Summer Tips for Skin Care in Children!

Here comes the summer and it is a great time for kids – long, sunny days filled with lots of outdoor activities and family vacations.

Being prepared to protect your children’s skin will help you prevent unwarranted disasters in outings or vacations.

Dermatologist Dr. Meera Govindaraju is sharing with us about summer tips for skin care to protect the sensitive skin of the child from the harsh sun !!!

Top Summer Tips for Skin Care in Children

Here are a few summer skincare tips that will help you protect your little munchkins

Newborns

Keep the newborns out of the direct sunlight. When the newborn crosses 6-month mark sunscreens can be applied.

How to Choose Sunscreen for kids?

• Look for sunscreens that contain zinc oxide or titanium dioxide with and sun protection factor(SPF) of 30.
• Avoid sunscreens that contain parabens, benzophenones, oxybenzone, octinoxate, avobenzone, and those that are tinted or scented.
• Choose a broad-spectrum sunscreen which protects against UVA & UVB rays.

How to Use Sunscreen for Kids

Always apply sunscreen on your child before going outside. Apply sunscreen 15 to 30 minutes before going outside. Then reapply every 2 hours or sooner in case the child has been swimming. Incase of water-resistant sunscreen reapplies as directed in the product.

Dressing up in Summer

Dress your little one in lightweight cotton clothing. Also choose dark hues of red, blue, or green as these do not absorb sunlight. Ensure that your child wears a broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses which protect the eyes and the sensitive area that surrounds the eyes.

Avoid Sunlight during day hours

The best way of sun protection is to avoid sunlight. Staying indoors between 10.00am to 4.00pm when the sun’s rays are strongest.

Nutrition

It is also important to eat fresh vegetables, fruits, and superfoods which are high in antioxidants. Give your child plenty of fluids.

Deal with Prickly Heat

Kids tend to sweat a lot and can end up with heat rash or prickly hear which are tiny red bumps seen on the neck, face, armpits, and upper torso. They are caused by clogged sweat gland pores and are itchy. To avoid this use a mild fragrance-free soap and give a lukewarm bath. Intake of fruits rich in vitamin C is advised to prevent further recurrence. Topical soothing agents like calamine lotion can be applied.

How to treat Sunburn?

If your child gets sunburn place cool compresses on the sunburn and applies aloe gel which is refrigerated a few minutes before application. If the above measures fail to reduce the symptoms it's important to consult a dermatologist.

6 Best Supermarkets and Grocery Stores in New Zealand!

Although New Zealand grocery stores tend to be a bit expensive, shopping for groceries, as opposed to eating out at restaurants, will save you a great deal of money. Together Countdown, New World, and Pak’nSave dominate the New Zealand grocery store industry, but Four Square, FreshChoice, and SuperValue pull their weight.

In no particular order, here is a list of the best New Zealand grocery stores and supermarkets.

1. Countdown

In 1981, the first Countdown store opened in Christchurch. Today, over 184 Countdown grocery stores exist across New Zealand. Owned by Woolworths New Zealand and headquartered in Auckland, Countdown employs over 18,500 New Zealanders. Countdown serves more than 2.5 million New Zealanders every week with over 20,000 different products in each of their stores.

2. New World

Founded in 1963, New World is a full-service supermarket with 140 locations across the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Each New World grocery store is independently owned and 100% Kiwi operated. Headquartered in Wellington, New World is one of the top three supermarkets in New Zealand. Similar to PAK’nSave and Four Square, New World is also owned by Foodstuffs.

3. FreshChoice

Founded fairly recently in 1995 and headquartered in Christchurch, FreshChoice is a chain of locally owned and operated New Zealand supermarkets. Just like Countdown and SuperValue, FreshChoice is owned by Woolworths New Zealand. At the time of this writing, there are 30 FreshChoice stores across New Zealand.

4. Four Square

In 1924, the first Four Square supermarket opened. Today, there are more than 240 stores across New Zealand with additional locations in Australia. The name for the grocery store originated when Heaton Barker drew a square around the 4 on his calendar on July 4, 1924. In addition, Barker states that the grocery store “would stand ‘Four Square’ to all the winds that blew”. Similar to Pak’nSave and New World, Four Square is also owned by Foodstuffs.

5. SuperValue

The first SuperValue opened in Opawa, Christchurch in 1964. Today, SuperValue has over 41 locally owned and operated supermarkets in New Zealand. Woolworths New Zealand also owns SuperValue, just like Countdown and FreshChoice. SuperValue was originally spelled without an ‘e’ like SuperValu, but customers disliked this, so the ‘e’ was tacked back on the end.

6. Pak’nSave

The last, but certainly not least in this list of New Zealand grocery stores is Pak’nSave. The first Pak’nSave opened in June 1985 at Kaitaia on the North Island, and today there are 57 locations across New Zealand. This New Zealand discount food warehouse chain is headquartered in Wellington and is probably the cheapest New Zealand grocery store. In order to offer the lowest grocery store prices in New Zealand, Pak’nSave buys in bulk, doesn’t decorate their stores, and has customers pack their own bags—hence the “pack and save” name. Similar to Four Square and New World, Pak’nSave is also owned by Foodstuffs.

Lifebuoy: How the brand's transformation win its fans

Even if it does literally nothing else by the time the year is done and dusted, Lifebuoy is still going to come through as one of the more innovative brands of 2013. In the tsunami of branding unleashed at the Maha Kumbh in Allahabad, Lifebuoy came up with the memorable ploy of embossing messages about the benefits of washing hands on rotis, after tying up with some popular local dhabas.

Barely a month later it has started 'Help A Child Reach 5'. It's a multipronged initiative. Apart from engaging with the brand's massive following on Facebook, it's the offline component that's most significant.

Hindustan Unilever intends adopting the village of Thesgora in Madhya Pradesh, attempting to track the co-relation between hand washing and a decline in the deaths of young children from pneumonia and diarrhoea. It's kicked off with a three minute long film on YouTube - probably the first commercial on the brand in over a decade to not feature a ubiquitous doctor.

There's good news from the market too: Lifebuoy's skin cleansing soaps have grown from 14.7% YTD to 15% in 2013, according to Nielsen figures obtained from independent industry sources. In the smaller handwash category, it was at 18.4% in 2010 and the YTD from 2012 to 2013 has seen a shift from 22.3% to 22.7%.

Not too shabby considering Lifebuoy was in terminal decline a little over a decade ago. Sudhir Sitapti, general manager and category head - skin cleansing, Hindustan Unilever whose association with the brand goes back a long way says, "I was part of the sales force in 2000 and the brand was shrinking month after month. Morale was very low."

It became obvious to the team at HUL that the iconic Lifebuoy campaign at the time, driven by an instantly recognisable jingle and images of macho men sweating it out on a sports field was way past its sell by date. Both commercial and the brand positioning were holdovers from the time men made most shopping decisions. However by 2002, even in rural areas women had begun to play an increasing role in purchases and couldn't relate to a platform of masculine hygiene.The wellbeing of the family had become a key concern area.

Besides tandurusti (or health) as previously defined by Lifebuoy was fairly amorphous since people were unable to understand the specific impact of the brand. "Germ protection was somewhere in the background of the brand's DNA. And so we reinterpreted the health axis of the brand. We moved from 'this makes you fit' to 'this is something that prevents you from getting ill', and from targeting men to women."

Changes were also made on the value axis. From a low priced carbolic soap, Lifebuoy transformed into a vegetable soap with far better aesthetics and smell, at a higher asking price. Sitapati recalls mixed emotions at the sales conference where these changes were announced. "We were initially worried about the price being increased on a product where people didn't perceive value. But then the user experience was also transformed. The essence of the product and proposition didn't change, but everything else was done to make it more in tune with the times."

Most importantly, the consumers went along with the new proposition. A commercial about how a mother could prevent a child from falling ill was a lot more popular than one about a bunch of jocks winning yet another round of football.

Observes Amer Jaleel, national creative director at Lowe Lintas who has a long association with Lifebuoy, "It's one of the most structured brands ever. There's invariably a doctor, the mother and a myth busting scenario." Where the agency - which handles the brand globally - is allowed leeway is in coming up with insights; for instance around concepts like evolving germs and the difference between fast and slow soaps for hand wash. What drives the team at Lowe Lintas is a constant reminder of the brand's humble antecedents. Says Jaleel, "At every brief, we were told 'half a bar of soap on a washbasin outside the toilet is what this brand used to be.'

It's not a communicator's journey but a marketer's journey where they've decided its design, vision and ambition."

Alongside TV ads, Hindustan Unilever began the Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna (Health Awareness) after it was found that many people in rural areas needed an education on what germs are.

Sitapati says, "They thought of rats and cockroaches. That germs are invisible and infect you, is not something many of them know." The Swasthya Chetna reached 120 million consumers from 2002 to 2010 and an additional 30 million ever since it was folded into Khushiyon Ki Doli, Hindustan Unilever's rural outreach programme.

As opportunities to move up the value chain present themselves Lifebuoy has been quick to capitalise. It's moved into the more expensive clear soaps segment apart from new categories like liquid handwash and sanitisers.

Sitapati says with a measure of satisfaction, "The brand is in places it would not have been a decade ago. Santisiers are used in extremely high income households, handwash in middle income and Lifebuoy in all households." A chain of innovations keeps things lively from new formulations to a colour changing hand wash lotion that encourages children to wash for a full 10 seconds.

Which brings us back to Lifebuoy at Thesgora. Sitapati is clear that the brand will be working for a year - possibly longer - with the village panchayat and via school contact programmes. He says, "We are trying to make it a model village for hand washing." Speaking of how the film was convinced Jaleel says, "When you are living with a brand on a day to day basis trying to get market share, worrying about competition, it's difficult to reinvent it. All credit to our clients who made us step back and look at it in this new way."

The brand's transformation has won it fans among the marketing community at large. Shripad Nadkarni, founder, MarketGate believes there are several pieces to the transformation - moving from young adult males to housewives, and from functional to elegant packaging. "One thing they kept constant was health. It allowed them to tweak the variables," he says. He believes the brand has avoided the common pitfalls: losing out on a relevant core value proposition or not moving fast enough in new categories.

While agreeing the brand has managed its transition very well, marketing consultant Nabankur Gupta adds a note of caution "If the brand tries to overreach - if they for instance offer French perfume, they will soon be discovered and dropped. Not only does the extension suffer it hits the core value as well."

10 money-saving tips for food shopping

Food shopping on a budget can be a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be as hard as you think. We’ve got some money-saving tips that will help your money go further.

Not only will you save money, you’ll be healthier too. 

How do I save money on food?

Our top tips will help get you started.

1. Make a meal plan

It’s time to get organised because meal planning is a great way to save money.

Simply think about the meals you want to eat in the week ahead and make a meal plan. It’ll stop you from wandering the supermarket aisles picking up things you don’t need. 

Don’t forget to think about breakfast, lunch and dinner. Not sure where to start? We’ve got a great selection of healthy recipes.

2. Use a shopping list

You knew this one was coming next, right? Use your meal plan to make a shopping list of everything you need.

Don’t forget to check your fridge and cupboards to see if you’ve already got some of the ingredients. There’s no point buying extra when you don’t need it. Save that cash instead.

Take your shopping list to the supermarket and stick to it. If you don't stick to the list it’ll end up costing you money. Only take enough money to buy what you need.

Take a list with you when you go food shopping

3. Find the cheap places to shop

Avoid shopping in dairies and service stations. The prices tend to be much higher because you’re paying for convenience.

Local markets tend to be cheaper, and there’s always tons of fresh fruit and veges for you to get your hands on. It’s a great way to make your money go further.

4. Don’t shop when you’re hungry

We’re probably all guilty of this at some point. Notice how your shopping trolley fills up fast when you’re hungry? It’s more tempting to spend money on unnecessary food items which are usually high in fat, sugar and salt.

These extras will help blow your budget on things you don’t need. So do yourself a favour, have something to eat before you go shopping.

Have something to eat before you go food shopping

5. Buy in bulk

If you use a lot of something, buy it in bulk if you can. Things like bread, rice, veges and fruit are often cheaper if you buy them in bulk. Just make sure you’re actually going to use them before they go off.

6. Buy in season

Buying fruit and veges out of season can completely blow your food budget. $8 for an avocado in winter? No thanks.

Get to know what’s in season, so you can make the most out of cheaper fruit and veges. Not sure where to start? Here’s a useful guide to seasonal fruit and vegetables. 

Remember to eat fresh food before it goes off

7. Use fresh items before they go off

It’s never good to throw away food that’s gone off, before you’ve had a chance to eat it. What a waste of money.

You can avoid this by making sure you use things up that can go off quickly, like fruit, vegetables and meat. Keep these items in the front of your fridge, so you can keep an eye on them. 

8. Don't be fooled by brands

Supermarkets often offer a range of the same product at different prices. A brand name, a cheaper brand and their own brand.

Sometimes the only differences are price and location on the shelf. The more expensive brand name items will be at eye height so you can easily see them. Cheaper items may be lower down on the shelves.

Why spend more on fancy packaging? Look for plain packaged items instead (e.g. Pams, Budget and Homebrand).

9. Drink water

Instead of reaching for expensive sugary drinks when you’re thirsty, change to water instead. It’s free and much better for you.

10. Buy fresh foods not in packets

Supermarkets often sell fresh foods in packets like pre-chopped onions, lettuce and broccoli. Trouble is, there’s no real need for the packaging and all it does is increase the price.

Buy fresh food without packaging by visiting your local market. The fruit and veges will be package-free and better value for money