Beauty and the Beast: A Tale of “Mud-Luscious” Skin Care

If you’ve seen the incredible film Pan’s Labyrinth—in which a young girl visits a gothic underworld teeming with grotesque mud-covered creatures—then you have some idea of what women in my native Romania look like in the throes of their favorite beauty ritual. Every summer as a child I’d see them on the shores of the Black Sea —these dark, gooey “monsters” caked with glistening mud and seaweed. My eyes would pop—especially after they’d shed their “Swamp Thing” skin beneath the waves and bobbed up looking like the mermaids in my fairytale books.

From Monsters to Mermaids

The “magic” in Black Sea mud comes from its high concentration of organic matter and mineral salts. In addition to the essential minerals such magnesium, potassium, bromine, zinc, copper, and calcium that also enrich the highly restorative salts of the Dead Sea, Romania’s volcanic mud contains the antioxidant vitamin B₁₂—a vital player in the formation of red blood cells and our circulatory health.

Famed since ancient times, these therapeutic muds and sea salts remain under investigation by today’s scientists. But evidence from international dermatologic studies confirming their antibacterial properties and positive effects on roughness and inflammation suggest that Cleopatra and the Queen of Sheba were definitely on to something.

Mud Packs and Beyond…

I highly recommend incorporating the nutrients found in traditional Romanian mud baths into your skin care regime. Luckily, their benefits are now available in more convenient forms. Thanks to hydrating seaweed masks and organic serums and other products that contain marine botanicals and Dead Sea salts, we don’t have to spend our beach time looking like the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms to refresh and rejuvenate our skin!  

The European Difference

Today’s growing trend toward on-the-go day spa services says a lot about the current American approach to beauty. Exposed to a continuous media hype about lunchtime face lifts, instant makeovers, and overnight results, people here have become conditioned to believe that faster is always better. While an express manicure or 10-minute waxing certainly comes in handy in a pinch, some things—like anti-aging skin care—just can’t be rushed.  

In Europe, where the pace of life is slower, skin care is considered a lifetime discipline. This mindset is reflected in the European spa experience as well as in the time and effort European women dedicate to maintaining a beautiful, youthful-looking complexion.

A Time-Honored Tradition

My education as an aesthetician in Romania was grounded in the traditions of my country’s renowned health resorts. Travelers from all over Europe have been flocking to Romania’s health spas to bathe in its fabled hot springs and mineral-rich black sea mud, breathe fresh mountain air, and relax and restore themselves to optimal health since ancient times.

Over the centuries, as the custom of “taking the waters” became increasingly popular among Europe’s leisure classes, the spa experience continued to evolve. As the lavish hotels and resorts built to cater to wealthy patrons began integrating emerging medical technologies, new wellness philosophies, and elegant cultural and social activities into their treatment routines, the spa experience came to be regarded as the ultimate holistic cure: a combination of a highly personalized rehabilitation program, spiritual retreat, and luxury vacation.

Relax, Refresh, Restore

This tradition of providing a restorative experience for the body, mind, and soul lives on in today’s luxurious European day spas. Their serene and elegant interiors, like the customized organic skin care and complementary health and fitness services they offer, recall the glory days of Old World health spas. 

In 1993, three years after coming to the U.S., I opened Lavinia Borcau Skin Care to provide my new clients with an authentic European day spa experience. Since then I’ve remained dedicated to educating clients about the holistic approach to wellness that I learned in my native country and to helping them integrate European-style skin-care regimes into their busy lifestyles. 

Like my menu of spa services, the all-natural products in my complete Lavie Organique ™skin-care system are designed to nourish and pamper the skin, refresh the spirit, and delight the senses. As I see it, our skin is precious gift. Throughout our lives, it serves as an exquisitely sensitive interface between our inner being and the world around us. Surely, this essential part of ourselves deserves more than the potentially risky quick-and-dirty skin-care remedies that continue to flood the market. In return for all it does for you, why not give your skin what it needs to stay healthy and beautiful?  The gift of time. 

Butter Up Irritated Winter Skin

As we head into the coldest months of the year, your skin care regimen should focus squarely on keeping surface and underlying skin cells hydrated and nourished. To counteract the dryness and irritation caused by harsh weather and low humidity, I recommend using super-rich moisturizers and emollients whose structure and function mimic those of human skin.

One of the best of best organic oils for protecting and healing the skin in extreme weather is shea butter. Derived from the seed of the West African shea tree (Butyrospermum parkii), this nutrient-packed fat has been valued throughout this region for centuries as a food-oil, cosmetic, and medicine.

Because its natural lubricants closely resemble the sebum produced by the body’s oil glands, shea butter is a safer, more effective alternative to parabens and other petroleum derivatives. The potent mix of essential fatty acids, antioxidants, and healing agents in this plant-derived emollient not only softens surface roughness but also penetrates the skin, boosting circulation in the underlying capillaries and stimulating collagen renewal. In addition to repairing free radical damage, the antioxidant vitamins A and E shea butter act as natural anti-inflammatories and anti-bacterials, soothing itchiness and irritation. When you add the presence of a natural sunscreen, cinnamic acid, to shea butter’s benefits, it’s easy to see why an increasing number of today’s finest anti-aging creams feature this remarkable natural ingredient.

The Fair Trade raw shea butter in my LaVie Organique™ Day Cream, Face Cream, and Eye Cream is 100 percent free of synthetic chemicals and preservatives and produced with environmentally sustainable methods—so it’s as kind to the Earth as it is to your skin.