Natural Beauty from Nature Purity

Dear Reader,

Yes, that is the terrible truth if you and I don’t do anything: all males are going to turn into females and that will be the end of our species (and the end of lots of fun sex for a great part of us). Why? because one of the most used herbicide is messing up with the hormonal system to the point that it turns males into fully functional females. Of course, we are talking about frogs right now, but have you heard about the epidemics of low sperm count and male infertility (together with female!) that has been raging for about 30 years at least? Maybe (I am being very very very conservative) there is a link?

The facts

A new scientific study by the University of California-Berkeley was published last week in a major scientific review showing that male frogs raised in water containing the EPA-safe level of weed-killer atrazine were turned into females. 10% of them were even able to lay eggs (although they had male chromosomes), the other 90% were castrated by the same chemical.

You may not be a frog, but…

I know you’re not a frog, neither am I (even though I’m French!). However, this is not the 1st time atrazine’s mischiefs are scientifically reported. This crappy chemical has been shown to feminize more than frogs (rats, mice and other animals) and it’s one of the most common man-made chemicals found in US waters. If you think that your water is safe, think further…

As Dr Hayes, the leading author of this study, says of atrazine: “It’s a chemical… that causes hormone havoc. You need to look at things that are affecting wildlife, and realize that, biologically, we’re not that different.” You may be interested to know that the manufacturer of atrazine is the Swiss giant Syngenta and that Switzerland has banned atrazine.

This is what you can do

Buy organic: for your personal care, for your diet, for your lawn and garden, for your house cleaning needs. Organic personal care products are not much more expensive that conventional, plus they work better (see our article on natural versus conventional skincare). If you think that organic lifestyle is more expensive, think of the tens of thousands of dollars any in vitro fertilization program costs, plus all the stress that it puts on both parents. Organic lifestyle is better for your health and for your sex life. Atrazine is not the only bad chemical present in our food, water, air that has a profound effect on our health, life and happiness in general. Stop the intake by changing your lifestyle and shopping habits and clean your body by doing natural detox. Spring is one of the best season to do it. Look for our next newsletter with a super detox program easy, simple and efficient.

Enjoy the day and take good care

Dear Reader,

Is your hair dull, damaged, too oily or too dry? Are you seeing more wrinkles showing up at a worrying pace on your face? Did you lose your radiance during this long winter? Think Jojoba oil! From personal experience, it is absolutely amazing what this simple oil can do for your skin and hair. Once again, Nature has all the solutions to beauty and health problems, you just have to know what to use in which case.

What is Jojoba?
Jojoba is a shrub native to deserts in southern Arizona, southern California and northern Mexico. Usually bushy, it is a long lived, drought resistant plant often reaching heights of ten feet or more under ideal growing conditions. Jojoba plants have a natural life span of at least 100 years and perhaps over 200 years. Jojoba oil is extracted from the small nuts growing on the female Jojoba trees every year. Although it’s called “Jojoba oil”, it is in fact a wax that resembles the natural wax (called sebum) produced by our body to protect our skin and hair from dehydration and damage. Not enough sebum, and your skin is dry, itchy, sensitive. Too much sebum and your skin is oily and prone to acne.

Jojoba: a precious gift from Nature to your skin
Jojoba is a light oil with unique benefits for your skin. It is:
- hydrating
- revitalizing
- anti-aging
- soothing
- deeply regenerating

Jojoba oil stimulates the production of elastin, a major structure protein responsible for the suppleness, youth and strength of your skin, and prevents the loss of moisture in skin cells. It is an ideal anti-aging product for all skin types, but especially the dehydrated and dry types. Not only that, but it’s also normalizing for oily skins as it regulates the production of sebum. As everybody with oily skin knows, trying to strip your skin off its oiliness only makes things worse. Instead, use a gentle facial cleanser and apply Jojoba oil as a moisturizer and oiliness-normalizing treatment. Whatever your skin type is, feel how much product it needs to feel comfortable and protected: neither too much, nor too little, just the right amount.

More beautiful hair than the stars
Man or woman, your hair is a crucial part of your looks as it crowns your face. Although lots of tricks and artifices and chemicals are used to achieve the magnificent hair of the stars, you don’t have to go through the same expensive and ultimately deceiving path to have a gorgeous hair. I wrote about the hair beauty secret of Ho Shou Wu in the previous blog. That was for your hair beauty from within. Now, Jojoba oil is a key product for your hair beauty from without. It use it myself and although my hair is fine and delicate, it looks absolutely beautiful and full of vitality and shine with just a little bit of Jojoba oil. More interestingly, its benefits build up with time: it’s as if Jojoba oil was stimulating the growth of hair stronger, more beautiful and full of body. Like with the skin, it helps both dry and damaged, as well as oily hair. It regulates the production of sebum by the scalp, therefore normalizing the oiliness of the hair. It also gives vitality and strength back to dry, damaged and brittle hair. In both cases, it brings beauty, shine and suppleness back to your hair and prevents hair loss. It is also protective against climate and pollution damage that make your hair age faster.

You can use Jojoba oil on your hair in two ways:
- do a hair mask for 20 min with a warm towel around your head before shampoo as a deep treatment
- use it as a leave-on conditioner after shampoo. Only a little bit is enough to bring life and beauty to your hair. Spread the oil on your whole hair and blow dry or let it dry naturally.

Dear Reader,

Natural shampoos and conditioners are crucial players for your hair beauty. But they’re not enough. Your hair’s vitality, suppleness, color and shine are a reflection of the vitality and health of your internal organs. More precisely, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, they are a direct indication of your Kidneys’ and Liver’s energy. If you have already done a thorough detox on yourself, and your hair isn’t yet shining in the sun; a little known herbal secret is what is missing for your hair to be gorgeous again. This little marvel’s name is Ho Shou Wu.

Nourish your hair’s vitality and reverse greying and loss of hair from within

Ho Shou Wu (Polygonum multiflorum) is also known as Fo-ti. It is a general tonic and nourishing herb, known to strengthen and nurture the skin, and hair (as well as nourish the teeth, bones, ligaments and tendons). It is widely used to prevent or reverse loss and greying of the hair. Even its name shows its properties: in Chinese, Shou-Wu means “a head full of black hair”. How does Ho Shou Wu do this? It replenishes the deficiencies of the Liver’s and Kidneys’ energy by bringing some specific nutrients and  stimulants. Once the Kidneys’ and Liver’s energy is rebalanced and revitalized, it can support  and nourish a healthy and beautiful hair and skin. It’s simple, easy and powerful. But that’s not all…

Ho Shou Wu does even more

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, this precious herb is considered to be a “yin essence” tonic which promotes a long healthy life, boosts physical energy, enhances learning and memory, and promotes sexual virility and sperm production in males. It cleanses and nourishes the blood as well as lowers the level of bad cholesterol according to some scientific studies. It may sound too good to be true, unless you remember that every single herbal extracts contains hundreds or even thousands of natural compounds, each of them having its own properties, in addition to the synergistic effects with the other compounds. Unlike chemical drugs that contain just a couple of compounds, herbal extracts have a global action.

How do the Kidneys’ and Liver’s energy get deficient?

Stress is the answer. Physical, emotional, psychological, chemical, nutritional stress all add up. Today, almost everyone in the US has felt the stress of the economic crisis the country is going through. We all come to the world with a built-in resilience, but as the stress burden piles up on us, our capacity to rebound withers and that’s when physical problems start showing up. Like an ashen skin or breakouts, or hair loss… Ho Shou Wu is here to help you get your vitality and beauty back. Nature has lots of solutions to help you look and feel great. It just takes some knowledge to pinpoint what is needed and I am here to help you with this. Nature, health and beauty are my passions and it’s my real pleasure to be able to share these with you.

Enjoy!

Dear Reader,

The tension and excitement are building up with the academy awards ceremony happening in just less than 2 weeks from today. But I will not write about Avatar, George Clooney or Quentin Tarantino. Instead, I would like to share what I think is an absolutely extraordinary movie from 2005: Angel-A by Luc Besson. It’s worth the best anti-aging creams and cosmetic surgery procedures because it’s going to make you feel beautiful just the way you are.

The story

André, a small-time ex-convict, seems to owe money to everyone in Paris, including a crime boss who promises to kill him if he doesn’t repay him by midnight. After failing to find protection from the American embassy and the French police, a despairing André jumps onto the Alexander III bridge over the Seine, intending to commit suicide. But suddenly, after talking to a God who doesn’t seem to care about him or even to bother to answer his questions, he sees a beautiful girl clinging to a rail on the same bridge, apparently preparing to end her life as well. She jumps, and he jumps too, suddenly resolving to save her life. After scrambling ashore, she tells him her name is Angel-A. They begin an amazing odyssey in Paris that will bring peace and love in Andre’s heart for the first time in his life.

Like Andre, we all have shadows in our heart that make us believe that we’re not good, beautiful, intelligent, sexy, successful (you name it) enough. We often seem to think that there’s something wrong with us and if we don’t, people around make sure that we know about all the things that are wrong with us; unless they want something from us… . But when do we stop this craziness and sit down to see the beauty in ourselves, all the goodness we have and express? Almost never. This movie is a wonderful opportunity to see this beauty in a very deep way.

Movie can be better for your skin than skin care sometimes

The mind-beauty link is much more powerful than most people realize today. By always being unhappy about the  way you look and focusing on what’s wrong with your skin, hair or body, you make things worse. On the contrary, if you are happy with your look, you help your skin, hair and body stay young, healthy and therefore… beautiful! If you can connect with the characters in this movie (and I think it’s pretty easy), they can bring you a lot of good things and change your life. They can help you to love yourself, deeply.

Enjoy!

Dear Reader,

Health food stores, vitamin stores and some pharmacies have tons of colon cleansing kits for you. If you get interested, you will find plenty of information about how important it is to cleanse the colon, as a (colon) cancer prevention routine. Here, I propose a fresh new look at detox and colon cleansing compiled from many years of personal research and knowledge. What good is colon cleansing for? Is it enough to do real detox?

Colon cleansing, many ways

The colon is the last part of the digestive tract and a major organ of elimination. It is about 60″ long and full of probiotic gut flora. It is responsible for eliminating the digestive waste, reabsorbing water, some minerals and to manufacture some vitamins. Amazingly, the colon cell lining naturally renews itself every day, which is a build-in self-cleaning system.

Many alternative health care practitioners greatly emphasize colon health as THE way to detox the body and thus propose a vast range of solutions to help you going from eating a diet richer in fibers, absorbing psyllium husk powder, doing coffee enemas and colon hydrotherapy together with using special colon detox kits that you can find about everywhere. And they are right, the colon’s health is crucial for your whole body’s health: good elimination of digestive waste is a an important step to body detox and an important step in colon cancer prevention. However, some of these colon detox methods are as bad and damaging as using laxatives on a regular basis. Overusing enemas and colon hydrotherapy can be detrimental on the long run and prevent your colon to do its natural job. Moreover, these practices wipe out the gut flora that is absolutely crucial to your good health. Just have a look at the news and articles about probiotics and you will see that scientists and doctors are just beginning to recognize the gut flora as indispensable to good health.

Is it enough?

Although the colon’s function is capital to waste elimination, it’s not the only organ that is involved in natural detox of your body. Your liver, kidneys, lymph nodes and skin are also involved in body detox. Overstimulating the colon will not compensate a sluggish liver or tired kidneys or overwhelmed skin. Therefore, when you think detox, think global and let your body tell you what it needs: just feel your body and monitor which organ needs help and support.

If you feel bad after a meal, especially after eating fatty foods, then your liver needs help. Give it Healthy Liver Tonic for a few weeks. If you feel your kidneys are not eliminating well, or your urine is cloudy, dark or suppressed, go for Burdock Blend for a few weeks. If your digestion is poor, use Digestive Bitters that will stimulate and support every part of the digestive system, including the colon.

As always, think of clay too, when you need detox, as it is a unique remedy with so many benefits. Recently, one of our clients reported that she had had constipation for so many years, and after taking green clay internally for a few weeks, she had normal bowel movements. Most people would think that clay would aggravate constipation. But truly, clay is not an inert powder: it is “alive” and brings vitality to the whole body.

There is more to detox than just colon cleansing, as you can see. Feel your body, it will tell you what it needs to be healthy, full of vitality and joy.

Enjoy the weekend and take good care

Dear Reader,

We just passed mid-winder last week and we’ve been through quite a bit of stormy weather here on the East coast. Winter is the season of cold and flu and other unpleasant infections. There are ads all over the place to remind you about this. One ad just annoyed the hell out of me. I saw it in NYC subway for quite a few weeks. It was meant to sell the anti-cold and anti-flu properties of a pill, which I made sure I would never buy. But I forgot the name of that bloody pill! The ad showed sick people with red noses, ashen skin, puffy eyes and the like: disgusting pictures of a perfect example of manipulative marketing. It was supposed to make you believe that this pill was your best friend against the winter sicknesses. The hell not! Nature has much better things to help you fight off those cold and flu: the Burdock plant for example…

Nature’s invaluable help

Unless you have a very high temperature and/or an existing medical condition requiring special attention, your body is all equipped to deal with any winter infection. If that wasn’t the case, the human species would have disappeared a long time ago. Since we are still here today, it means that we have what is needed to fight off those winter infections, at least! But that doesn’t mean that you should just be miserable while waiting for your immune system to fight the infection. Lots of people know of Echinacea as a winter remedy. But whether you have a sore throat, a cold, a flu or any other type of winter infection, Burdock extract supports the body in many ways to heal faster and better. Burdock has been used for a long time in Chinese and Western traditional medicines as one of the most detoxifying and blood purifying plants. Burdock is also antibacterial and anti-inflammatory as well as it contains inulin that is a prebiotic and helps to support digestion. By helping your body to get rid of toxins and toxics, Burdock provides the best support for your immune system to get rid of the infection and its own load of toxins in the most efficient way. Killing the bacteria or viruses responsible for your infection is good, but your body still needs to clean itself from all these dead little critters and that a whole job on its own…

Precaution

Herbal extracts are powerful medicine and should always be taken responsibly. For example, Burdock extract is diuretic, so if you are taking water pills, you may want to drink extra fluid not to dehydrate. Burdock also have blood sugar lowering properties, so if you have diabetes and are taking medications, you may want to take into account that Burdock extract will lower even further your blood sugar. If you want to give Burdock to your kids as well as if you are pregnant or nursing, ask the advice of your doctor.

And don’t forget…

Plenty of rest and hot fluids are also very helpful to deal with winter infections efficiently. In crazy France, we have what we call the “3 hats’ method”. In a big mug, you mix 1/3 of boiling water, 1/3 lemon juice, 1/3 of rum and a heaping teaspoon of honey. You get to bed, put a hat at the foot of your bed and drink the mixture until you see 3 hats. Guaranteed to knock the infection down, and you also! No kidding, this is quite strong and designed for pirates! But hot fluids like herbal teas, chicken soup and veggie broths are always helpful: so take plenty in!

Keep warm and enjoy your Valentines’ weekend!