If you want to get a beautiful tan, fast, but want to avoid the risks of tanning beds, consider this innovative and effective tanning protocol. I came across this tanning method, developed by Goltis, a Russian natural health advocate, and I wanted to share it with you.

From my experience this method works very well for those following the raw food diet. Even though the author claims it can be used by anyone, if you still eat a lot of cooked food, I urge you to exercise additional care.

[Please note: This article is a translation of a Russian e-book. I received permission from the author to post the translation on my Blog.]

Beautiful Tan in Just Two Days…Naturally

You can achieve a beautiful tan in just two days—without any sunburn! If you use these prescribed methods of sun bathing, you’ll achive only the healthful effects— an olive skin tone, good mood, more energy, and a zest for life.

 Tanning: The ‘Supercompensation’ Method by Goltis: http://goltis.com.ua ]

At first it might seem that a nice tan, without getting burned, in just two days isn’t possible. But now, thanks to the supercompensation tanning method, you can build an even tan, safely, and in very little time.

How does it work?  What is a tan? It’s the darkening of the skin’s color from the effects of ultraviolet radiation. This darkening is caused by the formation and accumulation in the lower layers of the epidermis of a specific pigment—melanin. Melanin (from Greek melas, “black”) is the dark pigment that determines the skin’s color. The more melanin, the darker your skin. Melanin formation in the skin is a protective reaction to solar ultraviolet radiation. In this way, when your skin tans, it is the natural method by which it protects itself from the sun’s rays.

Supercompensation. The principle of supercompensation refers to the correct correlation between periods of exposure to the sun—at which time melanin is being expended or dissolved—and time spent in the shade—at which time new melanin is being formed.

The chart below outlines the optimal protocol for building up and expending
melanin, thus achieving your tan. Important: You’ll get good results safely only by following this protocol exactly!

Chart for Implementing Tanning Supercompensation

Cycle	Body Position, Time Spent in the Sun (in minutes)
	On the back	On the stomach	On the side	On the other side	Hide in the shade
1	1.5	1.5	1	1	3
2	2	2	1	1	3
3	3	3	1.5	1.5	5
4	5	5	2.5	2.5	5
5	7	7	3	3	7
6	9	9	5	5	10
7	12	12	7	7	10
8	15	15	10	10	10
9	20	20	15	15	15
10	25	25	20	20	20
11	35	35	25	25	30
12	45	45	30	30	40

• Cycle 1 -  First, sunbathe lying on your back (or in another position facing the sun) for 1.5 minutes, as shown in the chart. Turn over on your stomach (with your back to the sun)—again for 1.5 minutes. Then tan for 1 minute on each side. Now go rest in the shade for 3 minutes.
• Now move to Cycle 2, then 3, 4, 5…12 .
• Continue your routine in the same manner, using the times shown in the chart.

Before using this tanning method, consult your physician and ask whether tanning is contraindicated for you. If you decide to follow this tanning method, you are taking full responsibility for following the protocol and for the results you achieve.

Alternative methods of using the tanning chart…

Very quick—one day, when you just can’t wait! You will be completing the entire 12-cycle protocol in a single day. Not recommended, since you are going to be subject to the peak of the day’s solar activity. Consider this only if you have absolutely no skin problems.

Quick—two days. Still fast, but you can avoid the hours of maximum solar activity. Go through the entire 12 cycles over two days. Note what cycle number you ended day one with—cycle 6, let’s say. Subtract 2—to get 4, in this example—and start tanning on the second day from that cycle number. In any case, subtract 2 whenever you take a break from tanning for over two hours.

Normal—7 days. Here, you’ll simply go more slowly—fewer cycles per day. If you take a break from tanning for more than two hours, start with a cycle number 2 lower than the one you were on just before your break. Go through the cycle in “jumps of two.” Here’s what we mean: On day 1 you start at cycle 1…day 2, start at cycle 3…day 3, start at cycle 5…and so on.

Gentle—perfect for sensitive skin or for rehabilitation after a sunburn. Start with 10-second intervals. Use the chart protocol but replace minutes with seconds. For each unit of a minute on the chart, go for about ten seconds (meaning each cycle will be six times shorter).

With all these methods, take a break during peak hours—no tanning between about noon and three o’clock. Adjust this for more or less sunny climates—the nearer you are to the equator, the more breaks you should take, and the longer your advisable time out of the sun. And never, of course, apply this protocol with tanning beds or any other mode of artificial tanning.

By: Andrew Datsenko, Instructor of the Preparatory Course in Healing Impulse. Author of the method “Healing Impulse” – Goltis (V.I. Vuksta) http://goltis.info/

Every household needs a really deep spring cleaning, wouldn’t you say? That same thorough clean-out is the idea behind colon hydrotherapy—a very helpful tool for removing old, accumulated waste and toxins that have been piling up and decaying inside of you for years, resulting in restored colon health and cleanliness, and better overall health.

Colonics—the what and why

Colonics, also known as colon hydrotherapy or colon irrigations, are administered by a trained professional in a clean and private setting. According to the website of the International Association for Colon Hydrotherapy:

Colon hydrotherapy is a safe, effective method of removing waste from the large intestine, without the use of drugs. By introducing filtered and temperature-regulated water into the colon, the waste is softened and loosened, resulting in evacuation through natural peristalsis. This process is repeated a few times during a session.

Through irrigation of the large intestine, and abdominal massage, a mass of accumulated waste matter—waste the body wouldn’t otherwise shed on its own—gets released. See: http://marlenatorres.com/2012/02/the-controversial-topic-of-colon-hydrotherapy/

This practice of colonic irrigation has been used for thousands of years, all the way back to the Egyptians. Mentions in papyrus documents date back to the 14^th century BCE.  The 3rd century Essene Gospel, familiar to many raw foodists, makes mention of colon cleansing.

Colonics figured in treatment of everything from headaches to gastrointestinal disease in the early 1900s, per Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, who reportedly used colonics with success on over 40,000 of his patients. In the 1920s and 30s the mainstream medical community denounced colon hydrotherapy and it began to disappear from the public health scene. But recently, colonics have gained in popularity as people begin again to take their health into their own hands.

Are colonics for you?

If your entry into raw foods has brought you constipation, bloating and gas, it could be that this new, vibrant, cleansing food is hitting old waste, clogged in your system. If you are having skin breakouts, headaches and aching joints, mouth sores, and other detox symptoms, this is another sign that the toxins are not being removed efficiently, and a colonic may be just the thing to speed your cleansing along. Many people report their health improving by leaps and bounds after a few colon hydrotherapy sessions, as the colon is able to absorb nutrients better with the blockages removed.

The “natural” controversy

Still, some object. The usual grounds: that colonics “aren’t natural.” That they’re “dangerous,” even “habit-forming.” Some health enthusiasts, most notably Natural Hygienists, claim that one can cleanse the body at large and the colon in particular quite without “unnatural” colonics and enemas.

How we look at what’s “natural” and not varies, in their truth, with time, place, history, and culture. Followers of the Natural Hygienist movement claim juicing “isn’t natural.” And, in a way, it isn’t: You need a blender for juicing. Nor is eating raw plant foods natural”—not if you’re Inuit, and living in the high arctic. Nor was either an all-plant or all-meat diet “natural” for early humans: In their environments, they were necessarily omnivores.

One thing’s for sure: That the “normal” North American diet—food that comes from cans, frozen cardboard boxes, the cold cuts section, the bread aisle, and a couple of weekly visits to the golden arches has never been a candidate for a “natural” way to eat. If colonics can help some of us transition to a cleaner, straighter, faster road to real health, then…onward!

I don’t quite get the worry that colonics are “addictive.” Certainly not the way booze, cigarettes, drugs, and bad TV are addictive. Colonics actually help to increase and strengthen normal peristalsis, which also helps heal a crippled digestive tract.

I received many colonics during my transition to raw foods and, later, my Quantum Eating program. For me, they were a very effective tool for detoxifying, but now I find that I no longer need them. My digestion and elimination have stabilized, and work ideally well nearly all the time. The last time I went in for a colonic, essentially nothing came out. The therapist was astonished and remarked that in over thirteen years of performing colonics, she had only seen one person with a colon as clean as mine. Who was it? A nun who lived in a convent and ate, she said, only fruits and vegetables. Raw foods and Quantum Eating work! So don’t fear that if you do decide to embark on several colon hydrotherapy sessions in order to facilitate cleansing, you’ll need them the rest of your life. Most likely you won’t.

Not your basic home remedy

Colon hydrotherapy is not something you do at home, unlike your typical home enema. Neither are colonics exotic, difficult or dangerous, when performed by a trained hydrotherapist. Healing institutes all over the world supervise this practice daily. As a matter of fact, colonics are considered a completely normal part of health care in some countries.

Don’t colonics wash away beneficial bacteria?

Some worry that colon cleansing washes away beneficial bacteria essential to the health and functioning of the colon. The fact is true, but the worry isn’t necessary. Those beneficial organisms can easily be replenished. A good hydrotherapist can give implants after each colonic, and you can easily consume good probiotic-rich food on a raw foods diet. A clean, healthy colon can much more easily regulate its own internal environment.

The money part

Another argument against colonics is that they are relatively expensive, and not everyone can afford them. True again. But if you believe in them, you will see this as an investment in your health, not an expense.

Everyone must make up his or her own mind when it comes to including colonics in their raw foods lifestyle. Visit the website i-act.org for more information or to find a qualified professional near you. He or she will be happy to answer all of your questions in depth and recommend the best route for you to take.

Your own everyday cleansing mechanism

The raw food diet is its own everyday cleansing tool. Raw foods themselves are cleansers. Add in a program of juicing and fasting, and you have an even deeper clean and have already largely eliminated the influx of toxic junk that infests “normal” eaters. For many new raw foodists, colon hydrotherapy can make this cleansing process go quicker and smoother with fewer detox symptoms.

Take a diet. Any diet. Most of us have tried a few in the past. Can you think of one food group that every diet, without exception, recommends? You guessed it—vegetables. Some diets may even prohibit fruit, but you’ll always find vegetables in the mix. And the more, the better.

In the vegetable kingdom, one variety stands out as the most potent health elixir: dark green leafy vegetables such as spinach, kale, chard, lettuce, arugula, mustard and collard greens, dandelion greens, beet leaves, carrot tops, and their cousins. Low in calories, fat-free, high in fiber—no wonder these leafy greens make it into every diet.

What makes dark green food so valuable to us?

These vegetables’ dark green color manifests their high chlorophyll content. The more chlorophyll, the more antioxidants the plant develops to protect its cells from free radicals generated by sunrays coming in contact with chlorophyll. All those antioxidants become the property of the host who consumes the greens, offering the same protection against the host’s own free radicals.

Chlorophyll is a natural blood-builder. And the quality of our blood determines the health of the rest of the body. So give your body the chlorophyll it needs, along with the alkaline minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium) needed to keep the blood slightly alkaline. Isn’t it convenient that greens are the best source of alkaline minerals in the plant world? Add in the whole plethora of vitamins (A, C, E, B, K), plus iron and high fiber found in greens, and you get one of the most concentrated sources of nutrients known.

One particular benefit of leafy greens is worth mentioning separately. Bodybuilders have long noticed that when they take a nitric oxide supplement, it improves the blood flow to the muscles and regulates blood pressure. Nitric oxide is a free-form gas crucial for a healthy circulatory system, keeping inflammation and blockages at bay. The good news: no need for a supplement. Nature has taken care of us again by providing a special pathway to produce nitric oxide in-house, as it were. This gas is produced from dietary nitrate, which comes from fruits, vegetables and greens—especially dark leafy greens, among which lettuce and spinach are nitrate champions.

How much greens you eat shows on your face. Green leaves score high in the beauty category too. Clear skin, glowing complexion, healthy-looking hair: these are just a few of the desirable side effects of a greens-rich diet coupled with a good skin and hair care routine. Check it out for yourself: Add more greens to your raw food meals and see if you can tell your facial skin is improving. Many greens are rich in beta-carotene, essential for renewing skin cells. Folic acid in greens also helps produce and maintain new cells, while lutein helps maintain skin hydration and elasticity as well as guarding against sun damage.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And you don’t need to go to extremes—no “kale-stuffed kale with kale-sauce.” There’s an easy way to consume good, regular amounts of leafy greens, pioneered by Victoria Boutenko, author of Green For Life and other raw foods books. She recommends blending them together with fruit to make green smoothies, a simple, enjoyable way to usher the goodness in. The nutrients in greens are available to us quicker when we blend them. If you are a beginner, start with mild-tasting greens, such as Romaine lettuce, spinach, bok choy, Swiss chard, beet greens. Once you get to love those, add kale, collards, arugula, endive, mustard and dandelion greens. Fresh juices, soups, salads, crackers and wraps are all greens-friendly, too. Oh, and before you head out to spend money on the leaves, check your yard for free wild greens, such as chickweed, lamb’s quarters, purslane, nettles, thistle, dandelion and many others, greens even more nutritious than your supermarket produce section can offer.

Fall in love with leafy greens. Make green the dominant color in your fridge. Don’t let a day go by without greens. Find the ways to consume them that suit you best, remembering that you and those leafy greens are in it for the long haul. I am convinced that dark leafy greens hold answers to most, if not all of our health-related questions.

It is a part of the design of your skin that it has small openings on its surface, called pores, leading into sebaceous glands that secrete oil for skin protection and lubrication. Most skin pores are barely noticeable to the naked eye, and we pay them little attention. Except, that is, when we see them staring back at us in the mirror like so many moon craters. In my late thirties, I used to have this very problem. No more.

What Causes Pores to Enlarge?

While it’s commonly accepted that pore size is genetically determined, several other factors most likely contribute. Hormone imbalance may play a role in excessive oil production, promoting pore enlargement. As skin ages and loses collagen, pores become larger, continually trapping more and more dead skin cells along with oils, which plug and stretch the pores even more—a vicious circle. Enlarged pores almost always go along with an oily skin problem. The odds of having dilated pores are not in your favor if you struggled with acne as a teenager and attacked the problem with your bare hands. Sun damage to the skin can also factor into pores becoming more visible.

Approaching the Large Pores Problem from Within

The way to a beautiful exterior always starts inside. Before you see perfect facial skin, your liver, stomach, colon, pancreas and other internal organs must experience a state of health. Since you are constantly building and re-building your cells with the help of the foods you consume, diet is the number one player when it comes to addressing any health or cosmetic issue. If you are already on a raw food diet, you’re ahead of the game. Make sure you drink fresh, predominantly green juices regularly. Take a look: The skin of frequent juicers is vibrantly alive, healthy looking, and clear. A glass of juice has more potential for your skin healing and rejuvenation than any cosmetic procedure or pharmaceutical product you might be tempted to try.

Concentrate on foods that help rebuild collagen in your body, such as silica-rich radish, alfalfa, nettles, burdock root, romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, sulfur-rich cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, green cabbage), pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, watercress and mustard leaves. Foods high in protein, vitamins A, C and E, copper, zinc and iron all play important roles in collagen formation. You don’t have to be formulaic—you’ll find that if you eat a wide variety of colorful raw foods, you’ll have your all your bases covered. Maintaining your raw plant-based diet is the foundation for any additional external approach you might take toward achieving beautiful skin.

Keep your Face Clean

Enlarged pores can be stubborn. Commit to keeping your face as clean as you can, always. Experiment with diluted raw apple cider vinegar (1 tablespoon of vinegar for 8 ounces of water) instead of soap. You are trying to catch up with excessive oil production by removing dirt, oil and skin debris as soon as they are produced. Let them remain, and the pores become more visible.

Get the Oil Out

Unclogging your stuffed pores is the first step to diminishing their visible size. Steaming your face for a few minutes before cleansing it or applying hot towel allows the oil to soften, making it easier to remove from the pores. A clay mask offers a way to soak up oil, draw out impurities, and (as drying occurs) tighten the skin’s surface, making pores appear smaller. You might want to try our green clay masque. We’ve just received a freshly made batch.

Get Rid of Dead Skin Cells

Daily exfoliation helps remove dead cells, thus keeping the pores on the small side. Dry brushing might bring the best results.

Tomato Mask for Oily Skin

Because of their astringent qualities, tomatoes help remove extra oil and reduce the apparent size of large pores. Cut your tomato into circles, place on your face and leave for twenty minutes. Rinse your face with warm water, then cold.

Help from Citrus Country

As you move through your day, reach for a lemon slice and rub it over your face. Lemon juice is a natural cleanser and purifier, with the ability to tighten skin and shrink pores. If you’re peeling a grapefruit or an orange, rub the inside of the peel on your skin for a similar cleansing effect. Experiment with cucumber, too: Feed your skin by rubbing it with one slice, and eat the rest.

Baking Soda Skin Toner

Mix 2 tablespoons of baking soda with a little water to form a white paste. Apply the paste to your face and let it dry completely. Wash off with water.

Egg White Mask #1

Whisk the white of one egg until it forms a foam. Add a teaspoon of warmed raw honey, and the juice of one lemon. Mix well and apply to the face for half an hour. Once it’s dry, wash the mask off with warm water.

Egg White Mask #2

Mix two egg whites with a quarter cup of fresh orange juice. Apply to the face and leave for fifteen minutes. Remove with warm water.

Salicylic Acid

Rub your face with salicylic acid, a 2% liquid solution, at bedtime, then apply moisturizer to avoid excess dryness.

Hydrogen Peroxide Spray

This will moisten your skin, neutralize bacteria and shrink large pores. Combine 3% hydrogen peroxide with distilled water, a 1:1 ratio. Pour this into a spray bottle, and spray on your face after using any mask or scrub. Avoid getting it into your eyes!

It’s a Trek—Not a Sprint

When it comes to highly visible, bigger-than-usual pores, prepare for your solution to take some time. Thorough transformation on a physical level takes both time and commitment. That said, a combination of a raw food regimen and a consistent skin care routine, tailored to your particular skin issues, is the safest and most natural route to take in caring for your body and realizing its innate health and beauty.

Dr. Hauschka’s is one company whose products and methods are very popular with health-seeking, beauty conscious people. A number of years ago, I used and recommended their cosmetics myself. Recently one of my readers pointed out some differences in our approaches to skin care. Her email prompted me to review carefully Dr. Hauschka’s famous “7 facts that will change your skin.”

Hauschka’s philosophy differs slightly from mine. (Or shall we say mine differs from his? After all, he’s the doctor!) I don’t disagree in every respect, but there are a few tenets that I feel compelled to challenge.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: Hauschka doesn’t address diet. By contrast, I insist that diet is an integral part of skin care. Without a sound diet, your skin will never be healthy. You’ll always have to ‘treat’ skin problems that a poor diet and lifestyle create. Dr. H, despite the fact that his products and methods are based on very high quality plant ingredients, comes from a pharmaceutical perspective. Why not, say I, get to the root of the problem instead of merely dealing with the symptoms?

Is Night Cream Important?

Dr. Hauschka advised to skip the night cream: “Covering the skin with moisturizer 24 hours a day sends a signal to sebaceous glands to cut down on moisture production, resulting in even drier skin that becomes dependent on moisturizing products just to appear “normal.”  Hence, do remember to let your skin breathe!”

Beautiful On Raw: If you use a day cream that absorbs within five minutes and a night cream that absorbs in an hour or two, you still have 21 hours and 55 minutes to let your skin breathe! Ask anyone who has passed the 40 year mark—over time skin becomes less able to care for itself.  Our sebaceous glands cut down on moisture production as we age, so our skin needs help. A truly natural cream can supply the needed moisture. You can stimulate your sebaceous glands through massage, dry brushing and vigorous exfoliation from the outside and good nutrition from the inside, so skin cells will renew themselves faster.

Like treats like. Dr. H says: “Though it might seem counterintuitive to apply oil to an oily complexion, it’s actually the most logical solution. The skin knows whether it’s sufficiently protected, producing more of its own oil when skin is dry and less when it’s balanced.” If we treat dry skin with rich, heavy creams or oils, he says, we effectively trick our skin into believing it’s been producing too much of its own oil. In response, it decreases production, perpetuating a dry skin cycle.

Beautiful On Raw: We want to get away from treating “oily” or “dry” skin. We want our skin to be neither especially oily nor dry. The solution is diet, not a special cream.

Should You Scrub Your Skin?

Dr. Hauschka says: Stop scrubbing—your skin is not the bathroom floor. Soaps, scrubs, and exfoliants can strip your face of its natural protection, leading to dry, irritated skin and an appearance of premature aging. Hauschka’s adherents use the “press and roll” method, aimed at encouraging the lymph system’s function and cleansing the skin without stripping the acid mantle.

Beautiful On Raw: Harsh ingredients can irritate and dry the skin. However, scrubbing and exfoliation, by themselves, do not amount to harshness. “Damaging” the skin ever so slightly, roughing it up a bit, stimulating it, is a well-known technique among skin care experts. Skin will rejuvenate itself when exposed to damage. (Don’t be afraid of the word damage. It’s the same with muscle: The weightlifter “damages” his muscles slightly every time he hits the gym, but this damage stimulates repair and new growth.) That’s part of the reason you look better after a cosmetic procedure, but only temporarily. What if you rough up your skin just a little every day and it’s constantly rejuvenating itself and looking better? This is what daily exfoliation does, increasing circulation and oxygenation.

All debate aside, I do believe Dr. Hauschka’s company and products to be among the most impressive available today. I am only pointing out how our philosophies variously differ. Dr. H does not address diet, so, in his world, skin must be babied, constantly treated for problems. I encourage a skin-building, skin-fortifying diet, building up the skin’s tolerance gradually in order to cause it to repair, rejuvenate and shine.

We all get concerned when we see a chemical-sounding name among ingredients in our cosmetics. Since I have been eating raw foods without anything added to them for the last fourteen years, when creating my own cosmetics, I wanted them to be as pure as possible. Preservatives in particular became a focus of my most scrupulous investigation.

Reviewing hundreds of cosmetic products, I discovered that some cosmetic companies don’t disclose preservatives as well as other ingredients, such as emulsifiers or stabilizers, that sound chemically unfriendly to the untrained customer. I prefer the truth. Here are the top 4 cosmetics myths you must become aware of:

Myth #1: Grapefruit seed extract is an all natural preservative.

One customer wrote to me asking why I’m not using “natural preservatives” such as grapefruit seed extract. I wonder: Did she imagine we’re intentionally adding some kind of chemical preservative instead of a natural one? It’s not likely that I would be trying to get chemical preservatives in through my skin that I strive so hard to keep out of my food.

But here’s the reason for her question…Some cosmetic companies make you believe that grapefruit seed extract works as a natural preservative. However, U.S. and foreign studies report suspicious, abnormal chemical activity in randomly selected grapefruit seed extracts. A report from the Institute of Pharmacy, Ernst Moritz Arndt University, Greifswald, Germany examined the content of and the effectiveness of the preservative agents in six commercially available grapefruit seed extracts. Five of six showed a high growth-inhibiting activity against the test germs—there’s your good news.

The bad news…within all these grapefruit seed extracts researchers also detected the chemical preservative benzethonium chloride. Additionally, three extracts contained the preserving substances Triclosan (which is classified as toxic to the organ system, causes endocrine disruption at low doses and is persistent in the environment) and Methyl Paraben (for which there is strong evidence of skin toxicity and endocrine disruption, among other concerns). However, you won’t find these preservative’s names on the label; it will just state “grapefruit seed extract.”

In only one of the grapefruit seed extracts was no preservative agent found. However, this extract showed zero preservative and antimicrobial qualities. The study’s conclusion: The potent antimicrobial quality attributed to grapefruit seed extract is merely due to the synthetic preservative agents added to it! Nonetheless, cosmetic companies are getting away with listing just “Grapefruit Seed Extract” on their labels.

I myself had once believed that grapefruit seed extract alone could work as a preservative. But my own experiments, performed as I was developing my facial cream, confirmed the German study: My “grapefruit only” samples went bad within a week! Tough truth. But I prefer the truth…

Right now radish root extract and aspen bark extract are  touted as all-natural anti-microbials.  These extracts alone cannot work as preservatives of regular moisturizers, meaning the facial creams that contain water. In fact, no “natural” extract can. Look at fruits, vegetable, roots and herbs. They all contain water and once cut, the bacteria and other gems, get hold of them very quickly.

Myth #2: Essential oils will work as preservatives.

Yes, some essential oils do exhibit antibacterial and anti-fungal qualities. But in order to successfully preserve a product containing water, you must use these oils in their fully concentrated forms. This is unsafe. Fully concentrated oils can cause skin reddening, allergic reactions, dermatitis and even liver damage. As a result, if you peruse the websites of sellers of essential oils for cosmetic companies, you’ll see warnings that because of possible contamination, these essential oils should not be used as the sole preservative.

Myth #3: Potassium sorbate is an all-natural preservative.

Well, what does preservative mean? In the fullest sense, a preservative is a substance which prevents or delays decay at the hands of both bacteria and of molds and yeasts.

Mold and yeast…potassium sorbate works. Against bacteria, however, it is useless. And in any setting with a pH higher than 6—just about any lotion—potassium sorbate is quite ineffective.

Let’s cut to the chase…The brutal truth is: There just aren’t any highly effective all-natural preservatives. Shocked? So was I.

Want to keep a product free of molds, yeasts, and bacteria? Then you’re stuck, like it or not, with some kind of chemical preservative.

Myth #4. Cosmetics bought in small batches don’t require preservatives.

Okay. Maybe. If you make the product yourself, or buy it straight from the manufacturer, with no “shelf time” being served between factory and face. Even then, refrigerate it right away. This way, your product will likely last a few days. Days…not months.

Creams containing herb, flower and fruit extracts are highly vulnerable to bacterial growth. If a product contains water or water may be introduced into it, then a preservative is needed—bacteria, mold and yeast positively thrive in the presence of water. Thus there are a few cosmetic products which do not include any water, instead using only oil—balms and salves— these will not need an added preservative. But the moment you use the product with wet hands, the contamination process begins. A preservative is considered a good precaution even then.

Lotions, creams or shampoos, however, invariably contain some water. This water has been combined with herb, flower and fruit extracts and placed in an enclosed jar or bottle. Add to that the warm, damp environment of your bathroom, and we’ve got a perfect little garden for growing pathogens. If such a product has no preservatives listed on the label, beware.

Bottom Line.

Make your own preservative-free cosmetics at home in very small batches. If this is not possible, buy your cosmetics only from the sources that you can trust. You deserve to know the truth.

More Water=Less Efficient Filtering?

I got an interesting e-mail a while back: I thought you might find this interesting, Tonya. In the Ladies Home Journal (Christie Brinkley on the cover, July 2009, page 141), a study is quoted…’in fact, there’s evidence your body is less efficient at filtering out toxins when your water intake is higher.’ That, Tonya, is what you say in your books!!!

Gosh, I love being confirmed—whether by science or the Ladies Home Journal. I grew up in the former Soviet Union. In our area the water was bad. No one ever encouraged us to drink water. In fact, I don’t ever remember drinking a plain full glass of water. We always had to boil it first and then use it in a tea, or soup, or some other cooked creation.

Lots of Water But Dry Skin

These days we are inculcated from every direction: Drink lots of water. It sure looks like even while we are drinking plain water in large quantities as never before in history, yet dry skin is almost epidemic. Something obviously is amiss. Drinking water for hydration does seem logical—after all, our body is mostly water. Why then do I hear, almost daily: “I drink lots of water, but my skin is still dry”?  To paraphrase Goethe: the truth never lies on the surface.

I’m often asked what type of water I recommend for drinking and what type of filtration system one should use. Should it be spring water, distilled water? Or maybe still alkaline water, or ionized water? Or even better, silver water? When I am asked this question, I honestly say: I don’t know, nor do I think it will become a topic of my research in the future.

I Don’t Drink Water

Why? I’m in a unique position: I no longer drink water, in the conventional sense. So it’s a subject of almost no direct concern for me. After 14 years following a 100 percent raw food lifestyle, I have no need for free water. Dry skin was a problem for me in my 30s, now in my 50s it is no longer an issue. Am I dehydrated? Quite the opposite. People always want to know the secret of my youthful skin.

Biologically Active Water

Fresh squeezed juices and foods with high water content, including young coconuts, contain what’s known as biologically active water. This is what I consume exclusively, and the only kind I recommend wholeheartedly. This is water which still retains all of its original ‘information’ and structure. It has not been altered in any way, and your body recognizes and uses it perfectly. Moreover, this water will have exactly the right alkaline content needed.

After my hot yoga class, I simply eat half a watermelon, cantaloupe or honey dew melon or drink the ‘milk’ from a fresh coconut. Add my vegetable juice and some fruits or a green smoothie during the day, and I’m never thirsty. Nor dehydrated.

Get Your Water from Fruit and Veggie Sources

I now get all the water I need directly from the hydrating juices and whole raw foods. I think this is my secret. But a caution…This is not something I recommend for everyone at beginning stages of their raw food transition and are still detoxing. It is what I call an ‘advanced practice’ in the raw food lifestyle.  Be sure to read my Quantum Eating and get the full story. Remember a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

While transitioning and still going through cleansing, you must drink plenty of water. If you reach a point, as I eventually did, where you no longer consume cooked or dehydrated food, basically any food that has had the biologically active water removed, then you can receive all you need from “waterful” raw foods and vegetable juices in your diet.

I encourage you to focus on getting most of your hydration needs met by consuming the water found in fruits, vegetables and their juices. Beyond that, you’ll need to educate yourself and obtain all the information you can on the types of water filters and purification methods available and decide how each might fit your particular needs and goals.

During the last eight years I have learned a great deal about cosmetics, how they’re made, and what’s possible and impossible, quite apart from the marketing claims. The catalogue of misleading messages employed by manufacturers, advertisers and labelers is a vast and fascinating one. Let’s look at a few…

Lousy Labels

On March 18, 2011, CBC Marketplace aired a feature about misleading labeling on cosmetic and hygienic products titled “Lousy Labels”. Marketplace started a campaign to reveal the companies who use ‘green-washing’ techniques to market their beauty products, in an attempt to cash in on the public’s desire to use more environmentally- and health-friendly products. There’s a lot of “green-washing” of skin care products, in particular. Terms such as natural, eco-friendly, green, and even organic are unregulated. They’re just marketing terms. Anyone can use them. So it is not surprising that the products of companies that brand themselves as green/organic/natural companies are often anything but.

Well-Known Brands Green Washing

The CBC program pointed out two companies which are guilty of this: Aubrey Organics and Avalon Organics. Besides these, if you actually take a closer look at what’s in the products of Burt’s Bees and Nature’s Gate, you will see how misleading the branding really is.

Can you Trust the Ingredients List?

So our first step should be to check the ingredient list before making a decision to buy and not rely on the branding. One might think you can find the truth in the list of ingredients. Not so fast! It’s sometimes right in the ingredients list where the worst misleading goes on.

Here’s an example of an expensive cream claiming to use only raw ingredients. This facial product has a regular white creamy consistency like a standard moisturizer.  The ingredient list looks very similar to this:

Spring water, organic rosewater, organic oils of jojoba, shea butter, aloe vera, seaweed extract, jojoba, herbal infusions of green tea, elderflowers, rosehips, horsetail, comfrey root, rosebud, nettles, marshmallow plant, orange and rose wax; essential oils of lavender, rose otto, neroli, immortelle, palmarosa, carrot, lemon, schizandra and geranium; antioxidant extracts of rosemary and sage.

Looks natural, even homemade, doesn’t it?  Something a very health conscious individual might put together in a kitchen. I’ve already addressed the topic of raw cosmetics in Raw Cosmetics: Is it Possible?

Labeling Violations

There are some big labeling violations in this list. Note that when an ingredient is essentially identical with a plant part, you must list the species name in Latin, whether or not you list it by common name. Why? Because common names vary, applying across cultures and languages to different plants. Next, note that organic, by itself, means nothing special, legally speaking. Only Certified Organic does. For more information about the difference this one word makes, read Difference Between Organic and Certified Organic.

The list contains other errors as well. After Aloe vera must appear the term extract or juice…the word antioxidant in “antioxidant extracts of rosemary and sage” should not be present in the list of the ingredients, but rather is placed there only as a buzzword to sound scientific.

If there’s Water, there Must Be a Preservative

But lets get to the BIG problem. If there is water (and it’s the first and so should be the most prevalent ingredient on the list), there must be a preservative. When we were formulating Your Right to Be Beautiful Facial Cream, inspired by such labels, I insisted that our cosmetic chemists also try not using any preservatives. At first they argued with me,  but I was adamant and against their better judgment they yielded to my insistence. The longest shelf life we were able to achieve without preservatives was just 1 week. After that period a nasty looking mold would start to grow!  In order to have any kind of shelf life, a beauty product must have ‘full spectrum’ preservatives, meaning effective against bacteria, yeast and mold all at the same time.

Key Ingredients Not Listed

So where are the preservatives in this “raw” cream? Not listed! If it looks and performs like a regular moisturizer it must have emulsifiers and a stabilizer or it will not hold together and will not be “creamy” at all.  But these key ingredients have also been simply dropped from the list. This is no small matter. In the U.S.A., the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA) prohibits deceptively packaged cosmetics, where the label is misleading or false or the label does not include required information.

There was a time when I believed in printed labels. Some of these “errors” are honest mistakes of learning the cosmetic industry. But once you know the truth, you must say nothing else. So as always, I encourage you to do your research, but now I also suggest you watch out for claims that are too good to be true!

Tonya Zavasta is 53 years young

The sun has quite a rap-sheet. Just about every degree of assault and battery you can name, from the mere annoyance of a little sunburn around the backyard pool to full-on skin cancer. Freckles, liver spots, red blotches, wrinkles, and dry skin—the sun “takes the heat” for them all. And the older we get, the more we blame old Sol.

Is it the Sun’s Fault?

Actually, I abhor the phrase “sun damage.” The sun per se does not create these problems. Toxins in the body are what do the damage, directly. Unless you’re on a sound raw foods diet, sunlight will have an ill effect on the skin. Sunbathing is downright dangerous for those on a standard high-fat American diet or who don’t get an abundance of raw fruits and vegetables. An average person must take steps to protect herself from the sun. The trouble is…you are then missing out on all the benefits that sunlight brings.

I promise…Get yourself firmly on a good raw foods regimen, and your relationship with the sun will change. You and old Sol will become buddies.

Sun Exposure is Crucial

In my experience, sun exposure is crucial for your success on raw foods. For healthy bones and muscles, it’s a must. Doing one thing wrong—like eating cooking food—forces you to do another—covering yourself with sunblock. Consider sunblock, the very act of putting it on: It’s the most absurd practice next to cooking your food. One way to think about it: The sun exposes your diet. Fry, grill and bake your food, and these burnt offerings will show up on your skin.

No Burns on Raw Foods

You won’t burn so easily when you eat fresh, raw plant foods. Twenty minutes in the sun will be no problem. A raw food diet gives your skin plenty of hydration and internal protection. Where once you may have avoided sunbathing, slathering on those chemical-laden blockers whenever you did go out, on a good raw foods program you’ll come to welcome every warming, life-giving ray of sun. Eventually, you may find sunlight so essential to your health and well being that you’ll regard it as the most important non-food factor in your raw foods lifestyle.

Toxins are the Real Culprit

We release toxins through the skin. Lots of toxins—especially for those still eating cooked food. But it’s a vital process. Sunlight greatly accelerates the process. Toxins get drawn to the surface, and if there are too many of them, they will be fried. That is what “cancer caused by the sun” actually is. If you don’t get cancer, then the result will still be what we call “premature aging.”

I do not use any commercial sun protection, though I spend twenty minutes or more sunbathing every sunny day. Even if I stay longer, I don’t get red or burned. Nor do I darken unduly. The difference: a raw foods lifestyle.

Warmer, yellower skin tones prove especially attractive to control subjects, research tells us. Recent work by Ian D. Stephen, et al., in the journal Evolution & Human Behavior links these perceptions to absorption of carotenoids. Now, here is more than anecdotal evidence. Science has it—solid evidence for a proposition I’ve been promoting for years: A solid diet built around such foods as kale, spinach, cantaloupe, tomatoes and peppers brings not only health, but a more attractive look as well.

Go for the Internal Sunscreen

On the raw food lifestyle, the body develops a light natural tan. This in turn gives you an “internal sunscreen.” Natural sunlight gives your body the materials it needs to produce its own Vitamin D—not technically a vitamin at all but a hormone needed for healthy teeth and bones and for maintaining a healthy immune system. On a well-managed raw foods lifestyle, eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds (especially young coconuts and their water) helps your skin adjust to sun exposure.

No sunscreens at all for me. But I do advise, wear a hat. I always wear a hat or a cap when I go out on any sunny day. Squinting does create wrinkles.

Lose the Sunglasses

Regardless of how magnificently cool you look in a pair of Ray-Bans, I don’t recommend sunglasses either. More researchers are discovering that our eyes have not only a perceptual function, but an absorptive one. Not only do they see (obviously), but our eyes also absorb light and energy from our surroundings. When you wear a hat your eyes get some of this indirect sun exposure. It is very good for your eyes to keep them healthy.

Bottom line: If you’re about to slather on a pound of “SPF Five Billion” before you step outside, consider…Wouldn’t it be better to adopt a raw foods lifestyle and develop a skin care program that makes the sun your friend? One thing that’s for sure about old Sol: He’s better to have as your friend than your enemy!

Some argue against facial massage, facial exercise and especially against dry-brushing, on the ground that facial skin is extra-sensitive. A better way to state the truth: Facial skin is different. Check it out: Under a microscope, you’ll see the cells making up the top layer of the face are generally smaller than skin cells.

Your skin is an organ—the biggest in your body. As an organ, the skin works—it does things. Your skin is both a barrier and a membrane. That is, it’s designed to let pass through what’s supposed to, and to block what shouldn’t. Smaller cells mean less of a barrier, less blockage. What are the practical implications of this?

Water is lost from the face more quickly than from elsewhere on your body. One consideration is that you need to take more care of your facial skin than the skin elsewhere on your body. Your face needs to be moisturized regularly.

Facial skin is very rich in pores. This means that your eating habits will be imprinted on your face. Toxins getting released in the forms of pimples, acne, blackheads and other blemishes are more likely to appear on the face than anywhere else.

Contained in the skin of our face, as well as that of the scalp, are numerous microscopic glands, called sebaceous glands. They secrete an oily, waxy matter called sebum to lubricate our skin and hair. You’ll find these glands in the skin all over the whole body, except the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. But nowhere are they so abundant as on our face and scalp. One reason that facial exercises works as a remedy for dry skin for many people seems to be that by doing facial exercises you are stimulating these glands.

Yes, facial skin is different from that of the rest of the body, but it is still skin and therefore it acts like skin. Massaging facial skin, either with knuckle massage or facial exercises has a beneficial effect, optimizing its functions.

There’s world of difference between well cared for skin and neglected skin. Neglected skin exhibits pigmentation, fine lines and outbreaks. Degradation of collagen leads to folds and wrinkles. Incorporate good skin care practices, such as outlined in my article Perfect Skin in 5 Steps and your most beautiful you will emerge!