Feast For Your Face
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday November 4, 1997
Tomato, cucumber, cabbage and avocado ... some skincare products look good enough to eat.
THERE you are, with a mashed avocado on your face, cucumber slices on your eyes and an egg yolk in your hair. Then the doorbell rings.
This vision has always prevented me from getting too caught up with the wilder fringes of the beauty movement. But there is no doubt more and more people are attracted to the idea of putting food on (as opposed to in) their faces.
This face food can come in various forms, from lying down with banana skins on your face to using moisturisers containing fruit acids, but there is no doubt that the search is on for "more natural" skincare products.
Once, skincare products were taken seriously only if they originated in France, contained mystery ingredients and cost vast amounts of money. Over the past decade such items have increasingly had to share the market with more down-to-earth products.
People have always stuck their elbows in lemon halves (to whiten and soften) and used things like eggs and chamomile in their hair. But it was probably The Body Shop's Annita Roddick who realised that you could take this hankering for the natural and market it.
The Body Shop and its overtly natural products - peppermint foot lotion, cleansers made from honey, beeswax and jojoba oil - rapidly spread from London to the world, inspiring many competitors.
Sydney can pick from a range of skincare products - masks, scrubs, cleansers, toners, skin treatments and so on - that look, smell and probably taste delicious.
Lush (in the Queen Victoria Building) and Nature Nurture (in the Strand Arcade) both opened this year. Each has a prominent "salad bar" of fresh products sold in little pots and designed to be used within a couple of weeks of purchase. (Both have a huge range of soaps and unguents with longer use-by dates, too.)
Then there's Cactus Flower, which Deborah Clarke started from her Palm Beach home. In her kitchen she concocts delicious-sounding moisturisers, scrubs and cleansers - and has seen her cottage industry boom.
Most of them say there is nothing particularly top-secret or surprising about their recipes: they have just experimented to find effective com-binations of fresh ingredients and whizzed them up in their kitchens. (Kitchens, note, not laboratories.)
And yes, they say, you could probably do it all yourself if you had the time and inclination. Michael Rob-ertson, of Nature Nurture, says it's like city sandwich bars: everyone knows how to make a sandwich, but it's surprising how many people prefer to buy them.
So what is the attraction? Robertson says it is partly because so many people these days have allergies that they mistrust long lists of chemicals on cosmetic products. They come into his shop and think: "I know straw-berries are safe to eat, therefore I'll put them on my face."
Dr Susi Freeman, the head of the contact and occupational dermatitis clinic at the Skin and Cancer Foundation, is dismissive of most "natural" skincare remedies and says it is a triumph of marketing.
"It's all a feel-good thing. There's absolutely no scientific evidence that any of them do any good ... People want to feel they're using something 'natural'." But, she adds, most of the favourite "natural" products do no harm, either.
Dr Freeman says the latest anti-wrinkling products, those which contain "fruit acids" (alpha-glycolic acids derived from fruit), "do have an exfoliating action ... There has been scientific evidence that they can benefit superficial wrinkling."
Fruit acids are found in a variety of AHA (alpha-hydroxy acid) creams now on the market, and Double Bay beautician Sylvia Deitch says AHAs containing glycolic acids are "the most effective moisturisers I have known in my 25 years of beauty therapy".
Blackmores has an Antioxidant range containing AHAs, including glycolic acid. They are designed to be taken in conjunction with a daily antioxidant tablet.
Good Living asked some beauty experts for advice on food that you can safely feed your face at home.
Deitch recommends a variety of treatments. Honey, she says, is a great mask, particularly for irritated skin. "Mix it with an egg yolk for dry skin," she adds, "or an egg white for oily skin. Egg white is more astringent."
For dry skin, she recommends mashed avocado, "preferably at a browning stage, where it's forming an oxidation because it's actually more effective.
"Same with banana. Banana is very good for dry skin. Instead of putting it in the garbage tin, put it on your face ... Just mix that with a bit of honey."
Deitch advises mixing these home-made masks with a bit of sesame oil or olive oil (cold-pressed) for dry skin, and with cider vinegar for oily skin.
Pawpaw "is full of enzymes and great for normalising the skin", she says. "And lemon juice and sugar make it a great skin scrub ... Fantastic for scrubbing the elbows with."
For sunburn, she recommends slices of tomato. For puffy eyes, try cotton balls soaked in cold milk. (The lactic acid "tightens the skin around the eyes".)
Washing your face with oatmeal milk is a good idea for people with an "oil problem and a pH imbalance", she says. Just wrap some oatmeal in a piece of muslin, soak in warm water and squeeze out the resultant "milk".
That awesome reference book, The Beauty Bible, by Sarah Stacey and Josephine Fairley, gives countless
recommendations. It advises using mashed avocado (or home-made mayonnaise) to counter the drying effects of the sun. Cucumber juice, straight from the blender, is "a great skin freshener". Slices of raw potato are "great debaggers" for the eyes. Add a cup of apple cider vinegar to the bath water to soothe itchy, flaky skin.
To perk up the skin, the book recommends this winter salad mask: "Take fresh vegetables in any combination (eg cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, lettuce, spinach, beansprouts) and add a few drops of jojoba oil if your skin is very dry. Apply to a cleansed face, then lay two tissues over the top (to absorb the excess liquid). Leave for 15-20 minutes, then rinse."
Deborah Clarke, of Cactus Flower, encourages people to experiment with ingredients such as avocado, almond meal, yogurt, cucumber and the like. For puffy eyes she recommends cucumber slices and cold tea bags.
Her favourite ingredients include grapeseed oil ("which you can buy at Woolworths), honey ("it really leaves your skin so soft"), almond meal and "lots of other things that you can find in your kitchen".
Clarke says many people are "really, really interested" in home-made skincare. "I think it's also a little bit
creative, too ... I enjoy mixing and concocting and making my own recipes, and I have found that an awful lot of people who have phoned me are the same. And even if they don't make it themselves, they want to buy things that are made that way."
The main benefit of such products over many of their rivals is freshness, she adds. "When you think of the products that come in from overseas, it could be two years before it reaches your hands.
"Something you've either made yourself, or bought from someone who is making very small batches locally, you know you're buying it within weeks of it being made."
Michael Robertson, of Nature Nurture, concurs with that view and shudders at the thought of all the rancid moisturisers mouldering away in Australian bathrooms. Spending a few dollars on one of his pots that last a week may sound expensive, but he says it is better value (and better for your skin) than expecting an expensive unguent to last for years.
Sarah Paykel, a partner in Lush (Australasia), agrees that freshness, and fewer preservatives, are a big attraction for many. (Lush's "fresh range" should be kept in the fridge and used within three weeks.)
She adds that "people are seeking out natural alternatives". Rice granules may be no more effective in an exfoliant than the tiny plastic pellets often used in big-name products, she says, but many people "would prefer to use something that they consider a little more down-to-earth".
Lush products can get very down-to-earth indeed. Its Green Shoots Fresh Hair Food is said to give life to dry hair, contains fresh lettuce juice and leaves, fresh carrot juice, balsamic vinegar, fresh banana, fresh lemon juice, fresh spinach juice, lavender oil, sandalwood oil, lemon oil and olive oil. Says Paykel: "It's almost feeding your hair a whole pile of compost."
* Last week's massage story referred to the New Age School of Therapeutic Massage. Its correct title is NSW School of Therapeutic Massage.
For a fresh face
Cactus flower: telephone 1800 246 616 (mail order only)
Nature Nurture: Shop 11, Strand Arcade, Sydney, 9221 7627.
Lush: Queen Victoria Building, Sydney, 9283 5746
Blackmores: available in health food stores
NATURE'S REMEDIES
Skincare recipes from Deborah Clarke to make at home:
Cucumber cleansing milk
(most skin types)
1/2 peeled cucumber
200ml milk
50 ml mineral or pure water
Grate cucumber into milk. Simmer for five minutes. Cool, strain and bottle. Keep in the fridge. Use to cleanse skin, but not to remove eye make-up.
Yogurt and fruit exfoliating mask
1 large ripe peach, or 1/2 mango, or 1/4 pawpaw
1 tspn honey
1 dessertspoon yogurt
3 tspns almond meal
Blend fruit, honey and yogurt, then mix in almond meal. Apply to skin and gently massage. Leave on for 10 minutes, then rinse off with warm water.
Avocado mask (for dry,
sensitive skin)
1/2 avocado
2 egg yolks
2 tblspns honey
1 tblspn butter
Blend avocado, egg and honey. Melt butter and fold into mixture. Cool to room temperature. Apply to skin and leave for 20 minutes. Remove with warm water.
Egg mask (for oily skin)
1 egg white
1 tspn lemon juice
2 drops lemon verbena oil
Mix together and apply to skin. Leave on for 20 minutes and rinse off with warm water.
Apricot kernel oil cleanser (dry skin)
5 tblspns apricot kernel oil
2 tspns butter
2 tspns chamomile water
2 tspns grated soft soap
Melt butter and oil together, gradually add butter and chamomile water while continually beating. Remove from heat, and beat until cool and creamy.Melt butter and oil together, gradually add butter and chamomile water while continually beating. Remove from heat, and beat until cool and creamy.
© 1997 Sydney Morning Herald