Welcome to Better Organic Choice (BOC), a column focusing on makeup, skincare and beauty tips, tricks and product advice for the holistically hip. We cover the best in green glam, behind the scenes and in your face (not your traditional crunchy granola here). We are here to help you explore all the beauty treatments you adore! Do you often worry if your beauty products are dangerous to your health? Are you dizzy from analyzing ingredients? Guiding you is my pleasure.
We interrupt our normal blog post to bring you this message. Products alone will not make you beautiful. I repeat: products alone will NOT make you beautiful! With the official arrival of summer this week, I’m going to steer away from my normal bi-weekly product advice to say this: Get out, get sun (with sun protection). Eat and drink on the beach with friends, go to amusement parks and be a child. Eat the abundance of fresh organic fruits and vegetables available this time of year. These activities will make you a natural beauty. After all of this, use your bronzer and any other personal care products to enhance your naturally beautiful glow from life. The best natural beauty is obtained by living life to the fullest externally, consuming non toxic and organic foods internally, and enhancing your vanity with natural personal care products that the body recognizes as food. This is the true fountain of youth (or having a youth like spirit at any age)!
Lately I’ve been looking at women and lifestyles in relation to how we age. I’m starting to appreciate women in their 40s and beyond who have life experience and families and still maintain an ageless spirit. Organic lifestyles (foods, etc.) are much harder to maintain on a family budget that always seems to tap out (timewise, energywise and financially). So to all of my 20 to 30 year old friends that do yoga everyday, eat organic and have no kids: No disrespect, but we are NOT in the same league. I’m learning that I want different role models. If not, I may as well look at the same beauty standards as the conventional beauty world, with models 14 years old pretending to be 20-something. Who can compete? Who wants to? I want to be 60+ dancing in clubs, traveling around the world and volunteering at the soup kitchen (and let’s not forget knowing the makeup trends).
I do have some major role models (both personal and celebrity). A perfect example of a celebrity role model is renowned fashion icon Betsey Johnson, who just turned 70 this year (I have no idea about her diet, but her spirit is beyond organic). I’m loving the fact that she still does a cartwheel and a split after every New York Fashion Week Show. Here are some accolades about the fabulous Ms. Johnson: “She’s built a huge brand based on youthfulness and rebellion,” said Sophia Amoruso, who designs the vintage (and punk) inflected Nasty Gal line. “Her clothes were never ‘too cool for you.’ They just said that it’s fun to be a girl.”
“She’s always been either the youngest old fashion designer in the world, or the oldest young one,” Fern Mallis said. In 1999, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, then helmed by Ms. Mallis, gave Ms. Johnson its Timeless Talent award.
My personal role model is my 83-year old aunt, Rosemary Brown, who hangs out with my 16 year old daughter, has traveled to Paris and Disneyworld in the last five years, and loves to listen to Coldplay and Train. She doesn’t necessarily eat organic, but her spirit radiates with natural beauty (and she can dance like nobody’s business!).
So to all of my fabulous ladies of any age, enjoy the summer, enjoy the sun, but most of all enjoy the beauty of your spirit this season. Because let’s face it: ageless skin does not always equal an ageless spirit.
Karim Orange is a nationally known natural cosmetics expert, celebrity personal care products artist and two-time Emmy Award nominee whose work graces the faces of countless stars in television, music, movies and the theater. If you have specific questions about nontoxic beauty products and routines that you would like to see answered in this column, please email me at karim@betterorganicchoice.com. If you would like me to green your beauty routine please visit www.betterorganicchoice.com
Tags: beauty, fashion, natural beauty, organic
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