Ginger Garrett

Today we’re emailing out the holiday edition of our newsletter. If you aren’t signed up to receive it, be sure to do that. I’ll be posting a few of the top stress-relief tips here over the next week.

For two years in a row, I had an emotional meltdown on Christmas Eve from all the stress…of course, for two years in a row, the dog stole the turkey from the table, too, but that’s another story. This year, I’m researching every option to let go of stress and remember how to celebrate Christmas the way I did as a kid.

 So I found this interesting new option for those of you who need some serious stress relief during the Christmas season:Healing Rhythms.™

This is a software system with biofeedback device that plugs into your computer. The program uses biofeedback finger monitors that “measure heart rate variability and [muscle tension, respiration, and skin conductivity] to retrain your mind and body to counteract the negative affects of stress and promote over- all health.”

Think of this as a hybrid between an oasis getaway and a video game. You’ll be surrounded with music and gorgeous scenery as you’re led through relaxing breathing exercises. The graphics are gorgeous, the music is soothing, and although the system offers special teaching sessions from alternative health specialists like Andrew Weil, M.D., Dean Ornish, M.D., and Deepak Chopra, M.D., you can skip those if you prefer and simply do the relaxation exercises. That’s what I do.

Testimonials are powerful for the device, with people who say the device helped them relieve stress and alleviate a range of medical problems. Our testers found the program incredibly relaxing, with a noticeable change in perceived stress levels.

 You can find out more at: www.wilddivine.com 

I love boots, but I can never find boots that fit beautifully. They’re always too tight around the calves and after an hour, I’m ready to ditch them. But finally, one smart husband has figured out a way to produce gorgeous boots that really fit women.

This, from their press release:

“AYLA Boots (www.aylaboots.com), the premier designer of custom knee-high boots, announces the introduction of their 2007 Fall Line—catering to full-size and ultra-slender women’s calves.  Their new brand line custom tailors their fashion boots to meet each unique woman’s needs—no limits in calf or foot size. With eight designer styles to choose from, AYLA Boots puts an end to the boot shopping nightmare by offering the convenience of custom boot shopping online.  

‘For years, my wife complained of boots that would pinch her when she zipped them up or were too loose around her calf,’ said Raj Maher, AYLA founder.  ‘The idea behind AYLA boots was to save my wife, and so women like her around the world, the headache and hassle of lengthy, expensive and unsatisfying in-store visits.  Women should not settle for anything less than the perfect fit,’ he quipped. ”

So many times when we shop for clothes or shoes, something doesn’t fit or look right, and we assume the problem is us. We tell ourselves we’re too fat, or too skinny, or too anything, rather than blame the clothes. I love a manufacturer that shatters the one-size-fits-all myth, and gives women of all sizes a gorgeous product.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This week I’ll be loading the top ten ancient beauty secrets that promote beautiful skin, gorgeous figures and a seriously romantic mood! (How do you think Delilah nabbed Samson, after all?)

Also up this week: a new boot company that wants every woman to feel beautiful, no matter her size. I love companies that encourage us to accept ourselves just as we are. It’s always interesting to me to note that the ancients never described a woman’s beauty according to her weight. Curves are nothing to be ashamed of, then or now.

Thanks for all the emails and encouragement…and even for lurking!

Kim asked, “What kind of sunscreen do you use?”

I get this question so often that I wanted to post a few tips here. First, every dermatologist I’ve interviewed said that wearing sunscreen is critical for preventing premature aging and skin cancer. You should reapply it throughout the day, too: check the label for directions. Jason Natural makes a sunscreen that is paraben-free and fragrance-free.

If you haven’t already, switch to mineral makeup which should provide a natural, built-in sunscreen thanks to the minerals. I wear Jane Iredale, and recently was introduced to two amazing new lines, Alchemists Apprentice and SukiColor. Both Alchemists Apprentice and Jane Iredale will send samples before you pick your color.

I also recommend using a lip balm with an SPF of at least 15. My favorites are from EcoLips and Burt’s Bees.

Shop these sites for the goodies:

http://www.jason-natural.com

www.ecolips.com

www.janeiredale.com

http://www.alchemistsapprentice.com/

http://www.sukisnaturals.com/

And this from another reader:

I was talking to a friend today and she had gone to the doctor for a rash she and one of her kids had.  And guess what?  Her doctor recommended your book!  I thought you would like to know : )

What great news! That made my day! Everyone wants natural alternatives that work–keep me posted whenever you have news or tips to share.

We’e about to add to our downloads a page the world’s greatest cheat sheet for natural beauty Christmas gifts! Whether you’re buying for your best friend, your mom or your self, these natural beauty and wellness products are a fabulous find. And we’ll still be adding more finds to the site as we continue listing the Top Picks from 2007, because it’s always nice to treat yourself after a long day taking care of everyone else’ wish list.

The ancient women cared for their skin with oatmeal and milk, and Cleopatra became legendary for her milk baths. To recreate the secret, try this at home:

Rich Milk Wash

1 cup powdered goat’s milk

1 cup quick-cooking oats

Process the oats in a blender until extremely fine and mix well with the dry milk. Store in an airtight container. To use as a face wash, sprinkle 1-2 tablespoons into your palm and work into a paste with warm water. Scrub the face gently and wash. Can also be used as a body scrub and in the bath as a luxurious soak.

The lactic acids in the milk are a natural source of alpha hydroxy acids that help fight the signs of aging, and the oats soothe and manually exfoliate the skin. Together, these ingredients will leave your skin unbelievably soft and supple.  

Every once in a long while, a book comes along that challenges you to become everything you were created to be.  My pick for the best nonfiction of 2007:

Ruby Slippers: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home, by Jonalyn Grace Fincher

We’re all caught up in the gender wars: what should a woman be, do and say? What is femininity: a liability, or a deeply intuitive expression of the Divine?  Ruby Slippers is beautiful, persuasive, and rich, a feast for any woman who longs to be her truest self.  

I recently caught up with the author, Jonalyn Grace Fincher, and asked her a few questions: In Ruby Slippers, you encourage women to re-examine their definition of femininity. After spending years in research and study (and life!) how do you define it now?  

I used to define it by all the outer trappings, the heels, the styled hair, the hourglass figure.  But when I realized that anyone, even a man can copy this “feminine” look (that’s what drag is all about), I thought, wait a sec, this sort of femininity is really superficial.  Sometimes all the outer fashionable “feminine” things give us a clue about an inner trait we really want to have.   I think being a woman goes much deeper than a look or even a role. Femininity is about the way I am, my beliefs, thoughts, feelings, choices.    If I had to sum up femininity in one word, I’d have to say vulnerable.  I know it’s not exactly a comfy, feel-good word.  But vulnerability is something most women have experienced, both in good and bad ways. Vulnerability is a key ingredient for any kind of intimacy.  Friendship is good when we are vulnerable.  Sex is good when we are vulnerable.  How do we interact with that word? Do we fear it? Do we seek to understand it?  The different ways we wrestle with our vulnerability are apparent all day long, from our clothing, to the way we move, the way we laugh and date and make love and marry. The most feminine women I know are not the ones with French manicures and heels; they are those women who have learned to own their vulnerability.   

As we struggle to reconnect to our femininity, why does this lead us to reconnect with God? If God is always spoken of in the masculine, what can He teach us about the feminine?It’s easy to think of God as male.  In the Bible, there are these places where God seems so uber-masculine. He did, after all, come to earth as the man Jesus.  Because of all this, I had this deep down belief that God perhaps prefers men to women.   I couldn’t have been more wrong. I mean from the first chapter of the first book of the Bible God announced that he would make men and women in his image.  So from the get-go we have a God who used woman (and man) to show the world more about God.  From there we see God use specifically womanly pictures to explain his love. “I’m like a woman nursing you,” he says in Isaiah 49. “I’m like a mother who’s weaned you, but still holding you near” (Ps 131). And my personal favorite is when Jesus explains the new life with a female metaphor. “You must be born again” (John 3).  The “born again” phrase has been so overworked that we forget the source of it. Any birthing process involves not just the baby, but also the messy, straining, grunting, crying work of labor done by a woman.  If we’re born again, who’s doing the birthin?  That’s the picture God chose, an intimate, physically engaged, vulnerable, female experience.  

Ruby Slippers broke open places in my heart I haven’t expressed before. How did writing this book change you, as the author?Writing Ruby Slippers was a huge way God helped me come home to my femininity.   Writing is a curious thing, it calls you to the carpet, to get honest about your real motivations and fears. For instance, I was horrified to find that I was actually prejudiced against most women that I compared and competed for men’s attention more than women’s. I was eager to take someone else’s definition of femininity and slap it onto my own life than I was willing to work out what God thought about me and my femininity.  Writing helped me own these inconsistencies and publicly confess them.  There’s something about confession that breaks old patterns.  God gave me a fresh start to own my femininity, like Dorothy owned her ruby slippers.  I realized that I needed to create new templates of womanhood with him. These freed me to move into a new state, write more widely, speak more frequently with less fear and more boldness.  The best part of writing was the unexpected pleasure of finding so many healthy, unique things in women.  I was thrilled to find that these were also characteristics of God. When I realized that, I was like, WOW!  I couldn’t have foreseen that at the beginning of the project. 

As women embrace femininity, with all the mysterious strength and beauty it brings, we begin to be more aware of our sisters and their needs. What can we do to encourage another woman in her journey to wholeness?(Laughing) Well, that’s what my next book is about.  I’d recommend walking in our sister’s shoes for awhile. Learn to ask questions about her experience of femininity. Usually women are not wholly pleased with their womanhood. If you ask them, “Why are you glad you’re a woman?” you’ll be able to hear their ambivalence and often anger.  Stuff might bubble out, like, “Why am I GLAD??!” We need to give our sisters freedom to name the harmful, unnatural corsets they’ve been wearing, to realize that femininity is often more of a curse than a blessing in their lives.  We need to free them to embrace their own God-given, unique femininity. It might not look like our own, but if we are full of freedom and grace, they will feel released to revisit femininity. Encourage them to level their complaints with God, to ask him what He thinks.     

I have a confession. I fell off the wagon. Wanting something to lighten up a few errant freckles on my face (they are strategically placed, by the way: friends and makeup artists frequently try to wipe away the crumb clinging to my upper lip, and then are embarrassed to discover it’s a freckle!)So I bought a skin lightening cream filled with chemicals, and it destroyed my complexion. Overnight, my skin, which has been babied with natural products for over a year, developed rough, patchy scales and started flaking off.

So when readers wrote in to ask what they could use to lighten stray spots, I told them: Nothing.

But I’m pleased to present a Top Pick for 2007: MyChelle Apple Brightening Serum and Apple Brightening Peel. Women have been raving about these all natural, elegant formulations. With a promise that the products are always free of phthalates, parabens, and other nasty bits, these products are a fantastic alternative to traditional preparations.

 Founded by a woman, in response to women’s demands for natural, healthy beauty products, MyChelle win my vote for one of the best companies of 2007 to support.

You can learn more by visiting www.mychelleusa.com.

 Sign up to receive our newsletter by Friday, November 30, and you’ll be automatically entered to win a free, full size MyChelle product!

American women spend about one hundred billion dollars a year on their appearance. That’s more than the government spends on research to cure AIDS, diabetes, breast cancer and prostate cancer, combined. Yet, only two percent of women would describe themselves as beautiful.

So why are we spending so much money for something we never get? What keeps us on this treadmill of chasing, spending, and never getting? And how can we finally get what we want?

One of the first secrets I talk about in Beauty Secrets of the Bible is the relationship between spirit and beauty. The ancient women did not separate them. Modern women say, “We’re spirits living in a body.” The ancient woman would have thought that was nonsense. We’re spirits, and bodies, and the two cannot be easily distinguished. Whatever we do to the body impacts the spirit. Our spiritual life impacts our outward appearance. Beauty, then, was a spiritual pursuit as well as a physical pursuit.

So what are American women really spending their money on? I believe they are trying to awaken something in their spirits. They want beauty, not for its own sake, but for what it will bring: love, worth, contentment, a sense of belonging, a feeling of acceptance. These are spiritual gifts which cannot be purchased at a retail counter, which is why ninety-eight percent of us spend our money and come home empty-handed.

Next week I’ll post part two, and discuss some of what I learned from the ancients, and how this is setting women free today.

From supermodels to Martha Stewart, bath salts are an elegant staple to every home spa. But did you know a lingering, relaxing bath can do more than soothe your frazzled nerves? And you don’t have to spend like a celebrity to reap the benefits!

According to the Epsom Salt Council, magnesium (the primary ingredient of Epsom Salt) is easily absorbed through the skin, which means a lingering bath can raise magnesium levels in the body. Research has continued to highlight the importance of magnesium to women’s health: benefits include a sense of relaxation, improved adrenal function, optimal levels of serotonin, an improvement in our ability to use insulin, and more. (You’ll find more detailed information from the Council on my download.)

I’ve given you two easy recipes to use Epsom Salts in your bath today, and to make scented salts to give as gifts. And the blessing here is that this wonderful bath product is incredibly inexpensive. So print out our free download and enjoy!