All-natural 3-ingredient face regime

Before I say ANYTHING about skin care, I must caveat this post by saying that everyone has a different body with different physiological needs based on a variety of factors – genes, lifestyle, geographic location, age, sex, etc. So what works for me may not work for you.

That said, over the years and many a college late-night, I learned the hard (though temporarily fun) way that there are 3 essential golden rules of skin care that hold true for most all Homo sapiens:

1. Hydrate yourself. Water is your best friend and single best ingredient for clear glowing skin. This also means avoiding alcohol, caffeine, and anything that can dehydrate you. I know, sounds like torture.
2. Sleep. Is for the weak – and for the sensible, and the beautiful.
3. Avoid the sun. Or at least wear a hat, lather up on sunscreen and don’t spend all day err day lying out on the beach…

As a society, we’re addicted to quick fixes. But if you can consciously start to integrate these guidelines – you don’t have to follow them to a T – your glowing epidermis is pretty much set for life. Beyond that, it doesn’t really matter what gunk you decide to put on your face. But my semi-scientific background and gut instinct tells me that the fewer the artificial ingredients, and fewer words on the bottle label, the better. In fact, best if the stuff doesn’t even come packaged – but straight from a plant source.

For those of us city folk, sourcing our own jojoba oil might be a bit tough. So here is the natural skin regime I have stood by for my 95% zit-free (there is no such thing as 100% unless you’re a baby or an alien), clear complexion. You can find all 3 ingredients in most health food stories, if not your local pharmacy.

Step 1: Honey Tea Tree Oil Cleanser

This cleanser is crazy simple to make, and smells good to boot. Honey gently removes impurities without stripping the skin of natural oils, so it’s ideal for sensitive skin. Both honey and tea tree oil are naturally antibacterial, so they effectively reduce breakouts.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Mix approximately 10 drops of pure tea tree oil into 100 ml of raw honey (scale up or down based on how much honey you have).
2. Stir or “shake” the bottle for a few minutes so that the TTO mixes in evenly with honey.
3. Apply a nickel-sized dollop to your face, spread, and wash off.

Step 2: Jojoba Oil moisturizer

Like honey and TTO, you can use jojoba oil for a million things, but I like to use it as a facial moisturizer after cleansing. It’s naturally hydrating yet soaks in super quick so it doesn’t stay oily on your skin.

I use Dessert Essence, but you can use any all-natural jojoba oil with no contaminants, residue, or other oils.

Now go out and show off that glowing epidermis!

Book Review: How to Think about Exercise

Biking by the bay. Throwback to SF trip with the Ham circa 2012.

Confession: Ever since I moved back to the West Coast, where wintertime cycling is a relatively sane activity (though not quite socialized to the extent it can be), I’ve become a bit of a weekend Tabata junkie. Though I have not gone so far as to hail the corporate gym, I might be found doing Step or kick-boxing at the local rec centre a couple times a week, and braving the rather non-existent suburban bike lanes.

To inaugurate my contributions to this food/lifestyle/health blog, I thought I’d start off with some mind-body philosophizing. I just finished reading How to Think about Exercising by Damon Young, part of the new The School of Life series that “offers radical ways to help us raid the treasure and trove of human knowledge”. As an aside, I’ve quickly become a fan of TSOL’s critical approach to “self-help”. In a sense, they’re bringing sexy back to nerdy without the hipster eyewear.

The book starts off by unpacking some of the assumptions around the mind vs. body binary in Western thinking. Notably, Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” philosophy is a grounding statement that privileges the mental over the physical human identity. This “substance dualism” creates a divide between the thinking things and material things in life: mind at the top, flesh at the bottom. Even Plato described the body as “heavy, oppressive, earthly, and visible”, opposed to the light, liberating soul.

The argument that Young makes is that this dualism does not actually exist – we are bodies. We can’t blame the mind for the body being weak, just as much as we can’t blame the body for corrupting the mind.

Subsequently, the book’s chapters move through various ways of thinking about bodily exercise – reverie as illustrated by Darwin’s daily walks, pride through running hill sprints, humility through rock-climbing and gymnastics, oneness through meditative practice…

I won’t spoil the book for you, but here are some of my top quotes and takeaways (in order of appearance):

1. “Reverie… is an achievement, not a gift. Undertaken without distraction, these ordinary exercises can actually be exceptional: daily holidays from false certainty and anesthesia.”

2. “Pride is sanctioned pleasure in something worthwhile, which we associate with ourselves.”

3. The idea of play and sacrifice share a stage when we enter the world of sport, essentially an escape to a parallel universe where your only goal may be as simple as moving a ball into a net. “We are always playing in some way, but the secondary world of sport or exercise  provides the love without imprisonment [like other aspects of life]. It asks for sacrifices of blood and ego, but not of liberty”.

4. Our appreciation for aesthetics, according to John Dewey, comes from a place of both intellect and spirit – our whole body. We are physical beings, and we act upon our environments as they act upon us. They interchange between our bodies and barbells, breath and movement creates a rhythm that is satisfying in itself. Moreover, in exercising we are introducing new order: by burning calories and then fat, tearing muscle to help it grow stronger. The flipside of this wholesome appreciation is, of course, narcissism, which actually stems from a place of low self-esteem. The point is to appreciate the experience in itself, and the aesthetics of our bodies in whatever size, shape, or form they become with the experience.

5. “The glorious thing about mountains is that they will endure no lies”. I love this quote – it gets straight to the point. People can talk big, but when you’re literally faced with a mountain or scaling a plastic studded rock wall, you can’t argue with biophysics. Building humility is a good habit.

6. “Exercise at its most virtuous is an enterprise of honesty: accepting the more destructive urges, and socializing them for the greater good”. I’m sure Daniel Quinn would have something interesting to say about the need for exercise as being a symptom of the over-civilization of modern societies, but at least in the short- and medium-term I’m going to agree with Young on this re: martial arts.

7. Consistency builds character. Young likes to use the example of Haruki Murakami, who used to be a jazz bar owner, serving spirits at odd hours and smoking a hundred cigarettes a day. Then he decided to write novels – and to keep himself both mentally and physically ship-shape, he runs. Every day. “Now he is a bestselling novelist, who runs marathons. (And goes to bed early.)”

I’ll just end by saying that one of my favourite quotes about healthy living is this: “nothing feels as good as feeling good”. So ultimately, I do what nourishes my body and mind, and you do you.

Happy reading — and moving!!