The Queen’s Blog

Abraham Lincoln once said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand”. This is as true today as the day Lincoln uttered it.

We are at a momentous period in our history. This is a time of great challenges for us, but it is also a time of tremendous opportunities. I propose to you today that to win against the enemies who threaten our country’s security and meet the challenges of a difficult economy we have to make a great national sacrifice.

This admittedly difficult sacrifice is first and foremost about putting aside petty party differences to work together for the common good of our beloved country, the country that has nurtured, protected and defended us all our lives. This means no longer bashing the other party or its individual members but genuinely working together with them with all options available to us on the table. It means genuinely caring more about America than we do about party agendas or about what is politically correct and expedient. It means working together to correct mistakes of the past instead of doing our utmost to point the finger of blame toward the other party or person. While dissent is a very desirable American quality, we cannot allow dissent to deteriorate into vitriol that painfully and irrevocably divides us, because unity in the face of a fearsome enemy is also a desirable American quality. It was unity of purpose and resolve that helped America and its allies to stand and ultimately triumph against the evil that was Nazi Germany. It was this same unity that brought our founding fathers together who then risked everything they had in the service of the common cause of freedom. It was the lack of this unity of purpose that nearly tore our nation apart during the civil war, a horrific conflict that claimed at least 618,000 American lives.

In the face of our current economic and security challenges we have an important choice to make. Do we choose to surge forward as one to retain and advance our greatness as a nation, or do we let America down and continue to bitterly fight amongst ourselves? Do we become the generation that started another great era in American history or do we lose ourselves in an endless internal conflict?

People are so obsessed with the R or D after a candidate’s name they tend not to see much else.  Imagine a world without D’s and R’s.  A place where people are judged people based on what they say and do.  If there were no political parties and you had to vote for a person, not a party, what would the process be like?

Without parties we would not have preconceived ideas to shape our opinions.  We would have to take the time to look at each candidate and think about what they have done in the past and what they say they will do in the future.

Barack Obama and John McCain are the only choices Americans have to choose from for the upcoming presidential election of 2008.  Without any political parties what would this race look like?

John McCain is the son of a US Navy man and his family has served in US military for generations.  John became a naval aviator and was shot down over Vietnam during his 23rd mission.  He spent six years as a prisoner of war.  John had the opportunity to leave prison in 1968, six months after his capture, but he chose to stay with his fellow Americans.  He spent two years in solitary confinement and was finally released from prison in 1973.  John served as the Navy Liaison to the Senate after returning from the war.  John McCain became a US congressman in 1982 and a US Senator in 1986.  John was involved in the Keating five scandal of 1987.  John was cleared of any wrong doing by the Senate Ethics Committee and he publicly stated that what he did was wrong.  McCain claims he learned a valuable lesson from this experience and has fought against corruption since.

Barack Obama is the son of an Islamic father and he attended an Islamic school in Indonesia and his registered faith was Islam.  Today Obama claims he never was a Muslim.  Barack became a community organizer in Chicago where he encouraged the down-trodden people to vote for the political candidates he supported so they could receive help. Barack became an Illinois state senator in 1997. While Barack was in Chicago he made friends with at least two figures who have openly hostile feelings toward our nation, Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers.  Jeremiah Wright was the pastor of Barack’s church where he attended twice a month for twenty years.  Wright is well known for his strong anti-American rhetoric and Barack claims that after attending Wright’s church almost 500 times he never heard any anti-American statements. Bill Ayers was a member of a radical organization which set bombs and was responsible for killing policemen during the Vietnam War.  Bill and Barack worked together during their time in Chicago and Obama wrote the forward in a book written by Ayers.  Obama claims not to share the views of Wright and Ayers but he only discontinued his friendships while running for president.  Michelle Obama also publicly stated that she has never been proud of her country before Barack ran for president.  Obama has said that he values Michelle’s opinions more than anyone else’s. Barack became a US senator in 2004.  Since being elected Barack has sponsored legislation to create a Rosa Parks postage stamp and several other pieces of legislation which are intended to help the poor and urban populations.  Barack has opposed the war in Iraq and voted to cut funding for the troops.  Barack has voted to raise taxes many times and has never voted to cut them.

The two party system in our country forces us to swing back and forth rather than voting for the best person for the job.

Here are the facts about Barack Obama:
1.    He is an eloquent speaker.
2.    He is young.
3.    He is supported by the majority of Hollywood and pop culture.
4.    He is treated very gently by the mainstream media.
5.    He has a history of raising taxes.
6.    He has a history of associating with people who are hostile towards America.
7.    He clearly states on his website that the US cannot win the war in Iraq.
8.    He has been endorsed by enemies of the United States including Hamas.
9.    He has no history of doing anything which helped the economy.
10.    He says he would regulate business to solve the current economic crisis.
11.    He has no history of helping the poor or middle class.
12.    He helped to build some community housing in Chicago which is unlivable.
13.    He had to be shamed into putting his hand on his heart during the national anthem.
14.    He refuses to admit when he is wrong.  The surge has worked and he refuses to say so.
15.    He has never been friendly toward business.
16.    He believes in taking money from the wealthy and giving it to the poor, that is Marxism.
17.    He calls it racism if anyone asks him questions about his questionable associations.
18.    He has worked with organizations which encourage voter fraud, ACORN.
19.    He quotes the media as proof and the media quotes him as proof.  This one is amazing.
20.    He personally attacks people who discuss these points and refuses to talk to them face to face.
21.    His supporters encourage children to sing for change.
22.    He uses intimidation to keep the NRA from running ads against him.
23.    His supporters bus the homeless to register and vote at the same time, for him.
24.    He voted present well over a hundred times while an Illinois senator, instead of choosing a side.
25.    He took more money from Freddie and Fannie than anyone else during his senate term.

In a country without republicans and democrats this election would be much different.  People are ready to vote for the D rather than the man because of the current R administration.  This could be a mistake most of us regret for a long time.

Don’t vote for a D or an R.  Vote for the man you trust to do what is right.  Vote for the man who shares your values.  Vote for a person, not a letter.

Roget’s II defines character as “the combination of emotional, intellectual, and moral qualities that distinguishes an individual”. A person’s ethical qualities can be virtues, such as steadfastness and reliability but they can also be vices, like megalomania and vengefulness.

Through the recent crisis in our economy we have all seen how important it is for leaders to exercise good judgment, maintain a high degree of honesty and integrity, avoid illegal, dishonest, fraudulent or deceitful conduct, and stay away from acts which show disregard for the health, safety and welfare of the country. We have all witnessed how a lack of good moral character caused Democratic members of Congress to insist on little to no oversight at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and how the subsequent collapse of these institutions led to an expanding failure of banks worldwide.

Now, more than ever, is when we need our leaders to have honesty, responsibility, integrity, trustworthiness, mental and emotional competence, and respect for the rights of others. In short we need our country’s leaders to have good character so that they can lead us through the tough times with honor, honesty, integrity, reliability and responsibility. We can’t afford more of the same lying, cheating, and stealing that got us to this point in the first place.

An honorable character is the most important quality a leader like the President of The United States can have and we must ask some questions to determine which ticket running for the top two offices in the land has it. Here are two questions that bring the character picture into sharp focus.

Who caused the current economic crisis?

Some say Bush but as intelligent people we know that the president has little to no effect on the economy other than signing or rejecting legislation that the congress puts before him. Contrary to unproven yet popular media and Democratic claims that Republican deregulation caused the problem, it was really the lack of ethics and good character on the part of Democratic members of congress that caused it. People who are yelling the loudest like Barney Frank and Barrack Obama acted to protect Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CEO’s who were defrauding their companies. They did it by refusing to pass legislation from Senator McCain and others, which was (shocker here) attempting to “regulate” and “oversee” Fannie/Freddie. Under the guise of providing homes for the poor (meaning people who could not keep up house payments) the Democrats in congress consistently killed every attempt by Republicans to regulate the two renegade companies which continued to run amok, almost taking the rest of the country down the drain with them!

Who has the character to fix the economic crisis?

The answer to this question would have to be: the ticket that has shown the most moral character not just during this campaign, but during their entire career. The ticket to vote for would have to be the ticket whose members have consistently worked to clean up corruption and excessive government spending, the ticket whose members have consistently put the interests of the United States before party and before personal gain. There is only one ticket that fits this bill and that is McCain/Palin.

Senator McCain’s sacrifices for America speak for themselves. It was he who spent 5 years of his life under pain and torture in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. Likewise it was McCain who tried to regulate Fannie/Freddie and in 2006 warned, “If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole”. Governor Palin’s record also reveals a person of tough moral character who stood up to deep corruption in her own party despite her newness on the political scene of Alaska.

The other ticket, by contrast has not shown the moral fiber to stop corruption, not once. In fact when they had the chance, Obama and Biden did nothing to regulate Fannie/Freddie and indeed defended their unsound business practices. Later Obama even took advice on economic matters from the corrupt ousted CEO’s of Fannie/Freddie, Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, and accepted record donations from Fannie/Freddie employees. Now Obama and Biden not only refuse to admit to their part in the crisis, they also falsely accuse McCain’s general stance toward deregulation for the entire mess.

People who helped cause the current economic collapse through deliberate actions are not the ones that deserve our trust to fix it because their demonstrated lack of moral character tells us no trust is warranted for such wrongdoers and deniers. Only one ticket deserves our trust and our votes and that is McCain/Palin. McCain/Palin’s strong moral character and solid commitment to America stands alone in a political landscape otherwise littered with people who are guilty of ongoing dishonesty and self-dealing.

References:

character. (n.d.). Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition. Retrieved October 02, 2008, from Thesaurus.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/character

Here is a video of statements made in congress from 2004.

Barack Obama and his supporters have been saying that the current financial crisis was caused by a lack of regulation.

Many people in congress were calling for increased regulation on Freddie and Fannie long before this crisis occurred. Most of the people asking for more regulation were republicans. Some republicans even sponsored legislation to increase regulation, including John McCain (Read the bill).

Many people in congress claimed that there were no problems with Freddie and Fannie. Most of those people were democrats. The democrats even attempted to discredit the OFHEO (Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight) regulator.

I do not like playing the blame game but the democrats insist on blaming the republicans when there is clear evidence that they blocked attempts to increase regulation. This is the truth and it needs to be stated loudly.

First let’s get something straight. The current economic crisis is not an overnight phenomenon. It is a dangerous and destructive poison which has been brewing for years in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae’s kitchens. While Fannie/Freddie are more directly responsible for the current financial catastrophe, they have enjoyed the support of powerful enablers who must be exposed and made to answer for their harmful actions against America’s economic system.

Starting in the 1980’s Fannie/Freddie began intentionally loosening underwriting standards under pressure from “progressive” politicians and groups like ACORN (a criminal organization proven to be involved in voter fraud) who were ostensibly pushing for ending discrimination. What they termed “discrimination” was the inclusion of what these groups called “arbitrary” or “outdated” criteria that tend to disqualify urban or lower-income minority home loan applicants.

Some of these “outdated” criteria included the size of the mortgage payment relative to income, credit history, savings history and income verification. Those “outdated” standards existed for the sole purpose of limiting defaults! But this did not deter bank regulators who demanded the loosening of underwriting standards, with approval by “progressive” politicians. This was despite warnings by experts such as Alan Greenspan that loosening lending standards could lead to wide-scale defaults.

Given that the government created Fannie/Freddie to keep money flowing to mortgage lenders by guaranteeing payment to investors if the borrowers default, how responsible was it for these institutions to increase their financial risk by ignoring legitimate borrowing criteria?

That’s not all the Fannie/Freddie and their “progressive” supporters did to put our nation into this crisis. They disdained holding greater capital to insulate themselves against defaults. Instead they blindly maintained that housing was too safe of an investment to need any additional capital. They refused to admit that having all their eggs in one basket would leave them more vulnerable to a downturn in the housing sector.

Even worse, corruption set in at both institutions under chairmen like Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson and Congress failed to act to put a stop to it and to the risky behavior.

When a federal regulator charged that Fannie Mae had cooked its books to increase executive bonuses, lawmakers lined up to criticize the regulator. Rep. William L. Clay Jr. (D-Mo.) said a House panel had no business holding a hearing on the matter — “unless this is truly a witch hunt.” Fannie Mae was later discovered to have overstated profits by $6.3 billion.

Congress was deadlocked over passing legislation to create a stronger regulator even after Freddie Mac was shown to have manipulated earnings. Opposing one such bill in 2004, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued that a hostile regulator could use the proposed powers to disable Fannie/Freddie.

Former representative Richard H. Baker (R-La.), who chaired a subcommittee that oversaw Fannie/Freddie, fought for years to rein them in and attempted to show they were being managed for the enrichment of their executives. When Baker obtained data on Fannie Mae pay, an attorney for Fannie threatened him with personal liability if he made the information public.

Even Senator McCain who tried to reform Fannie/Freddie by cosponsoring the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, failed to generate enough support for its passage because Democrats used business-as-usual stalling tactics to stop the bill’s progress. McCain’s words at the time of cosponsoring the bill now ring prophetic: “If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole”.

While it is not certain whether success in imposing the new tougher regulations on Fannie/Freddie, which Senator McCain and his cosponsors proposed, would have saved us from the present predicament, it is quite clear which side of the isle actively worked to protect Fannie/Freddie’s corrupt practices and which side actively worked to stop them!

In this crucial election year we must all be fully aware of what is going on, who is trying to manipulate our opinions and why. The current prime mover of voter manipulation and fraud is a person who you probably never heard of before now. He is one George Soros and he wants you to vote his way, but you may want to think twice after you learn who he is and what he stands for.

Soros’ own sanitized biography paints him as a Jewish survivor of Nazi-occupied Hungary who became a self-made billionaire through studying economics in England, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1961 and then making a multibillion-dollar fortune as a financier who lead the way in creating hedge funds. The real story, however, is much more interesting and definitely far more sinister.

Soros was in fact a Nazi collaborator who over the course of his life has authored books painting him as a so-called “stateless statesman”, and a “philanthropist” who has donated $5 billion of his now $8.5 billion fortune through his principal vehicle, the Open Society Institute (OSI). Upon further examination however, it becomes apparent that OSI has in fact passed these “donations” on to far left radical pressure groups, such as MoveOn.org, eco terrorism groups like Sea Shepherds, Earth First and the Ruckus Society, and organizations that work to free Islamist terror suspects based on legal technicalities involving the violation of their “civil rights”.

What’s far more sinister is that Soros is not merely a hands-off donor. He has an agenda of toppling democratic governments whose voter verdicts he opposes. According to OSI’s own website “Soros is personally involved in planning and implementing many of the foundation network’s projects.” Furthermore Soros covers his true motives under the guise of “philanthropy”, allowing him to pull off covert manipulations of our democratic process toward his own ends.

Interestingly enough Soros first began this type of covert activism work supporting organizations that played a role in undermining the weakened communist regimes of Eastern Europe in the 1980’s. Since 2003, however, he has painted the United States as a fascist regime and has made tearing down America the central focus of his efforts using his vast resources.

For example he gave Moveon.org a $5 million donation thus giving the once lunatic fringe organization the power and influence it now wields over the Democratic Party. His money enabled MoveOn.org to place the now infamous full-page New York Times ad that branded General Petraeus “General Betray Us.” Soros has funded Moveon.org and directed it to use those funds to wage professional public relations campaigns depicting President Bush as a Nazi, a view that Soros personally espouses.

 But that’s not where it ends! Soros has also funded spin organizations like Media Matters whose sole purpose is to provide distorted conservative political statements as grist for the mills of leftist politicians and media. Media Matters in conjunction with MoveOn.org managed to succeed in denying incumbent Lieberman the Democratic nomination for Senate in Connecticut. Their joint efforts not only drove the moderate  Lieberman out of his own party, they also managed to intimidate any other Democrats, including today’s group running for office, from challenging any Soros-financed pressure group.

The scariest of all is what Soros has done to manipulate and steal elections from the US electorate. Soros has funded two criminal groups, Americans Coming Together (ACT) and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which were both sanctioned recently by the Federal Election Commission for fraud. After giving a combined total of $11.5 million to these organizations, Soros now claims to have stopped all such efforts but curiously runs a rich-man’s club called “Democracy Alliance” that has donated $20 million to shady activist groups like ACORN.

In addition Soros’ pet organization, Moveon.org promotes “paper-trail” electronic voting in the U.S. This is the same system that Venezuela used to disastrous ends, where charges of electronic fraud and ballot secrecy violations destroyed confidence in the system and established Chavez’s dictatorship.

 These are by no means all the questionable covert activities that Soros has sponsored! They are, however, more than enough for us as voters in a free society to pause and ask ourselves some serious questions. Questions like: Why has the Democratic Party swung so far to the left in recent years? Why did the Democratic Party choose a presidential candidate whose only qualification is espousing a far left agenda over a candidate who scored so much better with Middle America voters? Why did Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton both refuse to vote to support a symbolic sanction against Moveon.org for the defamation of General Petraeus? Why are the Democratic Party and Barrack Obama (he served as ACORN’s attorney) so closely tied to criminal organizations that seem determined to commit voter fraud? Could it be that they are following the will of their powerful puppet master, George Soros, who is determined to destroy America?

On July 5, 2008, the Associated Press (AP) released a story entitled: Secret
U.S. mission hauls uranium from Iraq. The opening paragraph is as follows:
“The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program a huge
stockpile of concentrated natural uranium reached a Canadian port
Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two week
airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.”

So why haven’t we heard this story on any mainstream media? Could it be that the largely leftist media is afraid of losing its credibility now that 550 metric tons of Saddam’s yellowcake, used for nuclear weapon enrichment, has been discovered and shipped to Canada for its new use as nuclear energy?

It appears that American troops found the 550 metric tons of uranium in
2003 after invading Iraq. Our government had to hold onto this information and the uranium itself, for fear of terrorists attempting to steal it. Thus our troops
guarded it and kept it safe in a 23,000-acre site surrounded with large sand berms until it could be safely repurposed.

Again I ask: why have the mainstream media have not picked up this particular AP story and broadcast it worldwide? Could it because the revelation in this story vindicates the Bush administration regarding Saddam’s nuclear ambitions? After all such a broadcast would force the media to admit they were wrong about Bush’s war motives all along!

The story correctly asserts that “removal of 550 metric tons of yellowcake, the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam’s nuclear legacy”.
The leftist media have often contended that Bush lied when he said the motive for the war in Iraq was closing the book on Saddam’s nuclear legacy. As it turns out, it was the media who lied and who continues to conceal the truth even now.

You don’t believe me? I wouldn’t expect you too! Read the story for yourself
 by clicking on the link below.
 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25546334/

The financial crisis which is underway on Wall Street is the current dominant theme for the presidential candidates.  I have never been an expert on the workings of Wall Street but with the accusations flying around the political realm I decided to do my own research into the matter.
Fannie Mae is the older of the two institutions as was created under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938.  FDR created this agency as part of his New Deal and the intent was to help people buy homes by lowering the cost. (http://www.fanniemae.com/aboutfm/index.jhtml?p=About+Fannie+Mae)

Freddie Mac was created in 1970 by the 91st US congress with a similar purpose as Fannie Mae.  The mission described by Freddie Mac is “to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s mortgage markets using private, not public capital.” (http://www.freddiemac.com/corporate/about/policy/faq_created.html)

Both of these agencies were created to make it easier for people to obtain mortgages.  It appears that the current housing crisis was caused because lenders made it too easy for people to buy homes.  The Wall Street Journal, Barrons, Forbes and other business publications have repeatedly described these home lending practices as a “slow-motion train wreck”. (http://www.forbes.com/2004/07/06/cz_rl_0706soapbox_print.html)

My point here is that the housing market, and the current crisis, has been directly affected by the intervention of government albeit with the best of intentions.  Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provided lenders with an implicit promise that the government would take care of the loans if anything bad were to happen.  This type of “golden parachute” allowed the smaller lenders to get creative with their loan requirements.  If you know there are no consequence to your business if a loan fails then what the hell, make those loans and then sell them to Freddie and Fannie as fast as you can.  The problem here should be obvious.

Now the two political candidates are weighing in on this issue.  Obama is trying to blame Bush and his policies for this crisis.  McCain is trying to blame the greed of Wall Street.  Blame might be fun but it is pointless.  What is important is to recognize the true cause of the crisis and try to find the best possible solutions.

The current housing crisis is a good example of what happens when government tries to regulate the free market.  There are always consequences and they are usually unexpected.  Like the saying goes “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”.  Everyone knows life can be hard especially when there are no safety nets, but safety nets can come with some very high unforeseen price tags.

Do you think the government should try to fix this mess, and if so how?

If like most people you think that socialism only existed in the past, this piece may interest you.

Socialism is a socio-economic philosophy that seeks to first create a division among economic classes and then exploit that manufactured conflict to forcibly confiscate and redistribute the wealth from the most productive and thus wealthiest members of society to the poorest and thus least productive ones.

So what’s wrong with this you say? The rich never pay their fair share anyway and we all could use a little wealth redistribution from the wealthy to us, right?

Not so right! Socialism takes away individual freedom in order to equalize the status of those who are high economic producers with those who are low to extremely low economic producers. Any socio-economic program that attempts to institute such equality endangers freedom. Once individual freedom is lost, there will not even be equality among the un-free.

It is after all people of wealth, those high economic producers, who can afford to invest in research and development of new ideas which lead to the creation of new businesses and jobs. Innovation comes from unfettered individual efforts not from government bureaucracies whose chief interest is self perpetuation. At a time when our nation most needs innovation to successfully take on the challenge to develop new domestic energy sources, is it truly wise to stifle the source of funding for such innovation? History says no.

Historically socialism has failed to deliver its lofty promise of social justice in country after country including Russia, China, Cuba, Albania, North Korea, and Vietnam. This history of consistent failure exists because socialism fails to allocate resources according to market needs. It instead allocates resources based on the direction of a single leader or group of leaders.

It is hard to believe that despite such a record of historical failure socialism is still being promoted and sold to the people of America and still under the guise of the ultimate in social justice. Who is doing this? If you haven’t guessed by now, it is Barack Obama and his campaign who are trying to sell America this old stale bill of goods under a cleverly designed brand of “change”. The democrats like to talk about the insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I’m curious to know why this doesn’t apply to the failed policies of socialism that Obama is promoting!

Even more curiously Obama is not really bothering to hide his blatantly socialist policies that well. If you are the inquisitive sort, all you have to do is check Obama’s website and see what his policies are for yourself.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/service/

We can’t afford to make any mistakes here. What Obama promises maybe wrapped in pretty words, but it’s the same old, tired and failed Marxist ideologies of two centuries ago! I encourage everyone to read Obama’s own words describing his proposed policies on his website, and then decide. Who is the best candidate to become our Chief Patriot? Is it to be the man who has given his all and laid down his life in support of America’s spirit of individualism and innovation or is it to be the man who thinks this country is so rotten to the core that we need to “re-educate” our youth so they will march in lock step with his Marxist ideals?

Facial cleansers and scrubs are important for your skin’s circulation. The best way to clean your face is the gentlest way. Use facial pore cleansers & scrubs when it comes to caring for your face. Some skin care face cleansers can be too harsh on your skin. Your facial cleansers and scrubs should remove makeup and dirt without leaving your face feeling overly dry. Choosing appropriate facial cleansers and scrubs is vital to healthy skin.

When washing your face you want to dissolve the dirt and oil on the surface of the skin and normalize your skin condition. Facial cleansers and scrubs basically consist of oil, water and surfactants. Oil dissolves the oil on the face and surfactants dissolve everything else and finally water washes it all away. Facial cleansers can also help prevent blemishes.

If you use facial cleansers that are too rich for your skin you can clog your pores, if it is too drying it can irritate your skin. Facial cleansers and scrubs are available for all skin types. It is important to clean your face thoroughly and it is vital that you remove your makeup every night before bed. To have naturally healthy looking skin use pore cleansers for deep cleaning which can be of further help in stopping facial blemishes.

Cleanse your face gently with warm water to loosen clogged pores and stimulate blood circulation to the skin. Be sure to rinse with cool water to tighten your pores, water that is too hot or too cold can cause broken capillaries. Using facial cleansers and scrubs regularly can make a huge difference in your appearance. You can keep your skin healthy looking with natural facial cleansers.

A natural facial cleanser to try:

Lettuce Cleansing Lotion

½ Head Lettuce

4 Cups Water

1/8 tsp tincture of benzoin

Place lettuce in a medium sized saucepan and cover with the water. Bring the water to a boil over medium heat. Lower the heat and simmer for one hour. Remove from the heat and allow the mixture to cool completely. Strain off all solids and stir in the tincture of benzoin. Pour into a clean container with a tight fitting lid. Use this lotion to cleanse your skin.

This gentle lotion is particularly well suited to the needs of sensitive skin and can also be used to soothe minor burns and irritations. Lettuce contains vitamins, sulfur, silicon and phosphorus, all important ingredients for a healthy complexion.

Yield: 16 ounces