Archive for the ‘Natural + Organic Skin Care’ Category

So much of the focus in the natural & organic beauty world is on ingredients to avoid. It’s easy to forget that what’s so great about the products we discover that don’t have any of the bad stuff, is that they’re chock full of good stuff! In a new feature called “5 Things Friday”, we’d like to highlight some of that good stuff in 5 points.

Today’s 5 things come from a new line to Spirit Beauty Lounge: Amala.   Amala (ah-mah-la) means “most pure” in Sanskrit, “revered mother” in Tibetan and “love her” in Spanish. This German company seeks out high potency organic plants and custom distills them to ensure they retain their full therapeutic value. By protecting each plant, they’re able to formulate incredibly effective skincare with proven results!

Their 5 key ingredients:

1. Organic Emulsifiers One of the most unique aspects of this line  is their proprietary organic milk emulsifier.  Often the emulsifiers that make lotions and creams  feel so luxurious  can be tainted with impurities.  Instead of making excuses, Amala made promises – and to stick to their commitment to purity, developed their own emulsifier derived from local German organic milk.  The emulsifier is used throughout the Hydrate line.  Note the impossibly creamy, luxe feel of the Hydrating Hand Cream.


2. Blue Lotus Nymphaea caerulea. The entire Purify collection for oily and combination skin is rich in this calming ingredient. Amala’s Blue Lotus is wildcrafted in India and custom distilled by a master distiller there. Blue Lotus acts as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent, high in amino acids in the purify line.  Our Blue Lotus must-haves are the Purifying Gel Cleanser and Gel Moisturizer which pamper rather than batter breakout prone skin.

3. Jasmine Jasminum Officinale. Certified organic Jasmine is cultivated and custom distilled in Egypt by Amala’s Fair Trade farm partner there. This divine extract helps nourish, moisturize and soften dry skin, while providing antioxidant protection. The unforgettable aroma of Jasmine in the Hydrating Cream Cleanser makes face-washing an intoxicating experience.



4. Cocoa Bean Theobroma Cacao.  Amala’s African cocoa bean is Fair Trade and certified organic. The entire rejuvenating line owes it’s dramatic results to cocoa bean’s  insanely powerful antioxidant properties. Cocoa Bean helps stimulate microcirculation while restoring elasticity and providing protection from free radical age damage.  In fact, in an independent 28 day clinical study, using Amala’s cocoa bean-rich Rejuvenating Serum, 100% of women experienced a significant improvement in the depth of lines and wrinkles!

5. Myrtle Myrtus Communis.  Perfect for use in body treatments, myrtle cleanses and conditions skin while helping to remove impurities.  In just days of using the Detoxifying Body Polish and Body Butter, our rough, bumpy legs and arms were smooth and silky!

Women may ingest around 7 pounds of petroleum jelly in a decade from regular use of conventional lip balm & lip gloss! If you’d rather wear something that’s safe to eat than drink gasoline, try one of these luxurious organic lip balms instead!

Lip Balm Addict: For chronic dry lips, you need a balm that’s going to provide long-lasting hydration – but what may be causing the addiction is lip balms that “over-stimulate” the lips. If you tend to rub your lips together, chew your lips, or lick your lips after you’ve applied lip balm, you may need a balm that doesn’t have a noticeable feel, flavor or scent so that you’re not tempted subconsciously to constantly consume and re-apply. Skinny Skinny’s Bare Naked Lip Balm is light but incredibly effective, matte and unscented so it wont encourage the cravings to rub and reapply.

Hint of Color: We love to use tinted lip balms when lipstick or gloss isn’t needed ( to work or to a brunch) for a pretty, natural day look or even when it’s cold and our lips look a little more blue than pink. Pick from the chocolate flavored Sweet Beauty ‘Taste’ Lip Confection or mint with Lulu Organics Ruby Mint Lip Balm.

Pick-me-up: When our lips and noses need a little pick-me-up, a sniff of the silky Buddha Nose Lip Balm with lemongrass, ginger & lime, is all we need! Natural Solutions magazine awarded this one their Beauty with a Conscience award for Best Lip Balm in 2009.

Multi-Purpose: We love a balm that’s just as perfect for healing and hydrating lips as it is for rough elbows, cuticles, heels and hair. If you only have one balm, make it RMS Beauty Lip & Skin Balm. Keep it in your purse and you’ll be surprised how often it’s just what you need.

Anti-Aging: Keep lips looking young, smooth and soft with Intelligent Nutrients Lip Delivery Nutrition. More than just hydration, it’s chock full of potent, wrinkle-fighting antioxidants from their proprietary Intellimune Seed Oil complex.

Most Kissable: Hot date? You’ll need silky, kissable lips and a lovely organic lip balm that smells so good, you’ll have to “share” it! For yummy lips, try All the Better to Kiss You With Lip Balm in Pomegranate, Lavender Vanilla, Chai Mandarin or Pepperminty.

Best Before Lipstick: The perfect base for lip color is a lip base that’s light, smooth, stays put, and fills fine lines. Before you perfect your pout with color, use Vapour Organic Beauty Lux Lip Conditioner and your lip color will last longer without bleeding.

Brave the Elements/Severely Cracked: The lip balm you’ll need in the dead of say, a Northeast winter, is going to have to not just deeply hydrate lips, but protect them as well. For lips that have already been cracked by extreme conditions or to prevent severe dryness, especially when outdoors, try MJ’s Herbals First Aid Salve. Healing ingredients like comfrey root and calendula, in a base of unrefined propolis & olive oil give your lips all the armor they’ll need.

Pick up a copy of Natural Solutions magazine this month for some of our skin care tips. If you aren’t familiar, Natural Solutions mag is an absolute treasure trove of green living information, tips and resources every month – definitely worth getting a subscription.

The more uses you can get out of one product, the better.  Less packaging, less energy, less waste, and less money spent are all good things but memories of those “shampoo plus conditioner” horrors of the 80′s and 90′s turned us off to them.  While they are the greenest way to go, “jack of all trades, master of none” is not what you want from your beauty products.  We’ve discovered, sometimes by accident, a few products that master ALL of their intended (and some non intended) uses…

Patyka Huile Absolute Serum is as fantastic a makeup primer as it is a frizz tamer for hair as it is a cuticle healer as it is an after-shave serum that leaves skin silky, not shiny.  It really does all four of these well and many have reported even more uses! Silicone free and rich in active organic plant extracts, this serum is great to have around for many reasons.

Skinny Skinnys Basil & Mint Shaving Soap is great for men and women, smells fabulous, lathers well and when shaving, lets the razor glide right over the skin. As an everyday soap, it works beautifully on combination skin with tea tree and aloe that soothe and refresh. The greenest part about this soap is not just it’s use for shaving as well as cleansing but the fact that it lasts forever!  We’ve had ours for months!

Our little Sustainable Sea Silk Sponges have replaced all of our cotton pads and latex sponges.  Dampen with water and you have the perfect foundation sponge that will give you an airbrush finish.  Rinse clean and apply your favorite makeup remover to gently yet thoroughly wipe away makeup.  One sponge to apply and remove and no waste!  These are naturally antibacterial, wont fall apart and can last ages.

Patyka Biokaliftin Intensive Cleanser is a makeup remover, cleanser, and moisturizer in one bottle!  Use as a makeup remover first, then use with water to cleanse thoroughly. The perfect blend of organic ingredients leaves skin clean and hydrated. Luxury skin care is rarely multitasking (think: neck cream, eye cream, bust cream, face cream, face serum, night cream, day cream…) so its nice to have a high quality, high end product that does it all without sacrificing the beautiful scent, look and feel of luxury. At $42, it’s quite economical considering its multiple uses.

Stress, hormones, lack of sleep and dehydration left me the other night with one of those shiners you feel before you see.  Deep, sore and red, this was my first big zit in a long time and I had all the organic beauty products in the world to deal with it.  I reached for my Jurlique Blemish Cream but I will be honest; I didn’t expect it to work.  Oh don’t get me wrong -  Jurlique is one of my all time favorite skin care lines and everything I have ever used from them has left my skin no less than clear and soft but, I thought,  this was one of those zits that only time could heal.  So I slathered it on, said a little prayer and went to bed.  I immedeately noticed not getting that shriveling up feeling I remember from benzoyl peroxide pimple creams or the burning you get from some tea trea ones.  Instead, it felt more like a moisturizer.  It is loaded with all the natural ingredients bumpy skin needs from oil absorbing kaolin to calming calendula and healing aloe to that fabulous anti bacterial, tea tree oil.  Well, it looks like they got it just right because I woke up and not only wa the PIMPLE GONE but my skin was smooth and hydrated, not shriveled up and dried out. With these superfast results, Jurlique’s Blemish Cream should be in every girl’s emergency kit!