Skin Care is Self Care
Skin Care is Self Care
As an esthetician for over thirty years, I decided to look at the side of skin care that makes us beautiful on the inside as well as on the outside. Yes, it is important to use clean, healthy products, but it is also important to look at self care. Self care is what we do to stay healthy, sane and happy. It can involve rituals such as cleansing our faces, putting on masks and applying lovely scented lotions and potions. But it doesn’t stop there…
As a Doctor of Naturopathy, I learned that we are surrounded by wonderful things the earth has provided us for maintaining our health. Fresh foods, nutrients and herbs are very important, but so is our mental health.
I am constantly amazed at what we humans do on a daily basis that either harms our self esteem and moods, or what we do to enhance our moods and create happiness. This blog is designed to look at the ways we can be more optimistic, bring greater satisfaction, and experience more joyful moments into our daily living…moving us towards bliss and peace.
I decided to write this blog to share my insights from being in the health and beauty industry for for so long. Right now, I am in graduate school for my Master’s in psychology. This actually fits in with the whole skin care and self care way of thinking. By adding my thoughts and ideas about how we as humans learn to care for ourselves, and ways to comfort ourselves, I feel I can be of help.
How I Got Here~
I grew up in Southern California with a Hippie mother who was very into organic before it was cool. My grandmother was so into yoga that she even had a few classes in her house over forty years ago. As a child, I loved all of the fresh fruits and vegetables, but I have to admit that my school lunches were pretty boring. I wanted Wonder bread, not the healthy wheat bread I got that tasted like cardboard!
My mother was a makeup artist before she became a chiropractor, so I had lots of fun as a child, playing with her special box of makeup. We did oatmeal masks and moisturizers as well as lipsticks and blush. It was so much fun that at twenty- years old I decided to become a makeup artist and esthetician. I loved it because I always saw the natural beauty in women. As far as skin care went, I loved giving the traditional European facial in my own skin care business.
However, I was not always happy with ingredients, so I became obsessed with reading them. I could practically tell each client what products were causing their problems. I later went on to help formulate a few creams for companies I represented. I loved being a rep for products, as it gave me time outside of the salons. I was one of the first to use mineral makeup and had the opportunity to work for Jane Iredale. She was definitely a pioneer in the natural beauty industry.
I was there when oxygen tanks became all the craze, as well as microdermabrasion machines. Since I sold all of those machines to estheticians, I got some really great insights into what goes on in salons, and how the industry as a whole, liked change and new toys.
Finding organic products twenty or thirty years ago was extremely hard. Today, it is so wonderful to find all of the small, niche companies that have gone into their labs and studios to create such fine products that actually are healthy and healing.
Becoming a Naturopath gave me the the opportunity to use Chinese herbs for healing, as well as learning so much about what nature has provided for our health. I also became a Bodytalk practitioner, and that is one of my great passions!
Bodytalk is an incredible healing modality for the body, mind and spirit. It is taught and used in over 34 different countries and can also be used on animals. I have clients around the world, as I can do distance sessions over the phone, or over Skype. I have a passion for animals, so doing Bodytalk on them is extremely rewarding. The miraculous healings I have witnessed are stunning. My own two dogs have been receiving Bodytalk for all of their lives, and they rarely have any health problems that don’t resolve on their own. The body has an incredible ability to heal itself, and that is the core belief of Bodytalk.
As far as the name I used for my blog, Ethical Bliss Beauty…I was in the middle of a positive psychology class and I was learning all about happiness and what makes us happy. The term ethical was used by Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, where he wrote about eudaimonia and how that type of happiness is the real happiness that is sustained. It is all about living well and doing well. Eudaimonic happiness is different from hedonic happiness, which is more fleeting and materialistic than Eudaimonic.
Ethical is a term also used in the skin care industry to describe a company and its process for getting sustainable ingredients, so it all fits together.
I hope I can change a few lives, and answer some questions about ingredients and skin care through my blog.
In bliss,
Lauren