When I tell women that tough skin is a good thing, they tend to shy away from this skin care tip.They shun the idea of tough skin because of two misconceptions based on the way we use language.The first misconception is that they assume tough skin is the same as rugged skin. They equate tough skin with rough, leathery, unattractive skin. This, however, is not at all what I am talking about. But I do understand where they get this impression.They get this mistaken impression because they are used to the carefully-spun language used by advertisers to seduce readers and viewers into buying products. When describing facial skin, glossy women’s magazine advertisements or television commercials use words like “soft,” “smooth,” “silky,” “creamy,” and so on. This unconsciously implies that skin must be delicate to be beautiful.The second misconception is people often they think of the metaphor of thick skin, meaning a pachyderm like indifference to unpleasant facts, words, or experiences. Again, the impression is that a thick skin is something that relates to insensitive, cold, hard, and calloused people. Although this is a connotation, an associated or secondary meaning, it is still enough to cloud judgment.The Real Truth about Tough SkinThe truth of the issue of tough skin is that beautiful, healthy, and smooth skin looks that way because it is tough and thick. In fact, it is 7 layers strong because skin was designed to protect the body, rather than serve as an ornament draped over flesh and bone to increase sexual appeal.Young people, for instance, have beautiful skin because they have tough skin. Yes, their skin is thick and tough! This does not mean that it is unhealthy or unattractive as a result of too much swimming, sunbathing, or beauty care neglect. Instead, thick and tough skin means that it is well-structured, strong, and works as an effective barrier against bacteria invading the body from a topical source. Let me repeat: tough skin is also beautiful, healthy, and smooth skin. It is skin that is attractive. While it may be smooth to the touch, it is not delicate skin.How Skin Gets ToughSo now that we have established that tough skin is a good thing, something that you should want to have, the next thing you may be wondering is how skin gets thick and tough. Why did our skin look beautiful when we were younger? It is because as we aged, our skin began to create less collagen and elastin to toughen up.In fact, contrary to popular opinion, delicate skin is not a good thing. As our skin became more delicate, it actually began to crease, line, and wrinkle. It lost its tough, elastic, durable texture. Delicate skin is a nice way to say thin, oversensitive skin. When skin gets thin, it begins to sag. Bags under the eyes, for example, are a result of thin, delicate skin.So when I offer a skin care tip about tougher skin, I am actually pointing people in the right direction.How, then, does one get tough, thick skin?Tough skin is skin rich in collagen and elastin. It is healthy, resilient, well-structured skin.The way to get tough skin is to get more collagen and elastin in the tissue of your skin.The Great DeceptionRealizing that consumers are becoming much more sophisticated when it comes to skin care, cosmetic companies are pretending to offer it to them in skin care creams. In fact, they boldly proclaim that their product has collagen and elastin. Consequently, their sales do really well.Now, this is not a lie. But it is a deception. Let me explain.When assayed by independent laboratories, the beauty product will indeed have collagen and elastin.What the manufacturers are not telling you is that a skin care product with these ingredients is absolutely useless. The proteins have molecules that are too large to be absorbed by your skin. So when you rub the lotion or cream on your face, you only enjoy a temporary benefit. Your skin will look younger and smoother-until you wash off the cream. Then it will go back to its original weak structure and your wrinkles will reappear.A Better SolutionIn your quest for tougher, thicker skin, you should not look for products that have collagen and elastin. Instead, you should look for products that have ingredients that stimulate your body’s ability to produce its own collagen and elastin.Only the highest quality skin care products give you the right ingredients for beautiful skin. These products don’t have additives, preservatives, or filler substance, but are completely natural. Use of these products over time, assuming you use them daily, will recreate the two vital proteins. When they are back in the layers of your skin, you will indeed look years younger. People will marvel at the change.Not Made In North America or EuropeIf you live in North America or Europe, you will not likely have heard of skin care products that are rich in antioxidants, emollients, and, yes, collagen and elastin boosting ingredients. This is because the best beauty products have extracts that come from New Zealand and the Amazon forests in Brazil.As someone living in the United States, I myself had not heard about these products until I became a passionate Internet researcher. I can assure you that I never heard of them when I was in a prestigious beauty school, purportedly learning all about skin care.Fortunately, due to the reach of the Internet, you don’t have to rely on brick-and-mortar stores to get high quality and reasonably priced skin care products that really work. Today, you can get them wherever you live.Here is what I use and recommend:Maracuja from the Amazon forests of Brazil.
Babassu from the Amazon forests of Brazil.
Phytessence Wakame, a sea kelp from Japan.
Extend TK from New Zealand.In closing, it is my hope that you will take this skin care tip to heart. If you do, it will completely transform the way you think and feel about your beauty. The simple truth is that tougher, thicker skin is the foundation of beautiful, healthy skin.

What are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime? So asked my 9 year old grandson.

As I thought of the question the local Green Grocer came to mind. Because that is what the greatest change in shopping in my lifetime is.

That was the first place to start with the question of what are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime.

Our local green grocer was the most important change in shopping in my lifetime. Beside him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.

Looking back, we were well catered for as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the greatest changes in shopping in my lifetime were with the small family owned businesses.

Entertainment While Shopping Has Changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a favourite family grocer close by. We were always polite as we asked for a pound or two of butter and other small items.

Out came a big block of wet butter wrapped in grease-proof paper. Brought from the back of the shop, placed on a huge counter top and included two grooved pates.

That was a big change in our shopping in my lifetime… you don’t come across butter bashing nowadays.

Our old friendly Mr. Mahon with the moustache, would cut a square of butter. Lift it to another piece of greaseproof paper with his pates. On it went to the weighing scales, a bit sliced off or added here and there.

Our old grocer would then bash it with gusto, turning it over and over. Upside down and sideways it went, so that it had grooves from the pates, splashes going everywhere, including our faces.

My sister and I thought this was great fun and it always cracked us up. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our very favourite grocery shop.

Grocery Shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favourite, not so local, green grocer’s. Mr. McKessie, ( spelt phonetically) would take our list, gather the groceries and put them all in a big cardboard box.

And because we were good customers he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t nearly as much fun as old Mr. Mahon. Even so, he was a nice man.

All Things Fresh
So there were very many common services such as home deliveries like:

• Farm eggs

• Fresh vegetables

• Cow’s milk

• Freshly baked bread

• Coal for our open fires

Delivery Services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm fresh eggs.

Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.

Our milk, topped with beautiful cream, was delivered to our doorstep every single morning.

Unbelievably, come think of it now, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry who became a family friend.

My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were many during the summer months. Kids and adults all thoroughly enjoyed these times. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotallers. Lemonade was a treat, with home made sandwiches and cakes.

The coal-man was another who delivered bags of coal for our open fires. I can still see his sooty face under his tweed cap but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name but most of them escape me now.

Mr. Higgins, a service man from the Hoover Company always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.

Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.

People then only paid for their shopping with cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my lifetime.

In some department stores there was a system whereby the money from the cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the central office.

Some Of The Bigger Changes
Some of the bigger changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.

• Supermarkets replaced many individual smaller grocery shops. Cash and bank cheques have given way to credit and key cards.

• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in many minds, doing more harm, to book shops.

• Not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.

On a more optimistic note, I hear that book shops are popular again after a decline.

Personal Service Has Most Definitely Changed
So, no one really has to leave home, to purchase almost anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And we have a much bigger range of products now, to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.

We have longer shopping hours, and weekend shopping. But we have lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and also appreciated.

Because of their frenetic lifestyles, I have heard people say they find shopping very stressful, that is grocery shopping. I’m sure it is when you have to dash home and cook dinner after a days work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.

My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services she had at her disposal. With a full time job looking after 9 people, 7 children plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she did not have 2 jobs.

Without any doubt if you are an advocate of financial freedom or a person open to new business opportunities, chances are you have heard about multi-level marketing (MLM), direct selling, or network marketing business opportunity and your problem is to know the best network marketing company to join as there’re varieties to choose from.You may probably have an image firmly planted in your mind of what network marketing is, based on the seemingly endless debate over whether these companies and programs are legitimate business opportunities or not. You may have been in the industry for some time, shifting from one company to the other searching for the best company to join.This article will give you the real scoop about network marketing and how to know the best company to join in MLM. I strongly believe that the entire industry is poised for explosive growth and can be one of the most significant solutions to any country’s youth unemployment crisis. The biggest problem in the industry is amateur networkers coming into the industry without proper training about network marketing and the leaders in the industry are not doing much to train the upcoming and aspiring network marketers.Those who are in the industry are not willing to invest in their education to know the right way to do the business, that is why “The beauty of MLM is the low cost of entry and the bad thing in MLM, is also the low cost of entry. People fail to invest in their education once they join any MLM company and expect to be successful in the industry and once they are not getting the result they anticipated thy move to another company because the money they spent in joining the previous company is something they can forget without a fight.If they spend a fortune to start it, they will do everything possible to make it work; they will invest in their education, give their time because the money involves cannot go down without them looking for ways to recover it. But in network marketing they expect more from the little investment and if they don’t see that in few weeks they will start screaming SCAM. One thing network marketing does is to expose you to your weaknesses and require you to address them through education or you quit. Many leave the company once that weaknesses showed up and label that company fake.In every company business presentation the presenter will say they are the best and their distributors will go out to say the same to their prospects. I will not blame them for that as any company that puts money in your pocket is the best company to you. To be successful in any network marketing company require a renewal of your mind, you must have a positive mental attitude towards network marketing.I cannot list a number of Good network marketing companies, below are some of the factors that make up a good network marketing company and it will help you choose wisely.Check The Registration and Ranking Status: In the Network Marketing and Direct Sales industry there is an organization called the Direct Selling Association (DSA) http://www.DSA.org. There are thousands of Network Marketing Companies in the world, only about 200 or a few more of them are registered with DSA. The reason is because every member company must abide by high strict business ethics given by the organization which include on how they deal with their distributors. It does not mean that any other company that is not registered with them is not legit, but you will be on the safe side working with a company registered with them because they belong to a regulatory body that check-mate their excesses. For ranking check mlmrankings.com and businessforhome.org search on the company to know if they have been featured or rank on these sites. Check an honest review of the company through Goggle and YouTube to know what distributors and online network marketing coaches and writers have been saying about the company. I know there are companies out there with good intentions that are not registered with DSA, so explore every other means below to make your choice.How old is the company in business? You may hear terms like “ground floor company” or “start-up opportunity”. This entirely means the company is brand new. Statistics show that high percentage of new companies fail within their first five years because they are still in their formation stage. Every company started new and those that play the gamble of joining at the formation 5 years are the one reaping most of the dividend today therefore If you are OK with joining a new company in hopes that it will still be around after five years and you are one of the few that “got in early” then this should not be a problem for you.Check the Integrity of the Management Team. If the company is relatively new and you want to go ahead with it, check the integrity of the management team, the experience of the CEO and the team in Network Marketing Industry, their backgrounds and reputations. How many years’ experience they have in the industry and have they been successful in other companies in the network marketing industry. Their experience will help them shape the company to last a very long time than a money bag that just want to take advantage of the industry to amass wealth.If you can, talk to people that are currently involved with the company. Ask the person that is presenting the business opportunity to you if they can introduce you to other members, preferably members not in their team and listen to their stories about their real life experience with the company.Check Their Products or Services: This is a business, and just like if you were running a franchise or a storefront you must take a franchise of a product you know you can sell easily. Find out the features and benefits of their products to see if it will meet the need of the people you want to introduce into the business and those that will be your customers, will they use it and need more of the products?Examine the Compensation Plan. Compensation plans come in all shapes and sizes. Some are extremely complex to understand and others are very simple. You must know how fair and generous the overall distribution is. This is really important as the pay plan represents exactly how you’ll get paid–or not get paid. If you don’t understand the pay plan how are you supposed to know how much effort will be required for a certain level of pay?Sincerely Compensation explanation is complex subjects that cannot be explain fully in this article, even when you are explaining a simple compensation plan, but you must know the basis before starting your own network marketing business.There are five types of compensation plans used in Network Marketing industry, with many variations of each. There is probably no one plan that is perfect or right for everyone at every time. What may be the best plan for you today could change due to regulations, your experience in the industry and/or the type of product, even new technology. And, it’s those variations that can make the difference.Let’s take a look at the 5 different types of plans in their most basis forms, they are…

Stair Step Break A Way {Board Breaking etc)

Uni-Level

Matrix

Australian

Binary
Most new aspiring network marketing business owners always ask, which of these network marketing compensation plans is best. There is no one sentence that fits the answer to this question. It depends a lot on your personality and what you want to achieve from your network marketing business. The thing to remember is that, apart from retail profit where applicable, a network marketing compensation plan pays you for a combination of product sales and sales management. So if you are more of a traditional salesperson who can move tons of products, it may be advisable to go with the company that pays more for product sales than for managing sales teams. If you really want to make it big in network marketing, study the compensation plan of any company before signing up.Online Marketing: Make sure the company policy allows you to utilize the internet as a marketing tool and they must have system in place that will help you do that, such as your replicated website, online payment system, online product delivery system etc. People are utilizing the internet as their main marketing tool because of the automation on the internet that has allowed a much more consistent method of following up.The only reason why some companies don’t accept online marketing is due to people who utilize it to spam and that can give a very bad reputation not only to the distributor, but also to the company you’re working with.In conclusion, the best company in network marketing is the one that has a realistic pay plan, which is a compensation plan where the incentives given to members are achievable by the company through their product and services. You must also take notice of some of the points listed above to make your choices.