Food for Beauty
Wednesday 6 August 2008 by Dr Maytel
Cleopatra is famously said to have bathed in milk
Had she been alive today, and lived in Japan, she could quite possibly have also bathed in any number of other beverages followed by a mojito, peppermint or coffee body scrub and a corona beer facial
Cassandra Evanas details disturbing spa treatments and more here
I'm sure this is just the beginning of the iceberg in terms of the topic of food and beauty. But I'm interested in exploring this topic more. For instance Chinese have all sorts of beliefs in terms of diet and beauty, I've heard that turtle soup is believed to be good for the skin.
At a younger age, I rubbed egg whites and avocado and oatmeal and sugar on my skin, after having read do it yourself home beauty tips. It may indeed work, but it no longer interests me as a beauty therapy. If it does you have a look here
Point is people have long believed in the beautifying properties of some foods. For example, this website notes that carrots and tomatoes are good for your skin. Apparently Mormon's are quite into the whole food spa beauty thing. Food I use regularly on my body
- coconut oil
- almond oil
- sesame oil
- seaweed extracts
- kaffir lime shampoo
But obviously food can only achieve so much. I doubt tomatos and carrots can save the truly hideous, neither will being rubbed down in chocolate by a small asian spa attendant or having a coffee enema thank you very much. I read that Jane Birkin's daughter rinses her hair in coke before a photo shoot to give it body. But she does have nice hair to begin with.
I do find it amusing however that an increasing amount of food items seem to be turning up on spa menus. What is up with this, many of them seem to include highly indulgent foods that the skinny women having those spa treatments wouldn't dare eat themselves - "I'd never eat a pound of chocolate but I'll have you rub some of on my ass thanks" . Is it a form of vicarious food absorption?
what food do you use for beauty and why
Had she been alive today, and lived in Japan, she could quite possibly have also bathed in any number of other beverages followed by a mojito, peppermint or coffee body scrub and a corona beer facial
Cassandra Evanas details disturbing spa treatments and more here
I'm sure this is just the beginning of the iceberg in terms of the topic of food and beauty. But I'm interested in exploring this topic more. For instance Chinese have all sorts of beliefs in terms of diet and beauty, I've heard that turtle soup is believed to be good for the skin.
At a younger age, I rubbed egg whites and avocado and oatmeal and sugar on my skin, after having read do it yourself home beauty tips. It may indeed work, but it no longer interests me as a beauty therapy. If it does you have a look here
Point is people have long believed in the beautifying properties of some foods. For example, this website notes that carrots and tomatoes are good for your skin. Apparently Mormon's are quite into the whole food spa beauty thing. Food I use regularly on my body
- coconut oil
- almond oil
- sesame oil
- seaweed extracts
- kaffir lime shampoo
But obviously food can only achieve so much. I doubt tomatos and carrots can save the truly hideous, neither will being rubbed down in chocolate by a small asian spa attendant or having a coffee enema thank you very much. I read that Jane Birkin's daughter rinses her hair in coke before a photo shoot to give it body. But she does have nice hair to begin with.
I do find it amusing however that an increasing amount of food items seem to be turning up on spa menus. What is up with this, many of them seem to include highly indulgent foods that the skinny women having those spa treatments wouldn't dare eat themselves - "I'd never eat a pound of chocolate but I'll have you rub some of on my ass thanks" . Is it a form of vicarious food absorption?
what food do you use for beauty and why
hah! yes.
washing your hair in coke! that is so random!
i bet carla bruni does it too.
what do you do with sesame oil?
I once had a personal trainer (umm when I was at Uni my priorities for spending were a bit twisted)
and he recommended me to put sesame oil inside my nose to prevent against colds. ... that is only obliquely connected to beauty but i guess you can't work out if you're sick.!
Any way I tried it for a while, doubt it had any effect, though it was an interesting sensation with pungent lubricated nostrils!!
a girl who was going to contribute to this blog a while back named Maylynn, told me she subscribes to a certain food-beauty theorist who says eggplants are really bad for your skin. the idea of this made me quite grumpy. i think she said sweet potatoes were bad too.
generally i am open to anything being good for me (or beautifying), but i will only accept the notion of something being bad for me very selectively.
why doesn't she wash her hair in some other soft drink?
why not Canada Dry Ginger Ale?
I guess there are some therapeutic properties in edible substance, but also a big reason the food have been used as beauty portion may be because they were cheaper and more readily available than the magic portion which price includes R&D, marketing and advertising.
While I have weakness to things like oatmeal & honey scrub and rice bran soap, I'd rather buy a nicely finished product than scrubbing myself with leftover oatmeal.
How about food as remedy?
It's been a fad among the nature-loving mothers in Japan to layer cabbage leaves on the forehead when a kid is running a fever. The cabbage leaves take off the fever as they wilt.
They actually still do in the macrobiotic community. Once I had my butt stung by a wasp during a macrobiotic "conference", and one of the advices I got was to wrap cabbage leaves to cool it down... so I'd walk into the kitchen and asked for a head of cabbage, and the macrobiotic chefs know what I am talking about. I'm sure the cabbage was organic too.
BTW, once I went to a hot spring in Izu, and they had thalassotherapy too. I gave it a try, and first they let me soak in a tub of kelpy, seasweedy hot water. I felt like I was bathing in a kelp broth which I could almost add miso to finish a big bowl of miso soup...
hah! a big bowl of miso, I love that.
speaking of hot springs and spas, it's nice when they float mandarins in the water.
here in Germany at the big public baths complexes, they pour fruit scented water on the sauna stones, then a man waves a towel around to disperse the warm air, and then you are supposed to rub oil and salt on the back of the person you came with (or a stranger).
My advice: never attend a German sauna by yourself.
Another beauty through food recollection: I remember an article on those creepy Kano Sisters, that said the silicone-enhanced Kyoko studied kanpo (Chinese medicine) for 15 years, and thinks the best way to get your vitamins is through food. The article claimed she makes a “healing hot pot” dish once a month.
I wonder what goes in her healing hotpot. Konnyaku to absorb toxic substances? kelp for over-functioning thyroid? Maitake, shiitake, and reishi mushrooms for liver/respiratory systems?
Jellyfish for silicone? According to the Daily Star, Paris Hilton likes to eat jellyfish at a place called Mr Chow on the reg'.
Health & beauty wishes seem to be intertwined in food...
longevity. Did you ever see the episode of CSI where there was this lady with an ageing disease and the only way she could stay looking young was to kill joggers and drink their blood in smoothies?
I remember once I was working at this event in Cape Town, which required working very long hours with not much sleep for a month. It was an interesting physical experiment because I could feel instant effects on my stamina depending on what I ate or didn't eat.
for instance if i got a little bit of sun in the morning that seemed to help. and I drank a lot of rooibos tea which also seemed to help (minerals).
I also noticed that on the days when I ate salad twice in one day there was an instant visible effect, my eyes would look less dead. It was like when you're examining fish at the market, and some of their eyes do not indicate freshness.
Sadly I have not managed to keep up a long-term commitment to salad. I keep making salad all these promises and we still get together a few times a week.
Hock gets annoyed with me because where ever we go I always order a salad, even if I don't really intend to eat it. Just having it there some how makes me feel better about myself....he asks whether I feel I am adding to the table decoration...I think its because when I was growing up my mother always put a salad on the table, no matter what we were eating. I find having something green on the table comforting
I eat jelly fish, but have never noticed any startling effects on my "hotness" as Paris would say. It's best served chilled with sesame oil