When your skin is soft, smooth and radiantly glowing you look and feel more confident, healthy and beautiful. Most of us have tried every cleanser, toner and moisturiser under the sun but the newest face wash, an expensive sunscreen, or latest anti-ageing cream can’t work its full potential on your pores if the insides of your belly are not being taken care of just as lovingly. The secret to creating beautiful skin starts by firstly going within.
The Beauty Chef is an Australian company created by Carla Oates, a naturalist who has been researching, writing and teaching about organic beauty and healthy living for over a decade and as a result has created the world’s first living skincare range. Using foods from her kitchen and herbs grown in her garden, Carla has developed a range of both inner and outer beauty products based on naturally fermented whole-foods and probiotics that work to heal and rebalance your digestive system and replace beneficial flora to nourish your skin from the inside out.
The Beauty Chef uses certified organic, biodynamic, local and fair trade ingredients wherever possible and is suitable for all skin types. What makes this skin care range so effective is the natural, bio-fermentation technique used during the early stages of creating this magical product. This unique fermentation process naturally activates extra nutrients in the already beautiful organic ingredients to make them more available for the body and skin to absorb. The Beauty Chef has combined both nature with science to offer the best possible skin nourishing product possible.
The Health Emporium is currently stocking both Inner and Outer beauty product ranges in the cosmetic/beauty section. The Inner Beauty products come in both powder and liquid form and can be added to any juice, smoothie or breakfast bowl in the morning to get your tastebuds tingling, your gut health enhanced, and your skin radiantly glowing:
Powders – The 3 powders (Glow Inner Beauty Powder, Body Inner Beauty Powder and Cleanse Inner Beauty Powder) have been created using fermented fruits, vegetables and spices and are designed to be used as a protein powder, greens powder, super food powder and pre and probiotic all rolled into one. They are available in three delicious flavours – berry, vanilla and chocolate which will compliment almost any beverage
Liquids – The organic, bio-fermented, enzyme-packed probiotic elixirs (Antioxidant Inner Beauty Boost, Hydration Inner Beauty Boost and Collagen Inner Beauty Boost) are designed to give you a daily shot of nutritional support that help to protect your skin and body from free-radical damage.
You will also find The Beauty Chef’s heavenly outer beauty range at The Health Emporium which can be applied externally on your face as the most delicious daily moisturiser and night creams. These little bottles of love have also been created using fermented whole-food extracts, probiotics and plant oils and can be incorporated into any skin care routine. Weather your out in the sunshine, inside an office with limited air flow or during your sleep cycle at night, The Beauty Chef products will be profoundly repairing and rejuvenating your skin cells without you even realising:
Beauty Fix Balm – helps to heal damaged skin, smooths lines and wrinkles, soothes inflammation, hydrates and re-texturises the skin, restores lipid balance, and protects the skin from environmental assault.
Dream Repair Cellular Serum – Contains more than 15 powerful ingredients, offering a high level of antioxidant cellular repair as well as boosting collagen production, for a smoother, healthier and more radiant complexion.
Probiotic Skin Refiner – This revolutionary new skincare product is formulated using a nourishing combination of bio-fermented Certified Organic grains, seeds, grasses, fruits, algae, vegetables and herbs. It is an excellent exfoliant, skin hydrator and collagen booster all in one.
The very talented, inspiring woman – Carla Oates who is the beauty chef herself answered some of our questions below:
1. Where did the inspiration behind your company come from?
When I became a beauty editor some 15 years ago, I was concerned with the amount of toxic chemicals in skincare products and I felt very passionate about helping to change the paradigm in the beauty industry. I knew that beauty began in the belly from my own experience; your gut is where everything happens: where we make nutrients, where we metabolise hormones, where we neutralise pathogens, where we make detoxifying enzymes. All of these things if not working properly or in balance, can affect the skin profoundly. Also, the skin, hair and nails are the last places to get nutrients that go to more vital organs first, so if you are not getting enough nutrients, they literally starve.
I established The Beauty Chef in 2009 and had been researching the benefits of plants and natural biological processes such as lacto-fermentation for around 10 years and was writing in the area of natural health and beauty. During this time I made all my own skincare from scratch from plants and organic foods and was giving them to friends and family to use. I created quite a demand and that demand grew to friends of friends. It seemed a natural progression to create a brand. One thing that really stood out, too, was the difference in people’s skin when they ate my lacto-fermented vegetables. People were addicted to my fermented veggies and kefir coconut water – hence why The Beauty Chef started with my lacto-fermented inner beauty superfood powder, Glow.
2. What makes your products different from other similar products currently on the market?
1. We use nutrient dense Certified Organic whole foods as opposed to synthetic vitamins. Studies have shown that Synthetic beta-carotene may cause problems to your health (linked to certain forms of cancer), whereas beta carotene found in foods shows to have a protective affect against cancer.
2. Our products are bio-fermented using our flora culture bio-fermentation process, which involves introducing a mother culture made up of a variety of lactobacillus strains and beneficial yeasts into the ingredients to ferment for a period of 6-8 weeks. The bacteria break down the ingredients, making the nutrients more available for the body to use (when we eat food, we digest between 12-25%, when its fermented, you digest up to 85%) as well as helping to neutralise any anti-nutrients like phytic acid found in grains and legumes.
3. What is your favourite Beauty Chef product?
Would have to be Beauty Fix Balm, my favourite all-purpose balm, I use this on my lips, hands, elbows, knees – even on my face if there are any particularly dry patches. The balm also contains my favourite fermented ingredient, fermented coconut water, which is rich in amino acids, electrolytes, vitamins and minerals.
4. Is it beneficial to take more than one Inner Beauty product at the same time/can you have too much?
Our powders and boosts are designed to work together to give optimal results. The powders give a broad spectrum range of probiotics while the boosts give a more concentrated, but higher dose of beneficial bacteria (minimum 6 billion probiotics per serve). We recommend no more than 4 serves a day of any combination of Beauty Chef inner beauty.
5. What does The Beauty Chef have install for the future?
We are currently working on some new outer beauty products, which is exciting. We are working on launching them early next year.
The Beauty Chef really has discovered and created the epitome of inner beauty through fermented foods working harmoniously together with natural skincare products to assist us in achieving smooth, radiantly glowing skin. Whether you’re applying it to your body or face, there is no doubt that fermented ingredients work wonders on your skin and help to boost your health from the inside out. A simple scoop of any Beauty Chef product added to your breakfast in the morning can help give your face a brighter sparkle, boost your confidence a little higher and give you a reason to smile a bit bigger. The secret to creating beautiful skin starts by firstly going within.
Written by Prue Rustean
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