Thursday 31 July 2008

Skin food!

What do you get if you cross Gordon Ramsey with skin cream? No! Not f****** skin cream! In fact, what all of this is really about is me buying myself to a very swanky Bamix hand whisk as endorsed by Mr. Ramsey, for use in making my skin creams. Not, I imagine, what he envisaged using it for. LOL

As well as enjoying the smooth, fluffy results of the new whisk it also got me to pondering just how much making skin creams is a form of cooking - a way of nourishing myself and others. The skin is the largest organ of our body and, at a physical level at least, it forms a boundary line, where a two-way interaction takes place between us and the world around us. In this sense, it is all about our relationship with life. Through it we reach out and touch the world around us - so many things we touch in the course of a day! Other people, a plant, a steering wheel, an apple, a rubbish bag... And also through it, we can be touched by the world. Just writing this reminds me to pay attention to the sense of touch!


And of course, as we interact with life the skin undergoes wear and tear and may suffer from disease just like the rest of our being does at all levels. And so it needs nourishment and care. What I've been learning this year is just how appalling some of the ingredients are in mainstream cosmetic products, and of course that is what we are feeding our skin, ourselves, when we use them. And on the other hand, the feeling of both making and using a wonderful product with beautiful oils and extracts, and the 'best of the crop' from the available chemicals to preserve and stabilise the product.

But as with the food we eat, I don't believe in becoming obsessed about what we eat or put on our skins. What I mean by this is that we are so bombarded by diets and regimes that tell us what we should and shouldn't eat, the exercise we must do, and the evils all around us! In my experience this only breeds a lack of discrimination and self-reliance in us, which takes us ever further from our own sense of what we truly need, making us ever more dependent on the big cosmetic companies to tell us what we need. A sad truth indeed, and one visible in all walks of life. But I suppose that the trend towards people seeking out a more conscientious alternative is a step in the right direction.

So next time I use my skin cream I shall think of it as an experience in fine dining and see how well nourished I feel at the end. Knowing me though, I'll end up wanting pudding as well... ;-)


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