customers, we thought that we would take a moment to journey back in time and share with you some of our more popular features that bring our customers back time and again.

Product Talk. This is an amazing feature that is somewhat new at SkinStore. When you click into any product details, you have the option to interact with other SkinStore shoppers! It’s our very own community. You can ask other shoppers questions, view all questions and answers, or answer other user’s questions. You can even add photos and video! This is such a neat feature that I am sure it will be very helpful as more individuals within our community become aware of it. I love it!

Product Ratings. We’ve had product ratings for as long as I can remember, but recently we made some major improvements based on our shopping community’s feedback. As always you can read and add reviews, but now when you select the reviews tab, you can not only see the first several reviews but when you click on the link at the bottom of the first page that allow you to “Read All” reviews, you have all sorts of options that appear! This topic should have its own blog really, but basically a whole world of reviews comes to life like I have never seen before. You can see the top reviews by product category, application area, and so on. I don’t mean to toot our own horn, but it is really a neat feature to have when you are in research mode.

Product Advisor. This is a fantastic tool to use when you are looking for a quick product suggestion. Just answer a few short questions and you are on the path to finding some great products.

Newsletters, BeautyTalk and TheProductfiles are customer favorites that focus on skin care education. If you don’t currently get these, you can log into your account and go into your “Account Changes” to manage the emails that you receive.

Live Chat. One of our more popular features…live chat is an instant way to get quick answers to product questions, tips, product suggestions, consultations and more. You can take care of just about anything on live chat that you can take care of over the phone.

The SkinStore catalog – online. After many customer requests for this feature, you can now view our SkinStore catalog on line. Our latest catalogs are easily to search and easy to use. With click through function on the products, shopping is a breeze.

What’s Hot / What’s New. These two features are loved by our customers because not only can you see the SkinStore new arrivals, but you can also see the products that are our best sellers and top movers.

Special Offers. In one click you can find all of our gifts with purchase items that are available while supplies last. This page is hugely popular with our regulars because the offers are so great.

Ok, so this list could go on forever but I think that you get the idea that there are a lot of great features available at SkinStore that make it a great place to shop. Visit us at www.SkinStore.com.

We know that finding the right gift can be very challenging. As the gift giver you just don’t know if your friend (or love) would rather have a fragrance, skin care, a new beauty tool or oh-my-gosh…just about anything! Take the stress out of the equation and give the perfect gift – a gift certificate from SkinStore.com! The gift certificates are in denominations of $15, $25, $50, $75, $150, $200. Make gift giving easy, just click!

For more helpful Quick Tips, click here!