Jessica Turner Ashleigh Sharman discovers that beauty really does begin in the belly.
Headlining the Medi Spa and Wellness Stage at this year’s Salon Melbourne, nutrition and health counsellor Simone Kopkas made one thing clear: we can no longer ignore the gut’s important and often bumpy relationship with the skin in bringing about the best results for clients.
With science now able to back such claims, it’s a trend also highlighted within mounting evidence on the Global Wellness Institute’s site WellnessEvidence.com.
Delivering talks on kicking sugar to reverse ageing, finding your happy weight, and the link between food, mood and stress – ‘ageing our bodies on the inside and out’ – it was the correlation of healthy digestion and beautiful skin that had Simone’s listeners considering what they eaten not only that morning, but a lifetime before.
“Great skin health is not just about a healthy diet, it’s about healthy digestion so we can get the most nutrients out of what we put into our body,” Simone says. “This supports the immune system, hormone metabolisation, the processing toxins and helps to regulate melatonin and serotonin.”
To this end, she recommends a balanced diet of protein, fat, complex carbohydrates and water in addition to probiotic, fermented foods.
Through the process of fermentation we are able to digest a larger percentage of nutrients – a way of increasing the biological value of ingredients – so more reach the skin, hair and nails after servicing our vital organs.
Carla Oates , founder of The Beauty Chef, agrees that fermentation is no longer such a ‘far out’ concept but rather it is hitting mainstream consciousness. By doing so, it announces that the wellness revolution is well and truly here.
“The first step to healthy, radiant skin is balancing your digestive health,” Carla says. “A good skincare routine follows.” Her range of organic supplements blending selected fruits, vegetables, berries, roots, grasses, flowers, spices and algae with flora culture – The Beauty Chef’s natural bio-fermentation process.
Balancing the gut and feeding the skin from within, so that it can repair and rejuvenate, is at the core of The Beauty Chef range, and is an ethos now adopted by spas and salons including Sydney’s Face Plus Medispa and Sage Beauty, who carry Carla’s Body, Cleanse and Glow inner beauty powders. These will soon be joined by The Beauty Chef’s new Inner Beauty Boost.
“Our philosophy at Sage is based on the knowledge and practice of nurturing and healing from our inner selves on a physical, spiritual and emotional level,” says Junia Kerr, owner of Sage Beauty.
“The more we do this, the more our exterior, skin, vitality, health, attitude and our experience of our lives, improves. It has a nice symmetry with The Beauty Chef philosophy and helps us to bring about clients’ awareness of how important gut health and the liver is when it comes to improved skin condition and physical health.”
Health and beauty are inextricably linked but Carla reminds us that inner beauty is more than just looking your best – it’s about feeling your best, too.
Looking after the skin from the inside may give clients their ‘glow’ but it’s the benefits of greater health and wellbeing that will see them set for the future.
www.healthwholistically.com; www.thebeautychef.com; www.sagebeauty.com.au
