It’s a fact. Men’s skin is more delicate than women’s.
Yep, you heard right! The daily shaving ritual aggravates the skin, destroying the hydrolytic film on the skin’s surface, thereby increasing dryness and reducing the skin’s natural protection. What’s more, men especially outdoor men tend to expose their skin to a torturous array of damaging conditions including sun, wind, water, salt, building products, chemicals, cuts, scratches, and grazes.
It’s no wonder, then, that the man of today is more concerned about his skin than ever before. Like his level of fitness and health, his apparel, and his grooming, a man’s skin says a lot about him. Unfortunately, this new-found awareness is leading some men to the conclusion that they should be using their wives’ skincare products. This is a mistake! A man’s skin is different to a woman’s, so it needs to be treated differently.
Why is men’s skin different to women’s?
Before we can talk about how natural men’s skincare caters to men’s unique needs, we need to understand what those needs are. Why is men’s skin different to women’s skin? There are four main differences between men’s skin and women’s skin:
Men have thicker skin (although many women would beg to differ)
Men have oilier skin
Men have more delicate skin
Men’s skin has smaller sebaceous glands
Why natural men’s skincare?
There’s little point using a skincare product which is made for a woman’s skin. Quality-made natural men’s skincare addresses the differences between men’s skin and women’s skin (without turning skincare into a tedious, never-ending chore).
A quality men’s facial scrub is formulated to combat the drying effect of shaving while at the same time exfoliating and replenishing the skin’s natural defenses. A men’s soap contains specially selected oils and organic ingredients which not only cleanse but which also accelerate healing. Men’s shaving supplements leave the face feeling fresh and moist, not dry and aggravated. And of course, men’s all-in-one face and eye moisturizers provide convenient yet dynamic skin rejuvenation while simultaneously minimizing the damaging effects of excess sunlight.
Quality natural men’s skincare doesn’t contain chemicals which strip out the skin’s natural moisture. It doesn’t contain petrochemicals, sulphates, and chemical preservatives which can have an hormonal impact. It doesn’t contain artificial fragrances and parabens. In fact, quality natural men’s skincare contains only pure and organic ingredients. It consists of a blend of essential oils, vitamin extracts, spices, beeswax, and pure oils which is tailored to the specific needs of a man’s skin and a man’s environment and lifestyle.
As a result, a quality natural men’s skincare range can make a man’s skin feel less irritated, dry, and itchy. It can maximize the skin’s elasticity, and enhance the complexion. Perhaps most importantly, it can make it far more pleasant to a woman’s touch
Conclusion
As it turns out, men need skincare just as much as women, maybe even more. Their skin is more delicate and it is continually exposed to damaging conditions. But because a man’s skin is thicker and oilier and has smaller sebaceous glands, it needs a tailor-made skincare range. So when it comes to skincare don’t settle for second best. A man’s skin needs a natural men’s skincare range a range which reduces dryness and irritation, replenishes natural defenses, enhances skin rejuvenation, and makes his skin all the more touchable
About The Author:
Chrissy Birdsall is a renowned beauty and skincare authority, with over 40 years industry experience. Her boutique skincare business, Purestuf, features a natural men’s skincare range Purestuf Warrior which is available for purchase online at http://www.purestuf.com.au or by contacting Sydney Australia +612 9909 3222 or chrissy@purestuf.com.au.
Copyright Chrissy Birdsall - http://www.purestuf.com.au
Metaphors of the Mind (Part I)Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. The brain (and, by implication, the Mind) has been compared to the latest technological innovation in every generation. The computer metaphor is now in vogue. Computer hardware metaphors were replaced by software metaphors and, lately, by (neuronal) network metaphors. Such attempts to understand by comparison are common in every field of human knowledge. Architects and mathematicians have lately come up with the structural concept of “tensegrity” to explain the phenomenon of life. The tendency of humans to see patterns and structures everywhere (even where there are none) is well documented and probably has its survival value added.
Another trend is to discount these metaphors as erroneous, irrelevant, or deceptively misleading. Yet, these metaphors are generated by the same Mind that is to be described by them. The entities or processes to which the brain is compared are also “brain-children”, the results of “brain-storming”, conceived by “minds”. What is a computer, a software application, a communications network if not a (material) representation of cerebral events?
In other words, a necessary and sufficient connection must exist between ANYTHING created by humans and the minds of humans. Even a gas pump must have a “mind-correlate”. It is also conceivable that representations of the “non-human” parts of the Universe exist in our minds, whether a-priori (not deriving from experience) or a-posteriori (dependent upon experience). This “correlation”, “emulation”, “simulation”, “representation” (in short : close connection) between the “excretions”, “output”, “spin-offs”, “products” of the human mind and the human mind itself - is a key to understanding it.
This claim is an instance of a much broader category of claims: that we can learn about the artist by his art, about a creator by his creation, and generally: about the origin by any of its derivatives, inheritors, successors, products and similes.
This general contention is especially strong when the origin and the product share the same nature. If the origin is human (father) and the product is human (child) - there is an enormous amount of data to be safely and certainly derived from the product and these data will surely apply to the origin. The closer the origin and the product - the more we can learn about the origin. The computer is a “thinking machine” (however limited, simulated, recursive and mechanical). Similarly, the brain is a “thinking machine” (admittedly much more agile, versatile, non-linear, maybe even qualitatively different). Whatever the disparity between the two (and there is bound to be a large one), they must be closely related to one another. This close relatedness is by virtue of two facts: (1) They are both “thinking machines” and, much more important: (2) the latter is the product of the former. Thus, the computer metaphor is unusually strong. Should an organic computer come to be, the metaphor will strengthen. Should a quantum computer be realized - some aspects of the metaphor will, undoubtedly, be enhanced.
By the way, the converse hypothesis is not necessarily true: that by knowing the origin we can anticipate the products. There are too many free variables here. The existence of a product “collapses” our set of probabilities and increases our knowledge - to use Bohr’s metaphor.
The origin exists as a “wave function”: a series of potentialities with attached probabilities, the potentials being the logically and physically possible products.
But what can be learned about the origin by a crude comparison to the product? Mostly traits and attributes related to structure and to function. These are easily observable. Is this sufficient? Can we learn anything about the “true nature” of the origin? The answer is negative. It is negative in general: we can not aspire or hope to know anything about the “true nature” of anything. This is the realm of metaphysics, not of physics. Quantum Mechanics provides an astonishingly accurate description of micro-processes and of the Universe without saying anything meaningful about both. Modern physics strives to predict rightly - rather to expound upon this or that worldview. It describes - it does not explain. Where interpretations are offered (e.g., the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics) they run into insurmountable obstacles and philosophical snags. Thus, modern science is metaphorical and uses a myriad of metaphors (particles and waves, to mention but two prominent ones). Metaphors have proven themselves to be useful scientific tools in the “thinking scientist’s” kit.
Moreover, a metaphor can develop and its development closely traces the developmental phases of the origin. Take the computer software metaphor as an example:
At the dawn of computing the composition of software applications was serial, in machine language and with strict separation of data (called: “structures”) and instruction code (called: “functions” or “procedures”). This was really a “biological” phase akin to the development of the embryonic brain (mind). The machine language closely matched the physical wiring of the hardware. In the case of biology, the instructions (DNA) are also insulated from the data (amino acids and other life substances). Databases were handled on a “listing” basis (”flat file”), were serial and had no intrinsic relationship to each other (an alphabetic order is an extrinsic order, imposed from the outside and existing only in the mind of the “imposer”). They were in the state of a substrate, ready to be acted upon. Only when “mixed” in the computer (as the application was run) did functions operate on structures.
This was, quite expectedly, followed by the “relational” organization of data (a primitive example of which is the spreadsheet). Data items were related to each other through mathematical formulas. This is the equivalent of the wiring of the brain, as the pregnancy progresses.
The latest evolutionary phase has been the OOPS (Object Oriented Programming Systems). Objects are modules which contain BOTH data and instructions in self contained units. The user is acquainted with the FUNCTIONS performed by these objects - but not with their STRUCTURE, INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS AND PROCESSES. Objects, in other words, are “black boxes” (am engineering term). The programmer is unable to tell HOW the object does what it does, how does external, useful function arise from internal, hidden ones. Objects are epiphenomenal, emergent, phase transient. In short: much closer to reality as we came to describe it in modern physics.
Communication can be established among these black boxes - but it is not the communication (its speed or efficacy) that determine the overall efficiency of the system. It is the hierarchical and at the same time fuzzy organization of the objects which does the trick. Objects are organized in classes which define their (actualized and potential) properties. The object’s behaviour (what it does and to what it is allowed to react) is defined by its very belonging to the class. Moreover, a principle of “inheritance” is in operation: objects can be organized in new (sub) classes, inherit all the definitions and characteristics of the original class plus new properties which distinguish it from its origin. In a way, these newly emergent classes are the products and the classes that they derived from are the origin. This process so closely resembles natural phenomena that it lends additional credibility to the metaphor.
Thus, classes can be used as building blocks. Their permutations define the set of all soluble problems. It can be proven that Turing Machines are a private instance of a general, much stronger, class theory (back to the Principia Mathematica). The integration of hardware (computer, brain) and software (computer applications, mind) is done through “framework applications” which adjust the two elements structurally and functionally. An equivalent must be found in the brain (a priori categories, a collective unconscious?).
We use the term evolution because one phase replaces another. Relational databases cannot be integrated with object oriented ones, for instance. To run Java applets, a “virtual machine” needs to be embedded in the operating system. These phases closely resemble the development of the brain-mind couplet.
When is a metaphor a good metaphor? When it teaches us something about the origin that could not have been gleaned without it. That it must possess some structural and functional resemblance we have already established. But this is not enough. This is merely the “quantitative, observational” aspect of the metaphor. There is also a qualitative one: it must be instructive, revealing, insightful, aesthetic, parsimonious - in short, it must establish a theory and the resulting hypotheses. A metaphor is a theory which is the result of given logical and aesthetic rules. It must be subjected to the rigorous testing demanded by science before it can be judged to be a reliable one.
If the software metaphor is correct, the brain must contain the following features:
- Parity checks through back propagation of signals - the electrochemical signal in a neurone must move back (to its origin) and forward, simultaneously in order to establish a feedback parity loop
- The neurone cannot be a binary (two state) machine (a quantum computer will be a multi-state one, for instance). It must have many levels of excitement (representation of information). The threshold (”all or nothing” firing”) hypothesis must be wrong
- Redundancy must be evident in all the aspects and dimensions of the brain and its activities: the hardware (different centres will perform similar tasks), communications (information transfer channels will be replicated and the same information will be simultaneously transferred over more than one as a basis for comparison), retrieval (data excitation will happen in a few spots at the same time) and usage of obtained data (through working, “upper” memory).
- The basic concept of the working of the brain must be the comparison of “representation elements” to “models of the world”. Thus, a coherent picture is obtained which allows for predictions and for manipulation of the environment in effective, result producing ways.
- Many of the functions solved by the brain must be recursive. To a large extent, we could even half expect to find that we can reduce all the activities of the brain to computational, mechanically solvable, recursive functions. Should this happen, the brain will come to be regarded as a Turing Machine and the wildest dreams of Artificial Intelligence will come true. Until such time, however, a strong recursive streak should be evident in the operations of this magnificent contraption inside our heads.
- The brain must be a learning, self organizing, entity.
Only if these six requirement are cumulatively met - can we say that the software metaphor is a strong one. Otherwise, we should be forced to neglect it in favour of a stronger one.
The brain is a paranoiac machine governed by Murphy’s Laws. It assumes the worst, prepares for it and takes no chances. Precariously balanced, materially delicate, in charge of life itself it can - and does - take no chances.
Metaphors of the Mind (Part II)Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. Storytelling has been with us since the days of campfire and besieging wild animals. It served a number of important functions: amelioration of fears, communication of vital information (regarding survival tactics and the characteristics of animals, for instance), the satisfaction of a sense of order (justice), the development of the ability to hypothesize, predict and introduce theories and so on.
We are all endowed with a sense of wonder. The world around us in inexplicable, baffling in its diversity and myriad forms. We experience an urge to organize it, to “explain the wonder away”, to order it in order to know what to expect next (predict). These are the essentials of survival. But while we have been successful at imposing our mind’s structures on the outside world – we have been much less successful when we tried to cope with our internal universe.
The relationship between the structure and functioning of our (ephemeral) mind, the structure and modes of operation of our (physical) brain and the structure and conduct of the outside world have been the matter of heated debate for millennia. Broadly speaking, there were (and still are) two ways of treating it:
There were those who, for all practical purposes, identified the origin (brain) with its product (mind). Some of them postulated the existence of a lattice of preconceived, born categorical knowledge about the universe – the vessels into which we pour our experience and which mould it. Others have regarded the mind as a black box. While it was possible in principle to know its input and output, it was impossible, again in principle, to understand its internal functioning and management of information. Pavlov coined the word “conditioning”, Watson adopted it and invented “behaviourism”, Skinner came up with “reinforcement”. The school of epiphenomenologists (emergent phenomena) regarded the mind as the by product of the brain’s “hardware” and “wiring” complexity. But all ignored the psychophysical question: what IS the mind and HOW is it linked to the brain?
The other camp was more “scientific” and “positivist”. It speculated that the mind (whether a physical entity, an epiphenomenon, a non-physical principle of organization, or the result of introspection) – had a structure and a limited set of functions. They argued that a “user’s manual” could be composed, replete with engineering and maintenance instructions. The most prominent of these “psychodynamists” was, of course, Freud. Though his disciples (Adler, Horney, the object-relations lot) diverged wildly from his initial theories – they all shared his belief in the need to “scientify” and objectify psychology. Freud – a medical doctor by profession (Neurologist) and Bleuler before him – came with a theory regarding the structure of the mind and its mechanics: (suppressed) energies and (reactive) forces. Flow charts were provided together with a method of analysis, a mathematical physics of the mind.
But this was a mirage. An essential part was missing: the ability to test the hypotheses, which derived from these “theories”. They were all very convincing, though, and, surprisingly, had great explanatory power. But - non-verifiable and non-falsifiable as they were – they could not be deemed to possess the redeeming features of a scientific theory.
Deciding between the two camps was and is a crucial matter. Consider the clash - however repressed - between psychiatry and psychology. The former regards “mental disorders” as euphemisms - it acknowledges only the reality of brain dysfunctions (such as biochemical or electric imbalances) and of hereditary factors. The latter (psychology) implicitly assumes that something exists (the “mind”, the “psyche”) which cannot be reduced to hardware or to wiring diagrams. Talk therapy is aimed at that something and supposedly interacts with it.
But perhaps the distinction is artificial. Perhaps the mind is simply the way we experience our brains. Endowed with the gift (or curse) of introspection, we experience a duality, a split, constantly being both observer and observed. Moreover, talk therapy involves TALKING - which is the transfer of energy from one brain to another through the air. This is directed, specifically formed energy, intended to trigger certain circuits in the recipient brain. It should come as no surprise if it were to be discovered that talk therapy has clear physiological effects upon the brain of the patient (blood volume, electrical activity, discharge and absorption of hormones, etc.).
All this would be doubly true if the mind was, indeed, only an emergent phenomenon of the complex brain - two sides of the same coin.
Psychological theories of the mind are metaphors of the mind. They are fables and myths, narratives, stories, hypotheses, conjunctures. They play (exceedingly) important roles in the psychotherapeutic setting – but not in the laboratory. Their form is artistic, not rigorous, not testable, less structured than theories in the natural sciences. The language used is polyvalent, rich, effusive, and fuzzy – in short, metaphorical. They are suffused with value judgements, preferences, fears, post facto and ad hoc constructions. None of this has methodological, systematic, analytic and predictive merits.
Still, the theories in psychology are powerful instruments, admirable constructs of the mind. As such, they are bound to satisfy some needs. Their very existence proves it.
The attainment of peace of mind is a need, which was neglected by Maslow in his famous rendition. People will sacrifice material wealth and welfare, will forgo temptations, will ignore opportunities, and will put their lives in danger – just to reach this bliss of wholeness and completeness. There is, in other words, a preference of inner equilibrium over homeostasis. It is the fulfilment of this overriding need that psychological theories set out to cater to. In this, they are no different than other collective narratives (myths, for instance).
In some respects, though, there are striking differences:
Psychology is desperately trying to link up to reality and to scientific discipline by employing observation and measurement and by organizing the results and presenting them using the language of mathematics. This does not atone for its primordial sin: that its subject matter is ethereal and inaccessible. Still, it lends an air of credibility and rigorousness to it.
The second difference is that while historical narratives are “blanket” narratives – psychology is “tailored”, “customized”. A unique narrative is invented for every listener (patient, client) and he is incorporated in it as the main hero (or anti-hero). This flexible “production line” seems to be the result of an age of increasing individualism. True, the “language units” (large chunks of denotates and connotates) are one and the same for every “user”. In psychoanalysis, the therapist is likely to always employ the tripartite structure (Id, Ego, Superego). But these are language elements and need not be confused with the plots. Each client, each person, and his own, unique, irreplicable, plot.
To qualify as a “psychological” plot, it must be:
- All-inclusive (anamnetic) – It must encompass, integrate and incorporate all the facts known about the protagonist.
- Coherent – It must be chronological, structured and causal.
- Consistent – Self-consistent (its subplots cannot contradict one another or go against the grain of the main plot) and consistent with the observed phenomena (both those related to the protagonist and those pertaining to the rest of the universe).
- Logically compatible – It must not violate the laws of logic both internally (the plot must abide by some internally imposed logic) and externally (the Aristotelian logic which is applicable to the observable world).
- Insightful (diagnostic) – It must inspire in the client a sense of awe and astonishment which is the result of seeing something familiar in a new light or the result of seeing a pattern emerging out of a big body of data. The insights must be the logical conclusion of the logic, the language and of the development of the plot.
- Aesthetic – The plot must be both plausible and “right”, beautiful, not cumbersome, not awkward, not discontinuous, smooth and so on.
- Parsimonious – The plot must employ the minimum numbers of assumptions and entities in order to satisfy all the above conditions.
- Explanatory – The plot must explain the behaviour of other characters in the plot, the hero’s decisions and behaviour, why events developed the way that they did.
- Predictive (prognostic) – The plot must possess the ability to predict future events, the future behaviour of the hero and of other meaningful figures and the inner emotional and cognitive dynamics.
- Therapeutic – With the power to induce change (whether it is for the better, is a matter of contemporary value judgements and fashions).
- Imposing – The plot must be regarded by the client as the preferable organizing principle of his life’s events and the torch to guide him in the darkness to come.
- Elastic – The plot must possess the intrinsic abilities to self organize, reorganize, give room to emerging order, accommodate new data comfortably, avoid rigidity in its modes of reaction to attacks from within and from without.
In all these respects, a psychological plot is a theory in disguise. Scientific theories should satisfy most of the same conditions. But the equation is flawed. The important elements of testability, verifiability, refutability, falsifiability, and repeatability – are all missing. No experiment could be designed to test the statements within the plot, to establish their truth-value and, thus, to convert them to theorems.
There are four reasons to account for this shortcoming:
- Ethical – Experiments would have to be conducted, involving the hero and other humans. To achieve the necessary result, the subjects will have to be ignorant of the reasons for the experiments and their aims. Sometimes even the very performance of an experiment will have to remain a secret (double blind experiments). Some experiments may involve unpleasant experiences. This is ethically unacceptable.
- The Psychological Uncertainty Principle – The current position of a human subject can be fully known. But both treatment and experimentation influence the subject and void this knowledge. The very processes of measurement and observation influence the subject and change him.
- Uniqueness – Psychological experiments are, therefore, bound to be unique, unrepeatable, cannot be replicated elsewhere and at other times even if they deal with the SAME subjects. The subjects are never the same due to the psychological uncertainty principle. Repeating the experiments with other subjects adversely affects the scientific value of the results.
- The undergeneration of testable hypotheses – Psychology does not generate a sufficient number of hypotheses, which can be subjected to scientific testing. This has to do with the fabulous (=storytelling) nature of psychology. In a way, psychology has affinity with some private languages. It is a form of art and, as such, is self-sufficient. If structural, internal constraints and requirements are met – a statement is deemed true even if it does not satisfy external scientific requirements.
So, what are plots good for? They are the instruments used in the procedures, which induce peace of mind (even happiness) in the client. This is done with the help of a few embedded mechanisms:
- The Organizing Principle – Psychological plots offer the client an organizing principle, a sense of order and ensuing justice, of an inexorable drive toward well defined (though, perhaps, hidden) goals, the ubiquity of meaning, being part of a whole. It strives to answer the “why’s” and “how’s”. It is dialogic. The client asks: “why am I (here follows a syndrome)”. Then, the plot is spun: “you are like this not because the world is whimsically cruel but because your parents mistreated you when you were very young, or because a person important to you died, or was taken away from you when you were still impressionable, or because you were sexually abused and so on”. The client is calmed by the very fact that there is an explanation to that which until now monstrously taunted and haunted him, that he is not the plaything of vicious Gods, that there is who to blame (focussing diffused anger is a very important result) and, that, therefore, his belief in order, justice and their administration by some supreme, transcendental principle is restored. This sense of “law and order” is further enhanced when the plot yields predictions which come true (either because they are self-fulfilling or because some real “law” has been discovered).
- The Integrative Principle – The client is offered, through the plot, access to the innermost, hitherto inaccessible, recesses of his mind. He feels that he is being reintegrated, that “things fall into place”. In psychodynamic terms, the energy is released to do productive and positive work, rather than to induce distorted and destructive forces.
- The Purgatory Principle – In most cases, the client feels sinful, debased, inhuman, decrepit, corrupting, guilty, punishable, hateful, alienated, strange, mocked and so on. The plot offers him absolution. Like the highly symbolic figure of the Saviour before him – the client’s sufferings expurgate, cleanse, absolve, and atone for his sins and handicaps. A feeling of hard won achievement accompanies a successful plot. The client sheds layers of functional, adaptive clothing. This is inordinately painful. The client feels dangerously naked, precariously exposed. He then assimilates the plot offered to him, thus enjoying the benefits emanating from the previous two principles and only then does he develop new mechanisms of coping. Therapy is a mental crucifixion and resurrection and atonement for the sins. It is highly religious with the plot in the role of the scriptures from which solace and consolation can be always gleaned.