Opinion

5 ways to use activated charcoal to be more beautiful

It is called charcoal, or even activated charcoal, a name that perhaps best expresses the idea of the multiplicity of functions that it can exert on our intestine. These are tablets that are bought in herbal medicine, pharmacy or drugstore but derive from a powder. A long process of combustion without flame transforms in fact powder of various types of wood (poplar, willow and birch are among the most popular) in a very thin coal dust.

To take care of your skin, your teeth and even your hair you can use activated charcoal, a natural substance that respects sensitive skin and its many properties.

The charcoal is used by more and for the care of the body, especially the gut. In recent years it has turned out to be a super food, it is no coincidence that they are depopulating the black dough, for bread, pizza and cakes, based on coal. If you are a lover of natural treatments you could also use it to take care of your beauty. Such as?

Here are 5 ways to use activated charcoal

1) Face mask: You can create a DIY peel-off treatment, exceptional. You have to make a soft dough using just a tablespoon of charcoal powder, two tablespoons of clay, a teaspoon of apple cider and a teaspoon of water. This mask will clean the pores in depth, giving shine to the skin.

2) Whiten your teeth: It may seem strange that such a dark substance may actually have a whitening effect. Buy some coal and powder it and add it to your toothpaste. Brush your teeth for 3 minutes and then rinse with plenty of water, then reread your teeth normally.

3) Coal for the scrub: Also in this case you have to pulverize the coal and add it to a shower-bath. It is a great exfoliate, it extracts the excess oils from the skin and cleans the pores in depth.

4) Detoxifying shampoo: Add some charcoal to the shampoo and you can remove impurities from the scalp and reduce grease if you have fatty skin problems. You have light hair, you should wash them once or twice after treatment.

5) Treat acne: If you suffer from oily skin and acne, wash your face with a charcoal soap (you can also do it yourself). This plant substance does not cause allergies and is very respectful of sensitive skin, it also fights inflammation.

What is event branding?

Event branding might sound complex but is as simple as organising the right event for the right people and for the right reasons. It’s a great strategy to follow to achieve the above objective and to ensure you have the most successful event you possibly can.

So, what exactly does it entail?

Event branding is essentially the very essence of your event concept. It’s the reason why and the thing that holds all the elements of your event together to create one clear identity. It is the first idea that comes into people’s heads when they think of your business or event. It is the essence of what energises your event and what exists through the experiences your attendees have.

That all sounds great, but what is an event concept?

This is the creative idea that sparked your event and shapes your whole planning of it. It influences the people who attend, the content of the event, the connections people make from it, the experiences and knowledge learned.

Image credit

To make this easier, it’s a good idea to summarise the event concept in one sentence or a strong image that defines what you want this event to be or achieve. You could create a mood board that contains images of your ideal attendee, an ideal venue, colour palettes, speaker ideas, mottos or quotes and anything else you imagine as part of your perfect event. For help with this, contact an Events Agency Dublin like davisevents.ie

You have the concept, how do you create the buzz?

You have a new concept that your audience haven’t experienced yet, it’s purely based on the expectations you are creating for them. It might be the best concept ever created but if you’re not aiming your message at the right people, your event will not be a success. Your concept won’t be meaningful to everyone, but if you have a strong concept and you communicate it clearly and consistently, you will attract a strong core of followers.

These people will naturally be drawn to your cause, share the same interests and will want to connect with others of the same thinking. As those people share information about your event, others will be attracted to attending due to a FOMO and as word continues to spread, you’ll grow a good-sized and healthy community of like-minded people.

Image credit

More on creating hype:

We all know that to keep an event in the forefront of people’s minds, it’s important to remind them often in a digital environment of short-attention-spans. However, it’s essential you don’t overhype your event and make promises you can’t keep. If you don’t think you can deliver on a large-scale event, opt for smaller, more frequent community events to strengthen your brand. It’s important you keep it real and don’t overpromise.

Remember that an event brand won’t be built in a day

So, you had an amazing concept and pulled off a great event. There’s no time to sit back and feel satisfied. You now have to find out how your audience has reacted to their interaction with your brand. You still need to keep the conversation going, attract more like-minded members and keep your brand in their minds so you can get them excited for your next event!

Eliminates acne, blackheads and pimples with activated charcoal soap

The activated charcoal usually is produced by burning pieces of activated at temperatures above 800 degrees. Activated charcoal has several benefits including that of absorbing odors, is able to purify water, and also has many healthy properties for the skin.

Most of the products dedicated to health and beauty on the market today have, among the ingredients, just the activated charcoal. So, let’s discover together how and why this precious element can be used to keep the skin fresh and healthy.

Fight acne, blackheads and pimples – Try to have a nice shower and wash with activated charcoal soap. This will be absorbed by the skin, causing dirt and excess sebum to come out of the pores. Regular use of an activated charcoal soap can reduce or even eliminate acne, blackheads and pimples.

Restores freshness and brightness to the face – Try applying a mask containing activated charcoal. This allows you to improve the appearance of your face by absorbing excess sebum in the skin and penetrating it to clean it deeply. Activated charcoal masks can be heated before applying them, so as to facilitate the opening of the pores and activate the charcoal.

Rejuvenate your hands – You can also use activated charcoal soap to wash your hands regularly, and these will look younger. Activated charcoal soap does not dry the skin and helps to fight unpleasant odors, so it is also recommended in the kitchen, for example to wash your hands after cleaning the fish.

Cosmetics – If you wear makeup often, better choose tricks that contain activated charcoal. Coal is an antioxidant that can improve the skin through absorption, avoiding clogging the pores.

Activated charcoal – It is also possible to mix activated charcoal directly into the products you already own. Activated charcoal is easily mixed in body lotions, hand creams and liquid soap.

Activated charcoal is often used in the formulas of homemade and therapeutic soaps. After all, as we found out above, coal draws out all toxins and pollution. Soap with charcoal is often advised for those who suffer from acne. And many who tried, confirm that the pimples disappear.

Soap with activated charcoal does not harm the skin, it can be used without fear, although some are confused by the black color of the detergent. Coal soap can be bought from those who cook soap on their own, or make themselves.

The recipe is simple: Powder of activated charcoal is added to the usual base composition. You can melt the usual baby soap and add the powder there, forming a new briquette of soap.

Do not use charcoal for the face, if there is an open wound, purulent skin lesions and with individual intolerance.

 

Always leave room for dessert

Eating out in an Italian Restaurant in Dublin like https://www.forno500.ie/ is always a treat. With some many different pasta, risotto and pizza dishes to choose from you could almost eat out every day for a month and never taste the same dish twice. Many people are aware of the delicious main course that this cuisine has to offer, although fewer have tried some of the delights that are available for dessert. Here are some ideas for when you next visit that Italian restaurant.

Image Credit

Ice cream or Gelato is incredibly popular in Italian cuisine and with some many different varieties to try a visit to Italy can see you in ice cream heaven. If you prefer a fruiter flavour then sorbets are also incredibly popular.

Struffoli – this is almost a snack style treat and is dough balls that are deep fried. They are usually covered in a honey and cinnamon glaze with orange rind and sometime even a few hundreds and thousands on top.

Granita – is another frozen light and is a halfway house between a sorbet, gelato and ice. It is usually flavoured with berries, mint and sometime lemon or citrus fruits. It is a crunchy ice style dessert that packs a punch of flavour.

Image Credit

Tiramisu is a quintessential Italian dessert and probably one of the most well-known with many supermarkets offering both fresh and frozen options for you to enjoy whenever the urge to taste the delights of coffee-soaked sponge fingers layered between mascarpone cheese and chocolate arises. Tiramisu is one of the easier desserts to make and is a popular choice for dinner parties and as celebration desserts. It was particularly popular here during the 1970s and 1980s.

Cannoli are a delicious pastry that is rolled into a tube and deep fried, when it has cooled, they are usually filled with ricotta cheese with cherries and pistachios added for decoration.

Crostata – is a bit like a treacle tart or a fruit tart that you might find here in the UK. In Italy these are usually filled with a variety of fruit options or even ricotta cheese.

Biscotti – is a biscuit that anyone who frequents a classic coffee shop or makes the occasional trip to costa or starbucks will have heard of. These baked biscuits are best enjoyed with a nice warm cup of coffee or perhaps even a hot chocolate. They come in a variety of flavours from all kinds of buts through to chocolate.

All hail the Ditch Warrior. Or Metro as it was officially called.

There are many cars of which you could say, cometh the hour cometh the car. The E type Jaguar launched just when the country was starting to want a car that was bit more modern and a bit stylish or the most famous being the Mini, a car that was interesting, cool and debonair despite its size and power. They were perfect for the time and in the late 70’s and early eighties British Leyland MG needed a car like that. It had to be good to keep the ailing car manufacturing industry in the country alive. Therefore, it needed to be economical capture the public’s imagination and most importantly their pound notes plus those foreigners too. It was asking a lot of the designers, but they were going to give it a go and they even looked back to the Mini for a little bit of inspiration.

Image Credit

So, with sweat, toil and hope they created the car that was going to save them all. They came up with the Metro. It may not be the first choice that you would put on a Car lap tray, which are great little items by the way and make great gifts, but you can be safe in the knowledge that there are plenty of choices out there for you to choose from just have a look at https://personalisedlaptrays.co.uk/ for a few ideas.

The Metro was launched to great acclaim and a very high-profile advertising campaign, this involved a fleet of the colorful fun cars driving pell-mell towards the White cliffs of Dover. Leyland were desperate, their cars from the nineteen seventies were ugly, shoddy, poorly made and badly received. They badly need a success to continue Government funding and to get something that could compete with the cheaper and better models coming in from the continent.

The initial reaction from the public was one of great interest for this relatively cheap and affordable car. This finally looked like this was a car that Leyland MG had made that could work. Reviews were mainly positive. It was noted that the engine was an A or at least A+ series even after all these years but this was forgiven as it was pointed out this made repairs and maintenance work easier.

Image Credit

Lamentably this was not to last. It soon became clear after a few years ownership that some corners had been cut. The car collected water with ease and rusted, especially the wings remarkable easily. The distributor cap was pointed down low so that any degree of collected water could see it cut out. The manual choke was also twitchy and difficult to deal with. As the years rolled by it became clear that despite up grades and turbo versions the car was just not good enough to maintain the industry and provide the shot it needed when compared to the success of the Fiesta, or the Renault 5.

Why was it called a ditch warrior? No matter what it always pulled to the left a little bit so that the ditch was never far away.

For the love of the Sun.

When we talk about Sun worshippers nowadays we are generally referring to those of us who like to lounge around on a beach or by a pool getting a tan on holiday. However, if you go back to Neolithic times it seems that Sun Worshippers is quite a literal thing as opposed to the figurative now. Whatever your views are on the Sun its much better to view it though Windows Dublin or Cardiff or London or Torremolinos wherever you are as there provide some protection from its rays. A quick visit to https://www.keanewindows.ie/windows-dublin/ can help you if you need some new ones.

Image Credit

Our ancestors were very keen on praising the Sun. They held it in high regard. Its easy to understand why this was. With very little understanding of science and nature its quite natural to want to thank the big hot shiny thing that turns up every morning without fail making the dark go away and the plants grow. They liked it so much in UK that they built several stone circles to track its progress the biggest one being Stonehenge an incredible achievement considering the technology at the time which was basically humans, rope and wood logs.

This praising of the Sun carries on into some of the first ancient civilisation such as the Egyptians who saw a lot of Sun where they lived and needed to be respectful of it. Amun was thought to be the God that lived in the Sun providing it’s light but as mentioned it was very important to them and they also had Bast, Nut and Menhit as well.

Greeks noticed that the Sun moved across the sky which led them to have a Helios. The Sun was his Chariot that he drove through the day. It does show some beginnings of understanding astronomy, but they made up for that by deducing that Helios was the son of Hyperion God of light and Theia the Goddess of Light and blue sky also something they get a lot of in Greece.

Image Credit

The Roman Empire was never one to not steal other peoples Gods and the Greeks were one they did it from quite regularly. They had Sol and he was the main source of their religion for decades until a small Jewish sect started to make some big waves throughout the Empire. The biggest celebration was Saturnalia in the middle of winter as it was a big call for Sol to return in the Spring and heat up the world again. It’s the reason why we have Christmas, the birth of Jesus, in December. The Christian religion and the Sol religion were going to cause a major civil war, so the Emperor Constantine chose one but kept some traditions in place.

But that’s never entered you head when the factor 50 is being applied.

Let the gift buyer take the strain.

If you’re like me then you might have a bit of problem when it comes to buying presents for people. It’s a horrible task to some as you um and ah in the shop over what to get people. Most embarrassingly if you turn up with a rubbish gift it makes it look like you don’t care about them and they will think that you don’t understand them. So, no pressure then to make sure you pic out that totally perfect gift that will make them squeal with delight and give you a massive hug and a thank you. Or not some people are just born to be underwhelmed with what you give them or, so it seems. It does work both ways. I’d rather like a nice pair of Farah Shirts, but I feel that I’m probably going to get socks and a book about the War again. All they need to do is look on www.ejmenswear.com/men/farah/ they’ll see loads of options that I might like.

Image Credit

Still I think that I might have found the answer to our prayers. It’s come in the shape of a personal shopper. Now not only do you have some else to blame when it all crashed and burns and they say they really don’t like it or you just get a silent response or even worse “meh” you can swear blind that the personal shopper swore it was the in thing and that everybody was going to have one at Christmas, for their birthday or whatever the occasion might be.

Its quite a nice little day out. You get a drink and pleasant room to sit in and the Personal Shopper introduces themselves to you and you begin. In some ways it’s a bit like trying to build up a psychological profile of the person so that the personal shopper can get an idea as to what they are dealing with. When they have enough to go on they will then take you out on to the shop floor and your quest begins. Well, I say quest its more the personal shopper’s quest really as they have elected themselves as the fall guys in this little adventure. Using the profile, they have gained from you they can then start to compile a load of options that the prospective person receiving the gift might like.

Image Credit

There is one little thing that I think I mentioned there they are getting a list and building a profile from you. If you don’t give them much to work on, then they won’t come up with the goods. Might be better to buy a session with the personal shopper for the person that’s getting the gift. Might be quicker and easier.

Interesting facts about the metal Bronze

Bronze is a metal that is used for a variety of different uses including piping and even Bronze Wildlife Sculptures like the ones you can see at www.gillparker.com In the past items of jewellery would have been made from Bronze especially during the Roman era. You can still see many Bronze artefacts if you visit any of the larger Roman sites including places like Chedworth Roman Villa in the Cotswolds.

Image Credit

Here is some information about Bronze that you may not have heard of before.

Bronze is amongst one of the first alloy metals that was developed and is a mixture of copper and tin with copper being the predominant metal. Combining the two metals makes Bronze stronger than either of copper of tin on their own. Other metals can also be added to the mix and include aluminium, nickel, zinc and various other materials.

Bronze is thought to have been used as far back as Egyptian times and some of the earliest Bronze artefacts have been found in the areas of China and the Middle East. The metal’s name was attributed to the Bronze Age era due to the wide spread use of the metal in items that were used throughout all of society. This was then replaced by iron as a metal and thus we entered into the Iron Age.

Image Credit

As a metal is has many different characteristics:

  • It has a low friction level when moved alongside other metals which means that it does not produce heat and the potential for sparks.
  • Bronze expands slightly when it converts from a liquid to a solid which is why it is a metal that is preferred by sculptors. It is thought that the first instance of Bronze being used in a sculpture in 706 BC by the Assyrian King Sennacherib
  • Bronze oxidises when it comes into contact with oxygen, but this tends to only impact the outer layers of the metal.
  • Bronze is often used for items that may come into contact with flammable or even explosive materials as when it you strike it against other metals it does not create sparks.

Bronze is still used in many items today including architectural structures, bearings, musical instruments, ships propellers and even in electrical items. Bronze is also used to make coins – even thought they appear to look like they have been made from a copper type metal.

How to fix window problems

Nothing worries a homeowner more than the sight of emerging DIY problems. Luckily, we have a useful guide to help you diagnose and fix any issues that emerge with your windows.

Image Credit

Draughty windows

You’ll immediately know if your windows have a problem with a draught, as you’ll feel the temperature change or see the curtains move. The causes are likely to be weatherstripping that has come loose, or the window design itself. The best solution is usually to choose a modern insulated window or to replace damaged weatherstripping and replace it to reinforce the airtight window seal.

Leaking windows

These can lead to real damage in the house if they aren’t fixed. Water can come in behind the drywall without you even realising, leaving signs such as wallboard discolouration along the sill, paint peeling off the window frame, rotting wood and mould growth. The solutions here will most likely require a window replacement, but in the meantime, you can run a humidifier to take excess water from the air. New caulking around the window exterior can also provide a temporary fix. Make sure you check the window’s warranty in case you still have cover.

Image Credit

Failing window cranks

Most windows that use a crank handle will do so without issue, but very humid summers or severe winters can lead to problems with over-tightening. Use the crank handle sparingly and don’t force the window to shut tightly if it seems to be resisting. Instead, leave a little gap and apply grease lubricant to the mechanism after cleaning the window track itself. Otherwise, you may need to replace the crank entirely, but this shouldn’t be expensive.

Fogging glass

If the seals on your insulated glass fail, then condensation can build up and make your bay windows cloudy. Over time, this will lead to rotting. If your windows are still in warranty, contact your window installer for a possible replacement. Find out more at: https://www.firmfix.co.uk/windows/bay-windows/.

Rotting frames

Wooden windows look beautiful and will perform extremely well when installed correctly and maintained, but they can rot if they aren’t looked after. You may be able to replace a rotting section of wood if you are handy with DIY, by cutting out the rotting section and adding a new patch section. Otherwise, get the entire frame replaced by your local window company for a long-lasting finish.

Why you need cold room shelving in your business

One of the most important pieces of storage equipment that those within the food industry will invest in is undoubtedly a refrigeration unit.

Image Credit

These days many caterers and retailers are opting to use commercial cold rooms rather than traditional fridges or freezers. An article in Green Cooling suggests that the benefits of a cold room include increased space, lower cost and better energy efficiency. Cold room shelving can also be purchased at an extreme level suitable for huge retailers such as supermarkets to store large volumes of chilled foods. But what are the other benefits of investing in this sort of cold room shelving?

Image Credit

Avoid cross contamination

One of the best things about a cold room is the increased shelving space that allows for a better organisational system than a normal fridge or freezer. This won’t just help you to maintain an efficient layout but it also reduces the risk of cross contamination which is caused when bacteria from certain foods (mostly meat) is transferred onto other food products.

Mobility and construction

Cold room shelving is very easy to construct and many units come with wheels attached to the bottom making them easily mobile. Moving shelves around to suit your needs is far easier than having to re-arrange all of your stock. Many modern shelving units are also height adjustable which makes customisation to your needs even more achievable,

Maximise storage

A cold room is generally a lot larger than a fridge or freezer and this additional space comes with a number of cost-effective benefits. It means that you can order food in bulk to store, which usually means you will get a cheaper deal. Running one large system is also often a lot more cost-effective than running several smaller units in terms of energy and repair costs.

Large establishments such as major hotels, restaurants and supermarkets often have little choice but to install a commercial cold room (https://www.fridgefreezerdirect.co.uk/cold-rooms/integrated-cold-rooms) but even smaller businesses may learn to appreciate the space and money saving benefits that they can offer.

Easy to clean and maintain

Spillages and mess can easily occur with so much perishable food present. Thankfully, cold room shelving is often made of very easy-to-clean material such as stainless steel. This durable material is also resistant to the extreme temperatures of a cold room.