Mexico and California Beauty Secrets

Ancient Aztec, Mayan and Inca believed that the avocado fed the skin from without as well as within. Avocado is a treasury of vitamins, minerals and natural oils: Vitamins A, C, E, iron, potassium, niacin, pantothenic acid and its natural emollients. Up to this day avocado plays an important part of everyday life of people who live on the territory where Aztec and Maya had their kingdoms – Mexico is by far the biggest producer of this vegetable in the world. Southern California that boarders with Mexico is also famous for its avocados.

Avocado skin care is completely relevant to today's trend toward the use of natural organic substances. California Avocado Commission* came up with a number of interesting avocado beauty recopies which includes ingredients that can easily be found in most fridges and cupboards:

How To Use An Avocado For Beauty Care
The avocado you use should be fully ripe. How do you know when the avocado is ripe? Hold it in the palm of your hand and gently press it with your fingers. A ripe fruit will yield to your touch. It will open easily, peel evenly and reveal its glorious green-gold interior.
When the beauty formula calls for MASHED, PUREED, or MACERATED pulp the procedure is quite simple. Peel your avocado (or one-half) and remove the pit. Your avocado can now be PUREED, MASHED, or MACERATED by any of these methods: the fork, the blender, the potato ricer, the food processor or the sieve.

The avocado like any other organic matter, is perishable. Some of the formulas are designed for ONE TIME USE, and should be made up freshly for each treatment. Others may be refrigerated up to 48 hours.

To prevent the avocado or its mixture with other ingredients from darkening while stored in your refrigerator, place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the avocado mixture so as not to expose the mixture to air. The usual method of adding lemon or lime juice for this purpose may be too harsh for skins which are dry or sensitive.

Avocado Facial Cleanser
Beat the yolk of an egg until it is light and frothy, add a half cup of milk and the mashed half of a ripe peeled avocado. A blender is handy here, but if you don't have one, beat the mixture with a fork until you have a thin cream or lotion-like consistency. Apply on squares of cotton as you would any other cleanser. You may also use this deep cleanser after ordinary soap and water, if your skin is normal. It's quite effective against pollution and grime. Therefore, it's a very pure method of keeping your complexion free of pollutants which can interfere with normal skin function.

California Avocado Moisturizer
The inside of the avocado peel is actually valuable. The precious oil hidden away in the peel of the avocado is also a wonderful facial moisturizer. To be technical, the oil contains a humectant, a substance that holds moisture. Using gentle upward strokes, lightly massage your face with the inside of the peel. Let the oil residue remain on your skin for about 15 minutes. At that time you may either leave the oil on your skin and go to sleep or, if you intend to put on make-up, wash your face gently with three or four rinses of tepid water and pat dry. The oil will be invisible but it is there, ready to hold your foundation or powder in place for hours.

Aztec Mystery Eye Treatment
Nobody really knows WHY this is so effective on under-eye puffiness, but it IS. The procedure is very simple: peel an avocado, remove the pit, and slice a half into quarter-inch crescents. Lie down, secure a few slices under each eye, and rest for about 20 minutes. The result is corrective magic!

Santa Barbara's Dry Skin Masque
Beat the yolk of an egg until it is light and frothy, then add the mashed pulp of a half avocado, blending it well (you may use a blender at this point). Cleanse your face thoroughly before using this masque (or any masque). Spread the avocado mixture over the face and neck evenly; relax on a slant board or bed for about 20 minutes. Remove with clear tepid water and a face cloth, followed by a rinse of cold water or a mild skin lotion. The result should be a marked improvement in skin texture, and all-around revitalizing.

Santa Monica's Oily Skin Masque
Put the white of an egg, a teaspoon of lemon juice, and the mashed pulp of a half avocado into a blender. In seconds, you should have a lovely green mixture. Wash your face and neck thoroughly, then apply masque evenly on those areas. Relax for 20 minutes; remove with tepid water and a face cloth. Follow with cold astringent or skin tonic.

If you don’t want to spend time and effort on these recipes there are many commercially produced beauty products that capitalize on the benefits of avocado which you can use instead. For instance, the following Neutrogena creams contain avocado oil:


Both are moisturizing creams that improves skin's elasticity for firmer, smoother, younger-looking skin. Both are consistantly highly ranked by consumers and each cost under 20 USD!

How to save even more:
, where you can get these wonderful products has several fantastic promotions going on right now:
1. Save 10% EVERY DAY: code SSM18447 (NO expiration)
2. FREE shipment on orders $49+ (NO expiration)
3. They send you FREE product samples with every shipment
4. You can join Skinstore rewards program for FREE and earn1 point for each 1 USD spent (excluding tax and shipment). Each 300 points earn you a 30 USD Rewards Certificate!

*You can read the full article about avocado beauty secrets by California Avocado Commission at http://www.pioneerthinking.com/avocadobeauty.html

Greek Beauty Secret

July is the best month to go to Greece and that’s where I am taking you today. Greek beauty secrets go back centuries B.C. and looking at the picture and statues of all their goddesses you can see that they knew a thing or two about beauty. Greeks believe that their main secret of beauty AND longevity is olive oil. They sometimes call it “elixir of life” and with good reason: olive oil offers a lot of benefits for your hair, skin and nails. And the best thing about it is that it is 100% natural!

Olive Oil for Hair
Olive oil can be used as a deep conditioning hair treatment. It's great to use on damaged, colored or over processed hair and can really improve your hairs condition. To treat your hair to this deep conditioning simply massage olive oil on your scalp and through your hair. Leave it on your hair for around half an hour after covering your hair with a shower cap, cling film or plastic bag. Shampoo and style as normal.

Olive Oil for the Face
If you've been overexposed to the elements – sun, wind or cold temperatures – or whenever your skin seems extra dry simply massage a small amount of olive oil into your face and neck, using small circular motions.

Olive Oil for the Body
A simple but effective natural scrub can be made by mixing some olive oil with sugar and salt. It will leave your skin feeling silky soft.

Olive Oil for Cuticles & Nails
As a treat for your finger nails and cuticles soak them in a small bowl of warmed olive oil. Leave for just a few minutes to keep your nails in better condition and your cuticles softened pre-manicure.

Olive Oil for Hands & Feet
Anytime your hands feel particularly dry and in need of some tender loving care massage some olive oil into them before bed, put on white cotton gloves, and sleep with them on. Do the same with your feet, wearing socks to bed.

Olive Oil for Lips
A wonderful natural remedy for soothing dry, chapped lips is to dab them with a little olive oil. This is actually my personal routine when I am out of my regular lip balm.

Olive Oil as a Makeup Remover
Olive oil makes a great make up remover and is brilliant at removing even stubborn mascara.
You can read more information about olive oil and its benefits as well as Greece here: http://www.completely-crete.com/olive-oil-beauty-tips.html

Several European cosmetic companies produce excellent products with benefits of olive oil. One of them, Korres, based in Athens, Greece (surprise-surprise) creates products with a high concentration of quality natural botanicals while keeping harsh chemicals to a minimum and thus, it received a “Natural” classification from several beauty retailers.
Korres Olive and Rye Night Cream Korres Olive and Rye Night Cream This intense night is cream rich in vegetable oils that firm and restructure mature skin. Thanks to a special formulation technique, the cream gradually releases beneficial oily components and nourishes the skin all night long, increasing its elasticity and cohesion.



Korres Juniper and Olive Tree Shampoo is performing wonders for normal and dry hair. Olive oil ingredient in particular has great moisturizing and emollient properties and regenerates dull hair.

Another company that appreciates the benefits of what an olive can give us is L’Occitane. Based in France (Mediterranean region as well as Greece) where people have been growing olive trees for ages it also offers excellent products based on this ingredient:

LOccitane Olive Harvest Olive Face Scrub Mud

This Face Scrub Mud uses the exfoliating properties of crushed Olive pits to gently remove dead cells and balance the skin. Green clay absorbs excess oil as Shea Butter soothes, softens and protects the skin.
Another thing that I like about these products is that they are relatively inexpensive but in any case no one likes to pay full price so here is how to save even more:
, where you can get all these wonderful products has several fantastic promotions going on right now:
1. Save 20% IN JULY: code JULY20
2. Save 10% EVERY DAY: code SSM18447 (NO expiration, codes 1 and 2 cannot be combined, unfortunately)
3. FREE shipment on orders $49+ (NO expiration)
4. They send you FREE product samples with every shipment
5. You can join Skinstore rewards program for FREE and earn1 point for each 1 USD spent (excluding tax and shipment). Each 300 points earn you a 30 USD Rewards Certificate!

P.S. The photo on the top is from www.completely-crete.com

Bulgarian Beauty Secret

Today I am taking you on a trip to Bulgaria. It is a wonderful little country in South East Europe nestled between Balkan Mountains and the Black Sea. June is the best month to discover and enjoy the Bulgarian beauty secret because it is ROSE. Bulgaria is famous for its Rose Valley which produces tons of precious flowers each year which are used by most cosmetics companies in the world in the form of rose oil added to everything from creams to perfumes.

But my personal favorite is Rose WATER. It is a 100% pure and natural product produced by steam-distillation of fresh rose blossoms. Pure rose water contains no additives, preservatives or synthetic ingredients. Very often a manufacturer says on a label that a product contains “rose essence”, this is not what I am talking about, it’s a fake, it doesn’t have the same beauty and therapeutic properties. Real, pure rose water contains nothing but rose water itself and it is produced locally, in Bulgaria, from the flowers that have just been picked.

Rose water is an excellent product for skin: it hydrates, tones, calms, stimulates regeneration process, maintains PH-balance and has anti-inflammatory properties. It also has an absolutely divine smell of fresh roses and can be used in aromatherapy. I use it as my daily face toner and I have never found a better product. I have been using it for years since it was a very popular product in the former USSR due its close ties with Bulgaria.

I buy my rose water from a family-owned Bulgarian company, Alteya, and I chose them because they are vertically integrated: they own rose fields in the Rose Valley, their manufacturing and packaging facility is right there, on the spot and thus, they guarantee the purest and freshest ingredients. Moreover, their rose water is USDA certified Organic.

The World wouldn’t have known about wonderful Alteya products but for the Internet (you cannot find them in stores yet) and now you can indulge yourself and enjoy the best and oldest Bulgarian beauty secret:

Israel Beauty Secret - Part II

To continue on my previous story about Dead Sea beauty secrets ( http://beautymanual.blogspot.com/2009/05/israel-beauty-secret.html) I want to share with you another great find that I have recently discovered: Cleopatra's Choice website offers a variety of authentic Dead Sea products. The best part is that if you don’t know what product you need or have any sorts of doubts you can try 10 products for FREE!!! They kindly ask you to pay $4.99 for shipping but I think it’s fair enough.

Click on the link in the upper left hand corner of their main page and it will take you to the description of items they offer for FREE:
1. Mineral Lift Serum
2. Moisturizing Day Cream
3. Intensive Anti Wrinkle Cream
4. Night Renewal Cream
5. Purifying Mud Mask
6. Mineral Eye Gel
7. Mineral Hand Cream
8. Mineral Body Lotion
9. Shea Body Butter
10. Deep Pore Mineral Cleanser

I was pleasantly surprised that all these didn’t come in tiny trial-size pouches that you can hardly open, and when you do it’s only enough for 1 use. These come in nice little jars and I used their eye gel, for instance, for nearly a week, day and night; hand and face creams last for about 3 -4 days, and the only one product that is for 1 time use is the body lotion (the body is big and the jar is small – you do the math)

My absolute favorites were Mineral Eye Gel and Mineral Hand Cream. The eye gel was soothing and refreshing and the hand cream made my hands wonderfully soft!

So when you choose the product YOU like you can order it risk-free.

Also their bath salts (authentic 100% natural Dead Sea salts) are FANTASTIC and CUSTOM-MADE: first you choose from 70 different scents (or choose un-scented), then you choose any of 13 colors available and, finally, you choose any size from 5 to 2400 LB! I’ve never seen such a huge selection of salts which come with all the beauty and therapeutic benefits that Dead Sea has to offer. These also come in samples: 2 OZ = 0.99 USD. You can try any combination of scents and colors.

How to save even more:
1. FREE shipping on orders $49+
2. Use discount coupon “beauty10” to get 10% OFF
3. They send 3 FREE samples with every purchase!

Beauty Secret from Tahiti

Have you ever been to Tahiti? This small tropical island in the Pacific Ocean (part of French Polynesia) is a true paradise on Earth and being so remote it seems like it’s not even real, like a fairytale… Its isolated location ensured that it has a lot of vegetation unique to that region and one plant specifically lies at the heart of Tahitian beauty secrets – Tiare flower.

Tiare is a symbol of Tahiti and it’s been used by local people since ancient times in their health and beauty rituals. The most famous product used by Tahitians is Monoi – a natural cosmetic oil consisting of coconut oil and Tiare. It is produced by soaking unopened flowers in coconut oil for 15 days during which Tiare releases its unique properties into the oil. While coconut oil is one of the best moisturizes in the world, Tiare helps relax muscles and sooth you (the flower has a very distinct sweet smell that is use as aromatherapy too).

One cosmetic company brings this ancient beauty recipe into the modern day. Yves Rocher created several great body and hair products based on the tradition of Monoi and Tiare flower. My favorite one is Jardins des Iles Polynesian Tiare Flower Shower Gel (it's actually more of a shower oil) It makes my skin very soft and moisturized as if I used baby oil. On top of that the smell of this shower gel is amazing: it makes you feel like you were bathing somewhere in Tahitian flower garden under a waterfall, not in your shower…

The full product line, “Jardins des Iles”, (= eng. Gardens of the Islands) also consists of hair products and body oils, including the Monoi – and all these exotic beauty for under $10 each (except for Tiare Body oil that costs $15)!!!

How to save even more: Yves Rocher offers the following promotion:
1. Shipment is FREE on orders $30+
2. You can choose a FREE gift with every order (I really like that you can choose a gift yourself rather than them sending you something you actually do not need)
3. Use coupon 15THANKS to get 15% OFF any order

Israel Beauty Secret - Part I

Today I would like to take you on a trip to Israel. This country has a beauty resource that no one else has in the world except for Jordan - the Dead Sea (the images is from http://www.pbase.com/doronnissim/dead_sea) This in-land lake has been known for thousands of years for its outstanding ability to enhance skin beauty and reputedly even Cleopatra herself was using it in her beauty rituals. Its water is unique because it contains 26 different minerals used for health and beauty treatments (calcium, magnesium, potassium, bromide, etc.) with only 12 -18 % of sodium chloride of salt content while the salt in the water of most oceans and seas is approximately 97% sodium chloride. So in short, the Dead Sea is the biggest natural spa in the world.

Dead Sea constituents (salt, mud, water) have various proven therapeutically benefits, the main ones are:
Skin problems: – Research has demonstrated that skin disorders. One study concluded that the high concentration of magnesium in Dead Sea salt was instrumental in improving skin hydration and reducing inflammation.
Allergies - The high concentration of bromide and magnesium in the Dead Sea salt can relieve allergic reactions by cleansing and detoxifying
Skin aging - Further research into Dead Sea salt benefits has shown a 40% reduction in the depth of wrinkling.
Not everyone, unfortunately, can go to Israel to enjoy these benefits at the source that’s why cosmetic companies use Dead Sea salts ingredient of many beauty products including bath salts, salt scrubs, soaps, creams, lotions, makeup and many others.
One beauty company is famous for its Dead Sea minerals products – Ahava. They are the only cosmetics enterprise indigenous to the Dead Sea region and they are proud to be making their products at the source. Ahava has extensive lines of body care, facial care, spa and sun care products and here are my favorites:

AHAVA Dermud Facial Calming Moisturizer SPF 15



This moisturizer is non-greasy, absorbs quickly and hydrates and soothes dry, sensitive and irritated skin. It efficiently treats dryness, scaling, roughness and itchiness, while protecting the epidermis against environmental damage. I especially like it because it does 2 jobs in 1: it not only moisturizes the skin but also has SPF 15 to protect your face from the sun (saves you time and money).

My 2nd favorite is even better: it does 3 jobs in 1!
AHAVA Pure Spa Uplifting Butter Salt Mandarin Cedarwood exfoliates, hydrates, and defends against aging.

This body product has a unique formula that changes from exfoliating butter to a light pampering lotion as water is added. The scrub smoothes and hydrates your skin while exotic Mandarin and Cedarwood essential oils help revive tired skin and restore vitality.

has nearly 100 products by Ahava and you will notice that a lot of them have customers’ reviews, most of which are 4-5 stars. The prices are reasonable too: the majority of the products fall into 20 – 35 USD price range.

How to save even more:
has several fantastic promotions going on right now:
1. Save 10% EVERY DAY: code SSM18447 (NO expiration)
2. FREE shipment on orders $49+ (NO expiration)
3. They send you FREE product samples with every shipment
4. You can join Skinstore rewards program for FREE and earn1 point for each 1 USD spent (excluding tax and shipment). Each 300 points earn you a 30 USD Rewards Certificate!

Russian Beauty Secrets

Due to my profession and my love for new experiences I have been travelling a lot around the world. If I put together all countries where I lived, studied, worked and just had vacation they will add up to 30 (and still counting). What I have learned from my roaming around the Globe is that every country and every nation has its own peculiar traditions and views about many issues from cooking to beauty. Some of them really perform miracles but they are not well-known in other parts of the world.

I would like to share with you all these beauty tips and secrets that I uncovered. The most valuable ones are those that go back ages and ages in history and are tested by generations of people . Since a lot of them date back to B.C. era they are based on natural products and often enough you can find these products in your kitchen and garden.

I will start my Beauty Expedition Around the World from my native country – Russia. In Russia we consider milk products to hold secrets to all your beauty needs, especially face and hair. Russian milk products are more natural than in the U.S. and Western Europe and we use a lot of sour milk products for beauty purposes. Our milk becomes sour after about 3 days (as it SHOULD in natural circumstances if it is not specially treated at the milk factory). Certain products made from sour milk have loads of benefits for your hair and skin.

Sour cream and cottage cheese: Russian women use these products to create home-made face masks that hydrate skin, make it firm and relieve the irritation of sensitive skin.

Here is an easy face mask recipe: 2 tea spoons of cottage cheese + 1 egg yolk. Mix well till smooth. Apply to the face and leave for 15 minutes.

Sour milk or as we call it in Russian “prostokvasha”(only use milk that came directly from the farm) and plain kefir (it looks and feels like plain liquid yogurt): our ancestors used these products to wash their hair. Milk products not only nourish the hair, but give it strength, shine, silkiness and also may prevent dandruff.

Modern beauty industry uses the power of milk in some of its products. My favorite products incorporating milk proteins and lipids are H2O Plus Milk line. They have excellent products for body, hands and hair. They are, probably, as close as it gets to natural milk in the modern world. Another Plus is that they are affordable (all products are under $20):



How to save even more: I like shopping at Skinstore.com.

They have several fantastic promotions going on right now:
1. Save 20% on your purchase: code MDAY20 (expires May 4, 2009)
2. Save 10% EVERY DAY: code SSM18447 (NO expiration)
3. FREE shipment on orders $49+ (NO expiration)
4. They send you FREE product samples with every shipment