Our latest Brooklyn venture has been to build a custom workshop where we herb craft our skincare products in Windsor Terrace. We have opted to source healthy farm edibles in order to help our clients heal themselves from the inside out. Here’s a little bit from our Master Aesthetician | Herbalist Emma Graves about why what happens internally affects what we see externally.
All types of healthy skin resemble each other, but unhealthy skin is unhealthy in its own way.
The Anna Karenina principle describes a situation a deficiency in any one of a number of factors dooms it to failure. Consequently, a successful endeavor is one where all of the basic needs are being met, and deficiencies are avoided. The name derives from Leo Tolstoy’s book Anna Karenina, which begins: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
This idea may begin to explain why everyone’s path is unique in terms of regaining healthy, happy skin as there are many pieces that need to come together. Looking at it from this direction gives us a firm foundation in identifying which of the skin’s actual NEEDS are not being met by looking at what is going wrong.
The way Brooklyn Herborium’s approach is different is the reason it why works: We don’t push against the tide, we support what the body is trying to do in order to heal itself while providing the basic needs the skin has to have met in order to function well. By going with the body (traveling the path of least resistance) results are easier to obtain, more pleasant to achieve, and can result in healing and supporting the entire being instead of just the skin.
What IS Healthy Skin Anyway?
Though it is difficult to define what makes up healthy skin, we usually make assumptions at a glance on how healthy the skin is. Healthy skin just seems glowy and fresh and…healthy. It just functions well. Much of the time, however, products or drugs are being used in order to make the skin appear to be healthy when it isn’t. In this case, the skin seems fine–or even “under control”, but never quite healthy.
Healthy skin performs its seven basic functions reasonably well most of the time. If the skin is functioning at 80%, 80% of the time, that’s functioning reasonably well. Incredibly Good Skin functions over 90%, 90% of the time. The great thing is, once we get the momentum rolling, unhealthy skin starts functioning better and better until it hits a tipping point–and then it’s only a matter of continuing the process over time until it becomes incredibly good 90+% of the time.
What our products do: Regular use of our products in the manner that we recommend is meant to provide the skin with all of the basic needs that it can obtain topically, avoiding dysfunction due to oil/water deficiencies, cellular communication problems, or degradation of the defensive line (both the structural integrity and the biome.)
What our products do not do: Our products are not drugs, nor are they herbs pretending to be drugs. They are not meant to control the body, suppress its natural functions, or destroy anything.
This is why it is so very important to use diet and lifestyle to get as many of the basic needs met as possible. When the body’s basic needs are not met, the body will not function properly. It takes an inclusive and diverse diet to get all of those needs met.
Before trying the next “take something out” diet, devote a month to the Diet for Incredibly Good Skin and see what happens when you start to get all of your basic needs fulfilled. See how much better you feel when you get three ample meals a day without snacking. Make your vitamins and minerals more bio-available by cooking your vegetables in a stable fat (like Ancient Organics Grass-fed Ghee!) with a touch of acid (perhaps the lovely Honey Apple Cider Vinegar from Westwind Orchard that we carry). Enjoy your food more and get more out of your meals.
Stop by our new location in Windsor Terrace where we have filled our shelves (and a refrigerator/freezer) with local, delicious offerings while keeping in mind what the body needs in order to function well and keep you holistically beautiful from the inside. Our knowledgeable staff would be happy to help or book an appointment with one of our holistic skin care specialists specialists if you have unique concerns you would like to address.
by Emma Graves
