Ever since I had my first experience at Pure + Simple I’ve been kind of obsessed with learning more about their philosophy and the products. I found out one of the co-founders Kristen Ma wrote a book also called “Beauty: Pure + Simple A Holistic Guide To Natural Beauty” and I was so happy when I was contacted and asked to do a book review.
Kristen has been an esthetician for over 10 years and in that time she saw two sides of the beauty industry. The first, the one I hope most of us strive for: to be healthy, have glowing skin and radiate our inner beauty on the outside. The other side, is the “ugly side of beauty”, the one that has nothing to do with health but one that puts an unrealistic picture of what is beautiful in our heads. Larger breasts, tanned or whiter skin, bigger eyes…etc. Kristen and her mother Jean Eng decided to start Pure + Simple, a chain of holistic spas with the goal to promote a more healthy and natural way to attain beauty.
Kristen even became an Ayurvedic practitioner and she uses the philosophies of Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine to look at beauty from an alternative and non conventional point of view.
I love that in this book Kristen promotes going natural with your beauty regime but she is also not judgemental and she does not use “fear tactics” to promote the natural lifestyle. She even talks about some of the positive results of photo facials and the reality of face lifts without criticising those who choose these methods.
I found this book really refreshing. I’m not sure about you but I’ve been bombarded with products that are “natural” and free of this and that and I’ve even been to one presentation where I was basically told that everything I touched was going to give me cancer. Reading this book was unlike my previous negative experiences. I learned so much about what my skin was telling me and how to treat it with kindness.
I always thought that I had oily skin and so I would try and dry out my acne and mattify as much as possible. After reading this book I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t have oily skin, but I have “Oily Dehydrated” skin. As well, my acne issues may have been caused by dehydration and not too much oil as I had always thought!
There is another chapter of the book that I found really interesting. What our bodies are telling us and how many of our beauty woes are signs of something out of balance with a specific organ.
Kristen also has a great blog Holistic Vanity which I always learn new things from.
If you have a chance to pick up this book I HIGHLY recommend it. It’s actually an excellent time to purchase it from Pure + Simple as it is on sale for $17.95 (regular $29.95) for the month of December!
If you live in Canada or the US here is your chance to win a copy! The generous people at Pure + Simple are giving away one copy of Kristen’s book to a lucky reader. AND because I love this book so much I picked up another copy so there will be two winners!
Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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