The Green Beauty Guide

Dear, wonderful, Petite Marie! You are a fantastic woman! I just found your natural skin care products and I’m so excited. I’ve been hoping to find quality products like yours that go for a great price…. When I can, I will get the herbal facial spray, moisturizer, and cleanser…. But, here is my question - I have super sensitive skin that gets very rough and scaly and I need to exfoliate but can’t find anything that won’t hurt or damage my skin. I did use some chamomile tea and it seemed to dissolve the dead skin cells but I can’t figure out what I should use as a mild scrubber to go with it. Maybe oats or crushed rice or black rice? What do you think? Hey if you use these ideas make sure to let me have a free bottle…lol! Seriously, I can’t use anything like peach nut shells or sandy mud. If you would like to send me any ideas I would appreciate it. Until then I guess I will wait for you to make a gentle natural exfoliation product! Thanks so much!

Thanks a million for the lovely words - and another thanks for my daughter for sharing her name with my skincare line. Right this moment there are tons of naturally exfoliating things in your kitchen cupboard. Think oatmeal soaked in a little warm milk or plain Greek style yogurt - mildly exfoliating and very nourishing! Chamomile tea is not really exfoliating, but it can lighten the skin while soothing it.

Even plain milk can be exfoliating especially if you have very sensitive skin - just apply it with a cotton pad and leave it on for a few minutes, then rinse off.

Ground coffee is a great mild exfoliating agent, as is caster sugar.

You can also try Rhassoul mud - it’s very gentle and soothing.

Speaking of a free bottle for your advice - not a problem, I can send you a small sample of our upcoming Medea Mask with silky algae mud (Shhhh! A Secret with a capital S), but we already use ground rice in our SKINSAVER Acne Wash (a bit too medicated for your sensitive skin - many people with adult acne use it so it may work for you!)

For your sensitive skin I can recommend a Very Gentle Cleanser, a Healing Herbal Mist, and a Kiss of Love Moisturizer, and for weekly rub - a SKINSAVER Acne Wash with ground rice and calendula, used very sparingly and rubbed super gently.

Got a green beauty question? Drop me a line at Julie@thegreenbeautyguide.com or check out the advice section at www.petitemarieorganics.com

Like Koala Brothers, we are here to help!

Hi, I have recently bought your book and am in the process of making my own lip product. I was going to use phenoxyethanol for the preservative but after reading your book it made me think twice. My product is all natural with Shea butter, macadamia oil, jojoba, etc. Are you able to recommend any preservatives that I could look at using for my lip product? Kylie, Australia.

Well, the only Kylie from Australia that we know lives in London now and plans to get married, so I guess you are just as pretty as she is? Congratulations on the big step away from the plastic lips in the drugstore. Lip products are very rich in oils and beeswax and can go rancid very quickly, especially since we introduce them to new bacteria from our lips, saliva, and fingertips all the time. I have to throw away my natural lip glosses all the time.

I am a firm believer in natural preservatives - and I see very good results from the blend of vitamins A, C, and E. You can skip vitamin C and double the amount of A and E. Beta carotene is good and it adds a lovely golden hue.

Cinnamon, cloves, tea tree, and calendula oils are natural preservatives and they also smell great.

We’ve been experimenting with novel lab-made preservatives recently, and I love the way Tinosan (silver citrate and glycerine) works with very rich oily creams. It should be good for lip products, too. Don’t worry, it’s NOT colloidal silver. We removed colloidal silver from all our products (I still use it to zap my summer mild acne, however). You can buy Tinosan in small quantities from a US based supplier. Please get in touch with me directly if you’d like their info.

I noticed that castor and wheat germ oils seem to works as preservatives when added to oil-in-water or wax-in-oil formulations. Maybe you could give them a chance in your lip products?

Hope this helps!

Got a natural beauty question? Drop me a line at Julie@thegreenbeautyguide.com. Like Koala Brothers, we are here to help.

Perhaps summer is not the best time to launch a cold cream cleanser, but I found that I am using the Crème Galen prototype too often these days. It’s great to remove mineral sunscreens and makeup, and it’s very delicate and nurturing for sun-drenched skin.

So instead of waiting for the fall, I am happy to introduce my newest cleanser, Crème Galen, this week!

This cold cream cleanser is the ultimate treatment moisturizer for the face and body. This remarkable formulation prevents and improves very dry, irritated, chapped skin, resulting in extraordinarily soft, supple skin with a naturally healthy glow.

Crème Galen has an incredibly rich balmy texture that leaves a cooling effect on skin (hence the word “cold”).

Being a bookie, I see no reason of inventing a bicycle when we have already the perfect one. So I took the exact same formulation created by the renowned doctor and scientist Galen in the 2nd century A.D., Crème Galen. Without spending too much time researching for some high-end, technologically advanced ingredients, we took exactly the same ingredients Galen used and blended them in accordance with the authentic formula.

How easy can it be, really?

No petrochemicals, of course (Greeks didn’t use them), no parabens (Galen was blissfully unaware of them), no propylene glycols (Ancient Greeks didn’t need that crap). I trust Galen. After all, he performed successful eye and brain surgeries two thousand years ago, and he’s the one who actually made medicine a science.

So who is the true inventor of this cream? Aelius Galenus, better known as Galen of Pergamum, was a prominent Roman physician and philosopher of Greek origin. During his medical career Galen served as a physician to the gladiators of the High Priest of Asia, one of the most influential and wealthiest men in Asia. He also served as physician to the Emperor Septimius Severus and spent most of the rest of his life at the Roman imperial court.

According to The Art of Perfumery by George William Septimus Piesse (1857), it was Galen who invented the mixture of oil and water, which is now distinguished as cold cream in perfumery.

Galen’s cold cream was based on beeswax and water, also containing olive oil and rose petals for softness and scent.

Rose is the main ingredient in our crème. It provides the cream with the perfect balance of easily-penetrating nutrients in form of rose water and rose essential oil.

Pure, unrefined, handmade beeswax creates a protective and antibacterial shield on the skin’s surface.

Exquisite oil of marigold rejuvenates and heals skin dryness and irritations.

Amaranthus caudatus extract has very good anti-inflammatory effects and for treating dry, itchy skin as well as eczema and psoriasis.

Organic Rosa rubginosa contains a high content of both Vitamin A and Omega 3 Fatty Acid which is excellent for dry sensitive skin.

Hippophae rhamnoides from the pulp of organic Sea Buckthorn berries alleviates sunburn, promotes cell rejuvenation, has excellent pain- and stress- relieving and anti-inflammatory properties.

Anti-oxidant rich vitamin blend of A, C, D, and E protects, calms, and smoothes the skin. Potassium sorbate serves as a natural preservative for the cream.

Crème Galen can be used as a cleanser for dry, delicate skin conditions; as a hand cream; as a body moisturizer; as a split end hair balm. I cannot recommend this cream if you are allergic to bee’s pollen.

Now, here’s the deal: anyone who becomes a subscriber to BEAUTY: FULL LIFE newsletter until the end of July 2009 is automatically entitled to win a jar of Crème Galen.

To join the contest, simply sign up as a member at The Green Beauty Guide blog or send me your details via email.

The winning email will be randomly picked by random.org engine.

Right now, you can buy Crème Galen at promotional price (valid till July 27, 2009) at Petite Marie Organics.com website.

1. Vegetable glycerin

This is a commonly available humectant that locks up moisture in your skin by attracting water molecules from the outside environment. Vegetable glycerin can be used in any homemade skin preparations, and it’s a great addition to any ready-made body lotion. Look for kosher grade vegetable glycerin, ideally made from organically grown, non-GMO plants.

2. Epsom salt

An excellent base for a coarse body exfoliating scrub, Epsom salt can tighten and purify skin when dissolved in a warm, relaxing bath. It does wonders to your mind as it draws toxins from your body. Buy magnesium-rich Epsom salt in large bags and make a lifting, detoxifying salty bath your numero uno beauty treatment before an important date or simply before a night out!

3. Witch hazel

A gorgeous multitasker available from any grocery store will refresh your senses in a traffic jam, will sanitize your hands after any contact with germs, zap zits when applied directly onto skin, and will combat body odors when carried around in a handy small spray bottle, best if blended with a couple of drops of sandal wood and petit grain essential oils.

4. Cocoa

Organic, fair-trade cocoa makes a nerve-soothing drink and a color-reviving mask for dark hair. Add a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of olive oil for a truly nourishing salon hair pack at home.

5. Green tea extract

If you choose just one skin cancer preventative, make it green tea extract. Catechins from green tea are proven to ward off free radicals that cause DNA mutations in skin cells and they work well when applied topically and taken internally. So for ultimate UV protection add purified green tea extract to your body lotion and sip green ice tea any time you plan to sun bathe! Besides, green tea phytochemicals are known to combat acne and ease the misery of eczema.

6. Castile soap

Saponified olive oil makes a versatile face, body, and hair cleanser. Castile soap with its centuries-tested formulation that is low in alkali and based upon antioxidant-rich olive oil is more skin-friendly than any other green foaming cleanser.

7. Lemons

Rub them to correct self-tanning mistakes; squeeze them into your palms to make a super-quick rinse for light hair. Blend some lemon juice and brown sugar for a super-quick and super-cheap pedicure - simply rub your toes and heels and let the lemon juice dissolve pesky dead skin cells.

8. Yeast

Simply mix some with water to make a paste and apply to your face for a lifting, nourishing, purifying dose of all-natural vitamin B6.

9. Brown sugar

Brown fine sugar makes a cheap, effective, and non-irritating body exfoliating base. With sugar, you can rub the scrub into your skin really hard without fear of damaging the outer skin layer. As you rub the sugar into your skin, tiny crystals melt in water or oil so that the pressure gets milder as you continue rubbing. This minimizes the risk of irritation. Besides, sugar has a proven anti-inflammatory action, which makes it safe for use even on body acne and eczema.

10. Extra virgin organic olive oil

This is an ultimate green skin treatment. Use it as massage oil, with an added drop or two of your favourite essential oil. Use it as a cellulite treatment, with added horsetail powder, caffeine or chestnut extract. Use it as a base for body scrub, with added fine brown sugar and a few drops of an essential oil of your choice. Wipe your eye makeup with olive oil, use it as an express manicure/pedicure, and add some shine and definition to your arms and décolleté as you mix the olive oil with some mineral glimmer to create a beautiful body shimmer for the night out. Olive oil has so many gorgeous uses!

Lavender belongs to the mint family of Labiatae. It’s fresh, floral, slightly woodsy scent has abilities to rebalance emotions, calm and harmonize during periods of stress. Lavender is helpful when you have problems sleeping, but beware using too much lavender in order to get to sleep faster: instead of calming, too much lavender has invigorating effect.

You can use lavender oil in a diffuser, in massage oils, and for baths. Lavender has a mild antibacterial action and keeps beauty products fresh for longer. Lavender flower water is an excellent tonic for congested skin with acne.

It is suspected that lavender acts as a mild phytoestrogen. This means that lavender constituents may mimic female hormones estrogens in the body. For this reason we do not recommend using products that are heavily scented with lavender during pregnancy and hormone replacement therapy.

Lavender is a powerful allergen and should not be used in high concentrations if you have allergic to any kinds of mint. That’s why it’s important to use lavender only in skillfully prepared formulations. At Petite Marie Organics products, we use 0.2% concentration of lavender which has not caused any side effects even in sensitive testers.

The best lavender is harvested in Bulgaria and France. We use fine lavender oil from flowers from France wild harvested at high altitudes. I personally prefer certified organic lavender oil from Bulgaria and lavender hydrosol from organic lavender flowers. It has a more fresh, herbal aroma compared to the French lavender which is richer, woodsy, classic lavender.

Now, this is a scary bit of information.

A study by University of Alabama at Birmingham physics professor Thomas Nordlund, Ph.D., suggest that energy transfer by sunscreen ingredients could actually be harming healthy cells.

“Ultraviolet light has a lot of energy, and if that energy does not dissipate quickly as it is absorbed by sunscreen, the energy can enter into healthy cells and do harm.

We looked at whether the energy absorbed by sunscreen ingredients as they absorb ultraviolet light can be transferred into DNA in skins’ cells or is turned into harmless heat.”

Researchers found that with one common sunscreen ingredient the potentially harmful energy created by the ultraviolet light could be transmitted into DNA, where it might do damage.

So for now on I am sticking to my physical sunblocks with titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. They sit on top of the skin and act as tiny mirrors, and they don’t penetrate anywhere living skin cells.

And steer clear of nanoparticles or aluminum, too!

Scientists at South Dakota State University found a substance derived ultimately from Red Sea coral could help treat skin cancer.

Sarcophine-diol, made from a substance called sarcophine that can be isolated from soft coral found in the Red Sea, has chemopreventive effects.

The new study is looking at sarcophine-diol’s possible use in prevention of skin cancer to consider its potential as a tool in therapies to actually treat skin cancer.

“We are finding that sarcophine-diol could be used both for chemoprevention and as a chemotherapeutic agent,” professor Chandradhar Dwivedi said.

Sarcophine-diol has potential to inhibit cell growth of cancers, and also its potential to induce orderly, programmed cell death of skin cancer cells.

What’s very important, sarcophine-diol did not significantly increase the level of the “executioner” proteins in normal cells. Sarcophine-diol had some effect on viability of healthy cells, but the results suggest sarcophine-diol is considerably more toxic to skin tumor cells than to healthy cells.

SDSU researchers found that treating human skin cancer cells with different concentrations of sarcophine-diol for different lengths of time reduced the viability of cancer cells in each case. Related work showed that sarcophine-diol also inhibited the proliferation or uncontrolled growth of cancer cells.

The SDSU study also showed that sarcophine-diol induced apoptosis, or programmed cell death, in cancer cells.

The extent of apoptosis observed in different treatments in the study was correlated to the level of sarcophine-diol used, Dwivedi said.

Dwivedi said that is an important finding because it suggests sarcophine-diol could be used in treatments that specifically target cancer cells without damaging nearby healthy cells.

The SDSU experiment also looked at whether sarcophine-diol treatments could increase what is called DNA fragmentation, considered a biochemical hallmark of apoptosis — an indication that the cell is committed to die, in other words. At lower concentrations, sarcophine-diol didn’t significantly induce DNA fragmentation in skin tumor cells, but higher levels of sarcophine-diol did.

While all this exciting research is underway, there’s absolutely no reason not to cover up with hats, clothes, and mineral sunscreens such as Petite Marie Organics’ SUNSAVER: Holistic Environmental Protection SPF 15+ with Invisible Minerals.

The scientists published their research findings in March 2009 in the academic journal Translational Oncology.

As I am looking for a reliable yet completely natural blend of preservatives to keep my Petite Marie Organics products fresh and pure for longer, I couldn’t help but explore the benefits (and darker sides) of rosemary oil.

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) is a sturdy, hardy perennial herb that for some reason grows abundantly on poor, stony soils. It plays an important role in Mediterranean cuisine, and I add rosemary oil to my homemade pickes to keep them good for longer. Traditionally, since Medieval times, rosemary was used to preserve meat.

Rosemary contains a number of antioxidant phytochemicals, including carnosic acid and rosmarinic acid. Other cosmetically useful compounds include caffeic acid, ursolic acid, betulinic acid, rosmaridiphenol, and rosmanol.

When added to skincare, rosemary oil works as a mild yet effective preservative, an alternative to parabens and formaldehyde-containing preservatives. It is also useful in warding off free radical attacks and lowering skin inflammation, a “fire within” that may show up as acne, dermatitis, and uneven skin tone.

Yet, rosemary oil must be approached with caution. It’s one of those spices that are not recommended during pregnancy or breastfeeding. It may also cause seisures when used in aromatherapy or in large amounts. In skincare, I use no more than 0.2% concentration of rosemary oil. This means that one 60 ml jar of any cream made with rosemary oil as a preservative, not active compound, contains 0.12 ml of this oil. It’s really unlikely to cause any unwanted side effects, but still I’d recommend anyone who is pregnant, breastfeeding, or having an underlying medical conditions speak with their doctors before using any essential oils.

Yes, I know: you don’t need doctor’s permission to use petrochemicals or parabens. They are considered to be safe and OK. Too bad.

Q: I just read two of your books, first on acne and the second The Green Beauty Guide! I got really interested in your Petite Marie skincare, but there is one thing that made me cautious and it’s the colloidal silver as preservative in acne skincare. After seeing those scary photos in Google with those grey faces people had after using colloidal silver orally that I just got scared. Isn’t it possible that colloidal silver just builds up in our body later creating this grey face effect?  

A: I’ve been receiving quite a few questions about the safety of colloidal silver that we use in some of our products. As a substance, colloidal silver acts as an anti-fungal and anti-microbial agent. We do not add colloidal silver to prevent or treat any disease. It was used solely as a mild preservative.

Recently, FDA has banned colloidal silver from use in over-the-counter medicines. Skincare products being non-medicinal, we still want to avoid any confusion, and we decided to remove colloidal silver from our products in favor of potassium sorbate, rosemary extract/essential oil, and other natural preservatives.

Frankly, the situation with colloidal silver looks rather absurd. Several people developed argyria (harmless but rather ugly condition when skin starts looking grayish) after drinking 8 oz and more of pure colloidal silver a day. To achieve the kind of grayness shown on Google photos you need to drink several glasses of pure colloidal silver a day. One woman had ingested 1 L of colloidal silver solution daily for approximately 16 months as a traditional remedy! 

The amount of colloidal silver per jar of SKINSAVER is 0.5% concentration (less than 0.3 mg per 60 ml jar of the cream). This means that with each application you apply approximately 0.005 mg of colloidal silver. This tiny amount will not produce any side effects. 

Silver doesn’t build up in the body when used as recommended. It normally excretes with urine in 4-6 hours.

Here’s a bit of a history on colloidal silver. Chemically speaking, colloidal silver is a water suspension of ionic silver or silver proteins. “The antimicrobial action of silver or silver compounds is proportional to the bioactive silver ion (Ag(+)) released and its availability to interact with bacterial or fungal cell membranes,” wrote Dr. Lansdown of Imperial College Faculty of Medicine in London. “Silver ion is biologically active and readily interacts with proteins, amino acid residues, free anions and receptors on mammalian and eukaryotic cell membranes.”

Silver has a long history as an antibiotic in human health care. Since medieval times silver has been used as a bactericidal agent that helps heal skin abrasions and burns, water purification, wound care, bone prostheses, reconstructive orthopaedic surgery, cardiac devices, catheters and surgical appliances.

Colloidal silver has been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for disinfection purposes in hospitals.  In natural cosmetics, colloidal silver makes a safe and nonirritating preservative with an added anti-inflammatory bonus. I do recommend colloidal silver in my book, The Green Beauty Guide, as an alternative to paraben and formaldehyde  preservatives.

Colloidal silver sprays are commonly used to treat burns and throat infections. Today, colloidal silver is widely used in British hospitals, especially in intensive care where it is used in bandages to treat burns and infected wounds. As a UK-based company, we are happy to support British medical science that permits the use of this non-toxic alternative to common antibiotics.

“Bacterial (and probably fungal) sensitivity to silver is genetically determined and relates to the levels of intracellular silver uptake and its ability to interact and irreversibly denature key enzyme systems. Silver exhibits low toxicity in the human body, and minimal risk is expected due to clinical exposure by inhalation, ingestion, dermal application or through the urological or haematogenous route.”

(Source: Silver in health care: antimicrobial effects and safety in use. Lansdown AB.  Current Problems in Dermatology. 2006;33:17-34.)

Banning colloidal silver just because some people cannot read instructions and go overboard with a substance is rather stupid. Would FDA consider banning water because some people gulp it by gallon and get water poisoning? Why won’t the health authorities ban cigarettes completely because tobacco smoke gives people cancer and tons of other diseases?

The whole situation around colloidal silver makes me think that FDA didn’t want it to threaten the sales of antibiotics and commercial, conventional antibacterial agents.