There’s a big difference between dry and dehydrated skin, yet both tend to feel the same— DRY!!!!

The Granny Mouse Spa team wish to share some observations on how to tell if your skin is dry or dehydrated? Try the pinch test! Pinch a small amount of skin on your cheek, abdomen, chest, or the back of your hand and hold for a few seconds. If your skin snaps back, you’re likely not dehydrated. If it takes a few moments to bounce back, you’re likely dehydrated.

Dryness refers to a skin type, while dehydration refers to a skin condition.

While both dehydrated and dry skin can feel the same, there are some significant differences between the two. It could be the skincare products which are just not doing the job for your skin.  In a nutshell, dehydrated skin is lacking in water, while dry skin is lacking in oil.

Dry skin is a skin type, and it’s something you’ve always had. Dry skin happens when your sebaceous glands don’t produce enough oil and this affects the skin on your entire body not just your face.

Dehydrated skin however is more of a skin condition and it can come and go depending also on the season. It occurs on every single skin type and can also include dry skin. The factors that cause dehydration could be your environment, weather, diet, and of course not drinking enough water.

Sometimes however, even when you drink sufficient water daily it’s just not enough. This could be due to the electrolytes which help bring the water to your cells. So, if you are drinking lots of water and not seeing results and your skin is still dehydrated, maybe patch in with your doctor to check your potassium levels.

Also, in the instance of dehydrated skin, you may have it that your skin looks oily but feels dry, and due to be dehydrated, it will try to produce more oil to compensate.

If your skin is feeling dry but you’re not sure if it’s just your skin type or because you’re dehydrated, there are some key things you can look for.

Your skin might be dry if you experience:

• Red, aggravated, flaky or itchy skin
• Arms, legs, scalp, and body skin is also dry
• Moisturizer absorbs quickly after applying

Your skin might be dehydrated if you experience:

• Your skin feels stretched or looks dull
• Your skin might feel and look both oily and dry
• You’re having more breakouts
• You notice more fine lines
• Under eyes may look darker and more sunken
• Up close in a mirror, skin may look like cracked

If you have dry skin, the following can help:

• Use A Moisturizer – make sure that you consult with a Granny Mouse Spa team member who can help you with selecting one for your skin type. Moisturizers help dry skin by providing a protective barrier.
• Avoid scolding hot Showers – Hot water removes the oil from the skin, so using warm water instead, is the way to go.
• Stay Away From Harsh Cleansers – Try using a cleanser that is cream-based and formulated with dry skin in mind and again consult with the “Mouse House” spa – they do advise that you avoid cleansers that contain fragrance and alcohol.

If you have dehydrated skin, the following can help keep your skin hydrated:

• Use a gentle cleanser and warm water and NOT hot – Similar to dry skin, you’ll want to avoid using hot water, and choosing a cleanser that is designed for dehydrated skin is best.
• Avoid Caffeine And Alcohol – These two are some of the worst things for dehydrated skin. Both act as diuretics, which deplete the body of its water content.
• Stay Away From Scrubs – Exfoliation is essential for both dry and dehydrated skin. For dehydrated skin, though, you’ll want to avoid an overly gritty scrub. Instead, you might look for a fruit enzyme that exfoliates.

Visit the Granny Mouse Country House & Spa team to see which treatments would be best suited for you at https://grannymouse.co.za/our-spa/

We all want to remember our memorable moments, and what better way than with our camera which these days is literally in your pocket!

You don’t have to be an expert photographer, as we now have the technology at our finger tips, and you can improve your skills much quicker by just using a phone. Who would have thought 200 years ago that this would be possible?

The team at Granny Mouse wanted to share how those picture perfect moments came about, and just how they capture the beauty of this iconic Midlands destination every day.

The first cameras were used not to create images but to study optics, and the first recorded image was an Arab scholar, Ibn Al-Haytham (945–1040) when he invented the camera obscura to demonstrate how light can be used to project an image onto a flat surface.

By the mid-1600s, with the invention of finely crafted lenses, artists began using the camera obscura to help them draw and paint elaborate real-world images. Using the same optical principles as the camera obscura, the magic lantern allowed people to project images, usually painted on glass slides, onto large surfaces. Then, German scientist Johann Heinrich Schulze conducted the first experiments with photo-sensitive chemicals in 1727.

In 1827, French scientist Joseph Nicephore Niepce developed the first photographic image with a camera obscura but the process took eight hours of light exposure to create an image that would soon fade away. Fellow Frenchman Louis Daguerre took another dozen years before he was able to reduce exposure time to less than 30 minutes and keep the image from disappearing afterward, this being the first practical process of photography.

The ability to create multiple prints came about thanks to the work of Henry Fox Talbot, an English botanist, mathematician, who sensitized paper to light using a silver-salt solution. He then exposed the paper to light and by 1841 perfected the paper negative and called it a calotype, Greek meaning Beautiful.

By the mid-1800s, scientists and photographers were experimenting with new ways to take and process pictures that were more efficient, which led to negatives being printed on glass. The process, patented in 1856 by the American scientist Hamilton Smith, used iron instead of copper to yield a positive image, but both processes had to be developed quickly before the emulsion dried. In the field, this meant carrying along a portable darkroom full of toxic chemicals in fragile glass bottles. Photography was not for the faint of heart or those who traveled lightly!

From the need for portable darkrooms and technicians, and waiting days or month for images the early 1940s ushered in commercially viable colour films by Kodak, Agfa, and other film companies.

Instant photography was invented by Edwin Herbert Land, and in 1948, he unveiled his first instant-film camera, the Land Camera 95. Over the next several decades, Land’s Polaroid Corporation would refine black-and-white film and cameras that were fast, cheap, and remarkably sophisticated, but colour film was only introduced in 1963!

Over the next several decades, major manufacturers such as Kodak in the U.S., Leica in Germany, and Canon and Nikon in Japan, would all introduce or develop the major camera formats still in use today.

The first digital camera sold in the U.S, appeared in 1990 and by 2004 they were outselling film cameras in a big way. Obviously all mobile phones as we know them today all have cameras, with Samsung having introduced the first smartphone camera in 2000.

Apple later went on to introduce its smartphone camera in 2007, and other companies went on to follow. By 2013, smartphones with camera capabilities were outselling digital cameras more than 10-to-1.

In 2019, more than 1.5 billion smartphones (most of which have camera capabilities) were sold to consumers, compared with about 550,000 digital cameras over roughly the same period.

So, next time you’re at the “picture perfect” Granny Mouse Country House & Spa with your camera/phone at the ready, here is to looking back and thanking the folks who afforded you the opportunity in capturing all your memorable moments!

Reference

• “A Complete History of the Camera Phone.”

https://legacybox.com/blogs/analog/the-history-of-cameras