Painting can be so much more than a mere hobby - it can be a vehicle transforming your mind, body, and spirit! Painting and bravely embracing the challenges of creativity sparks a revolution that involves heart, creativity, courage, and trust!

Artistic pursuits such as painting have the power to soothe, heal, and connect a person to their truest self. For author Flora Bowley, making art and expressing herself creatively have always served as potent forms of personal evolution and holistic healing. Creative Revolution is the reader's key to unlocking the door to their own personal journey while making beautiful art.

Creative Revolution is the culmination of Flora's life's work as an artist, offering guidance for others to embrace their authentic selves through paint. She has taught more than sixty workshops since she wrote her first book, Brave Intuitive Painting, and has witnessed miraculous things when people engage with the intuitive painting process. Creative Revolution is the next best thing to taking a course from Flora. Many readers and students can't help but exclaim, "This was about so much more than painting!" After reading Creative Revolution, readers will have a deeper connection to their intuition, increased confidence to make bolder choices, freedom to let go and explore various options, an understanding that everything is transformable, the trust that it will all work out in the end, and a renewed sense that creating can be fun and playful. All of this powerful transformation begins with paint. Flora has been writing and reflecting on these transformational aspects of the creative process for years. Creative Revolution is an insightful and practical guide for realizing the transformational power of fully embracing your creativity.

The secret to caring for your tattoo lies in dedication. Your dedication and fervent care go a long way towards a timeless tattoo. The actions you take to protect your tattoo—especially in the first two months of healing—keeps your tattoo looking the same for decades. While tattoos are permanent, improper care leads to faded tattoos, tattoos with blurry edges, lost color, or distorted designs. Use this guide to prevent infection in the short-term and look excellent in the long-term.

For those of you who just need the basics, this timeline sums it up for you. The tattoo healing process time varies depending on your type and size of tattoo, so this timeline represents the general average. Simply check what time matches your own and act accordingly. We explain each stage in much more detail later on in the article, so stay tuned!

 

First Few Hours

When you first get your tattoo, your artist will commonly treat it with an antibacterial ointment and bandage it with plastic wrap, paper towels, and sometimes tape. Warn them if you have an allergy to adhesive so that they can use a different kind of tape for you. Ultimately, how they bandage it doesn’t matter too much you’ll want to take off that bandage after two hours so that your tattoo can begin its healing process. Keeping it on any longer encourages bacteria to grow in the dark, moist area of your tattoo. Giving it some air prevents infection and speeds healing.

When you remove your bandage, make sure you clean, disinfect, and dry your hands. Bacteria cover hands, so hands easily spread infection. While your tattoo heals, make sure to wash your hands compulsively and avoid touching the tattoo unless you’re washing. If your bandage is stuck to the tattoo, worry not. Get a small spray bottle or cloth and rinse the bandage not your tattoo with water. As the bandage gets wet, it should stop sticking to your tattoo. Avoid getting any water on your tattoo for now, and slowly ease the bandage off.

As soon as you remove your bandage, you’ll notice that your tattoo feels kind of like a sunburn. If it hurts more than you expected, any over-the-counter pain medication will help with it. Ibuprofen seems to have the best effect. Once it’s off, you don’t have to bandage it again.

After taking off the bandage, you might be tempted to wash off all the grime. Well, good news—you can! But, you have to follow very specific instructions. Read on to learn how to wash a new tattoo.

More information here

 

People trust that the cosmetics and personal care products that they purchase are safe for all their family members, including their companion animals, but object to the use of animals in toxicity testing to assess the safety of these products and their ingredients. Polls have shown that most consumers would prefer to use products from companies that do not test on animals. And innovative alternative testing methods are now available that are more humane, faster, less expensive and better able to predict how these products will affect people. Despite this, the use of animals to test the safety of cosmetics continues in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Cosmetics—typically defined as products that are intended to be applied or introduced into the human body for the purposes of cleansing or beautification—are, for the most part, not required to undergo animal testing in the U.S. There are exceptions, including hair dyes, certain cleaning products and anti-bacterial soaps. However, companies are still legally responsible for ensuring the safety of their ingredients and finished products before they come to market.

Animal testing for cosmetics was instituted in the 1940s in response to serious injuries suffered by people who were exposed to unsafe beauty products. Today, many companies actually have no need to test, as their formularies rely upon ingredients that are classified as “generally recognized as safe.” Testing for these ingredients may have been conducted on animals at one time, but is not done so currently. Regardless, some companies continue to do animal testing as a kind of legal protection against a lawsuit if a product harms a person. They may use the animal tests as evidence that they used “due diligence” in conducting safety testing.

Another reason animal testing may take place is that a company may be testing new chemical compounds, or testing compounds on a sensitive population such as children or the elderly, to determine whether the substances will cause an allergic reaction if applied to skin, or whether they cause irritation or corrosion of the skin or eyes.

Companies that manufacture or market their products overseas may be required to submit them for animal testing. Today, however, a growing number of countries around the world have passed laws banning the testing of cosmetics on animals. At the same time, many companies are working to develop, validate and implement innovative alternative methods that are not only replacing animal testing for cosmetics, but which are also being used in other industries.

NAVS has been committed to providing consumers with credible information regarding cruelty-free products for more than 30 years, starting with the publication of our first “Personal Care with Principle” pamphlet in 1985 and continuing through 13 print editions of our authoritative guide, Personal Care for People Who Care. Today, NAVS is proud to be a member of the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC), which, through its Leaping Bunny Program, utilizes a single, comprehensive standard for identifying cruelty-free cosmetics, personal care products and household products. A continuously-updated listing of these products can be found in NAVS’ Cruelty-Free Product Guide.

In addition, our funding of the International Foundation for Ethical Research and support of the Society for In Vitro Biology allows NAVS to invest in the development and implementation of alternatives while working to advance greater respect, compassion and justice for animals. We’ve also taken an active role in support of the Humane Cosmetics Act which would prohibit the sale of cosmetics products that have been tested on animals. This legislation is currently being considered in the U.S. House of Representatives.

LIST OF THE BEST BRANDS