Spring Ahead! Why It’s Time to Freshen Up Your Skin-Care Regime

For my mother and grandmother and generations of Romanian women before them, the first day of spring has always signaled an important transition in their natural skin-care regimes. According to our Old World beauty traditions, the season of planting and cultivation is also the perfect time to concentrate on nurturing and renewing our skin.

Spring Training for Your Skin

As members of a culture strongly in tune with the rhythms of natural world, Romanian women believe in shifting the focus of their skin routine in synchrony with the changing seasons. After our wintertime exfoliation program, has sloughed off the accumulation of dead cells on the skin’s surface, we turn or attention to the delicate new skin cells that have emerged. Like the tender young seedlings in our spring garden these new skin cells require a strength-building diet to achieve and maintain robust health.

The Care and Feeding of Skin Cells

According to recent scientific research, a diet rich in superfoods, such as blueberries, nuts and seeds, green and white teas, avocados, and peppers, can help prevent premature aging and restore healthy cellular functioning in all the tissues and organs of the body, including our skin.

Superfoods That Perfect Form and Supercharge Function

The same amino acids, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytonutrients that we consume to boost skin cell health from within can also beautify and strengthen our skin from the outside. Skin care products made from certified organic extracts and natural plant-derived ingredients are a safe, effective solution to the damage that environmental stresses and the passage of time inflict on our complexions. In my upcoming posts, I’ll discuss some the specific nutrients that will help you not only shape up your skin for spring but also keep it in the pink all year-round and at every age.

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image: m_bartosch / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What's So Special About Silk Amino Acids?

An increasing number of skin and hair care products now prominently display silk amino acids on their list of active ingredients. But do silk amino acids actually add anything more to the mix than a highly appealing name?

Let’s start by clarifying the role of amino acids in skin care. As the building blocks of the proteins in our skin, amino acids are essential for maintaining healthy cell function and renewal, as well as the skin’s structure and natural moisturizing factors. Amino acids also have antioxidant properties that help repair free radical damage.

Amino acids are added to anti-aging skin treatments to help replenish the collagen and elastin fibers that give our skin its strength, texture, and resiliency. But not all amino acids are created equal. Those produced synthetically have fewer of the L-form amino acids that constitute living tissues. Our bodies use these organic molecules to synthesize collagen, elastin, and other essential proteins in our skin. L-form amino acids also have a natural tendency to form strong bonds with water molecules, so they can dramatically boost the skin’s moisture level as well. 

The all-natural amino acids used in my LaVie Organique™Serum, Face Cream, Day Cream, and Eye Cream are derived from the cocoons of silkworms. These L-form and other essential amino acids have a lower molecular weight than most synthetic proteins, so they’re better able to penetrate the skin surface and deliver the moisture and nutrients required for optimum cell growth in the underlying dermis. Like all the ingredients in my Lavie Organique product line, the silk amino acids in my serums and creams are produced by a cruelty-free process that causes no harm to the silkworm or moth.

Silkworm cocoons have been prized as the source of the ultimate luxury fabric, as well as a medicine for treating a variety of ailments, since the days of Imperial China. Today, the legendary properties of silk have been incorporated into powerful anti-aging treatments that blend traditional wisdom with modern science. From the luscious texture they add to face creams to the visible benefits they bring to your skin, silk amino acids truly deliver on the promise we hear in their name.