Introduction to natural beauty

Natural beauty is a rare quality. It is a reflection of inward health and cannot be substituted by any amount of beauty aids. If you are not in perfect good health, both physically and mentally, your skin and hair will look dull and lifeless. Similarly, if you are not scrupulously clean no cream or lotion, however exclusive and expensive, will help improve your appearance. A healthy body and a happy state of mind are thus the basic elements of true beauty.

The chief attributes of natural beauty are clear skin, bright eyes, glossy hair and sparkling teeth as well as attractive features. While it is not possible to change one’s features, a lot can be done for attaining other basic requirements of natural beauty.

One may spend huge amount of money in an attempt to improve one’s appearance with expensive cosmetics and beauty parlor treatments. But this will at best hide any imperfections and blemishes; but it can never give those basic attributes of natural beauty.

Women have always aspired for attractive and youthful looks and searched for ways and means for their attainment. In ancient times, famous beauties attributed the longevity of their youthful skin tone to the use of herbal formulas. Then came the synthetic age with high pressure advertising, and the wonderful beautifying properties of natural substances were forgotten.

Women thought that chemical laboratories could solve all their beauty problems, that too in the shortest times.

Now the trend is the other way around. Recent years have seen a tremendous upsurge in the popularity of beauty products based on natural ingredients. This has lead to a revival of home made cosmetics. Natural foods, fruits, vegetable, seeds, nuts, pulses and other natural substances are been increasingly used in the preparation of natural cosmetics. They not only enhanced the beauty of the skin and hair but also process curative properties.

Many are for this trend towards natural cosmetics. Every modern woman, like her ancient counterpart, wants lovely skin and glossy hair. But in her search for beauty, she has learnt that many commercial products that promise a glowing complexion and a healthy head of hair contain hormones, antibiotics, or other irritants that do more harm than good. Cosmetic reactions many appear as dryness, skin cracking, swelling, itchiness or as a rash.

Another reason for the glowing interest in home preparations of natural beauty aids is the money-saving angle. Compared to the huge amounts women have been spending each year for commercial beauty products, natural substances cost very little. Women are also discovering that natural ingredients are often more effective.

The studies conducted by research scholars in the field of natural substances in recent years, have enabled us to use ingredients like almond, lemon, peach, turmeric, honey, rose, sandalwood and henna in preparations for the skin and hair. The products which form part of Indian heritage, like reetha, amla, brahmi, shikakai, and others are also being used in the formulation of corrective cosmetics to treat many problems affecting the beauty of the skin and hair. Some of the natural substances even have preservative properties. This has helped to bottle natural cosmetics for longer periods, thereby eliminating the use of chemical preservatives.

The field of natural cosmetics is very vast. Knowledge about the properties and values of each of these will help us to incorporate them in the form of specific cosmetic preparations. The natural foods and herbs commonly used as beauty aids have been discussed at appropriate topics in this blog. In this blog we are also discussed about “Natural foods and herbs” as beauty aids. The most important factor about natural ingredients is that they do not have adverse after reactions like those of chemical substances. As for the beneficial properties, they cannot be duplicated even in the most advanced laboratories.