Oil Be Seeing You

Whenever I covet something—say, a pretty frock—if it’s green, I know I’m in luck. It will sit for months on the selling floor until I swoop in and scoop it up when it’s on sale, just before it’s shipped to a discount outlet in Ohio. Ask any savvy retailer and she’ll tell you: Green does not sell. Black makes people look serious. Red makes them look powerful. White makes them look holier-than-thou. But green mostly makes people look like they’ve just returned from a cruise that hit rough waters. To add insult to injury, those of us who can wear green (redheads like me) carry a recessive gene that the Oxford Hair Foundation predicts will make gingers extinct by 2060. So, I guess, if you’re the betting sort, short the chartreuse jodhpurs but go long in natural skin care.
 
Today, green means mega-money in the cosmetics industry. When I was growing up, natural skin-care products had names like Druid Lavender Facial Cleanser, Moon Fairy Honeysuckle Body Lotion and Mother Earth Pearl Face Cream. The women who bought them seemed to be partial to long flowery skirts, beaded jewellery and armpit hair. These products may have been free of sulphates, parabens, triclosan, petroleum by-products and loads of other, mostly unpronounceable ingredients that are on the list of “baddies,” but, really, despite their good intentions, they could not hold their own next to a slick lipstick from Chanel. But, my, how times have changed. Visit your neighbourhood health food shoppe (why is it always spelled like that?) and you’ll find your Druid is sidled up to Stella McCartney’s CARE organic beauty line and Jo Wood’s delicious oil elixirs.
 
The billion-dollar question is this: Are “green” beauty products better for us than the chemically infused kind? There is always a new study that shows that certain ingredients cause hormonal changes that can lead to cancer. But, by now, I think most of us have cottoned on to the notion that practically everything is capable of giving us cancer—whether it’s food, water or wall-to-wall carpeting. Or shampoo. So, what’s a girl to do?
 
One argument in favour of organic products is, unlike recently developed chemical compounds, natural ingredients are familiar to our body’s cells. For example, chances are, your ancestors used some kind of fruit or nut oils in their diet and on their skin and your cells have inherited the ability to recognize and utilize them in a healthful way. But it is unlikely that your great-great-grandmother encountered parabens or triclosan. These are relatively new ingredients that are unfamiliar to our cells. While these products may not be harmful in themselves, a pileup of them in our system—along with all the highly processed food additives and environmental pollutants we are exposed to everyday—can cause a kind of cellular stress response, in the same way that our brain starts to fry when we have to learn a lot of new things in a short period of time. Chronic cellular stress and confusion can create imbalance and disease.
 
Having worked in the beauty industry for two decades, I can tell you that a bevy of anti-aging skin-care products—loaded up with the latest scientific advancements promising dramatic results—are foisted on the market every month. And women, driven by a fear of “cronedom,” spend billions of dollars annually on these creams and serums. But, honestly, ask yourselves: Do we really look younger? Some of the savviest and most stylish women I know actually have the simplest skin-care regimens. They swear by such health-food staples as rosehip oil or argan oil as their all-purpose face, body and hair moisturizers.
 
These days, my criteria for choosing a beauty product are: natural (if not organic), as few ingredients as possible (to minimize the need for preservatives), oil-based (my skin is usually dry) and nice-smelling. At the moment, one of my favourites is Olio Lusso. It is a face oil (also comes in a body oil) composed of 11 essential oils including jasmine, evening primrose, neroli and apricot. Just wash your face and apply a few drops. Created by New York-based Linda Rodin, who was a fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar and a freelance fashion stylist, Olio Lusso is her response to the excessive array of products and claims by beauty companies. Only available fairly recently, Rodin’s oil is already a hit with the usual suspects: models, actresses and socialites. (The fact that it has been endorsed by a leading New York dermatologist doesn’t hurt either.) It smells divine, makes my skin glow and a bottle seems to last forever. Happy days.