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The Truth About Beauty
How Kat James Transformed Herself from the Inside Out...and How You Can Too!, from Healthy Living
(Part One of a Series)
There is a certain vitality about Kat James that is impossible to ignore. Once you've seen the before and after pictures of her, you are drawn towards a quest that she is more than happy to lead you on. How did she do it? Not only does she look great; she also clearly feels great. Her skin is radiant; she looks years younger, and has dropped several dress sizes. As a makeup expert, Kat has beautified the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker, Martha Stewart, Kate Hudson and Bjork, as well as supermodels and real women alike for her guest appearances on shows like "Today," "Inside Edition," and "Geraldo," as well as on the Discovery Channel and Fox News, in addition to her top magazine spreads and runway work. Kat's beauty advice has been widely quoted in magazines such as Vogue, Bazaar, Elle, Marie Claire, Redbook, Seventeen, Oprah's magazine, O, and most of the other major fashion and teen magazines. This is an interview like no other. Brutally honest and willing to share her most personal experiences, Kat takes us on a journey that—with your cooperation and commitment—can lead to your own inner and outer transformation.
Healthy Living (HL)—Tell us a bit about yourself. How did you become interested in health and beauty, from both within and without?
Kat James (KJ)—I've been a mainstream beauty expert for years, but a personal health crisis that came out of an eating disorder finally opened my mind to a new world of ways to truly transform myself and eventually eliminated my eating disorder and transformed me beyond recognition. I still do consulting in the beauty world, but with more of a holistic approach. I am also a health journalist (writing a monthly column for Better Nutrition), but am dedicated to informing groups of women and men in land- and sea-based programs, and now through my book, The Truth About Beauty: Transform Your Looks and Your Life from the Inside Out (Beyond Words Publishing, 2003).
(HL)—Tell us about your own transformation.
(KJ)—Basically, at thirteen, I developed an awareness of feeling that I was gaining weight, and started restricting my calories. By high school, I was bingeing and purging and taking amphetamines. By college, I stopped purging, but started starving for periods of time in between bingeing, and that is another form of bulimia. I dropped out of studying musical theatre, as I was unable to rationalize a career on the stage with such a weight issue, and decided to go to beauty school.
I went to New York to be a makeup artist, and during the third year in New York, I developed a health problem. I started to have heart palpitations, blurry vision, digestive problems, and had steadily worsening eczema and rashes. At one point, I decided to see a doctor, because I was having very unusual digestive problems that involved passing undigested material. Upon seeing the doctor, I was sent to a liver specialist who found that I had elevated liver enzymes, and deduced that it was autoimmune hepatitis. My liver enzymes were in the 600 range-normal being around 35-and he was telling me that I should get a biopsy and that, either way, I should get onto immunosuppressants... a notorious drug known to cause depression (I was already incredibly depressed) and immune problems, and to really not work much of the time.
Suddenly, unlike every other day of my life since I was thirteen leading up to then, I was not obsessed with the scale, or going on another diet. The prospect of a life sentence on immunosuppressants was the final turning point that triggered this change in the way I thought about my body image.
As I describe in my book, I wandered into a health food store and started to pick up books, looking in indexes under "liver" and repeatedly came across the same herb—milk thistle—which I began to take religiously, even though I didn't believe it would do any good. When I went back to the doctor after about a month-and-a-half, my liver enzymes had gone down to around the 200 range. He was impressed, but he said it wasn't enough, and he still recommended the immunosuppressants. So I asked for another chance to get down into the normal range, and he agreed.
I returned to the same health food store, and tried to find the name of someone who knew about the problems I was dealing with, and I found an M.D. who was also an N.D., which happened to be Dr. Michael B. Schachter (who later became an author and somewhat prominent in the health industry, and whom I interviewed for The Truth About Beauty). After testing me for some nutrient levels, and determining I was deficient in some of them—zinc, among others—he told me to add alpha-lipoic acid and flaxseed oil to my regimen, and to increase my dosage of milk thistle. After another month, I returned to the doctor, and the liver enzyme test was normal; it was in the 35 range. I couldn't believe it.
(HL)—You started to feel an improvement once you dealt with your internal problems. Then you started working on the outside of your body, in terms of which cosmetics and personal care products you used. How did you first learn about problems with ingredients like fragrance and preservatives?
(KJ)—I actually started to read about what was in cosmetic products quite a bit after I got to know about what I was putting in my body. Interestingly, after I didn't need the lotions, I started to become more body sensitive, meaning that once my skin stopped screaming from my eczema, it started to communicate with me more of its reactions to the basic products I still was using. So, now I was finally reacting to a lot of things I had been applying to my skin but not feeling. I was becoming sensitized. I was finally able to feel what the cosmetics were doing to my body.
I remember the first time I ever sat down on the floor in the health food store (because I was going to read for so long); I gathered up and surrounded myself with so many products and started reading what was in them. At that time—and I don't want to exclude every other line by saying this—one of the companies that I was drawn to because of its purity was Aubrey Organics. I was looking for things without fragrance, looking for things with natural preservatives, and I must state that Aubrey Organics was one of the products that I adopted as a favorite.
(HL)—Can you recommend particular companies who are able to help people who are sensitive to fragrances/preservatives?
(KJ)—Most companies you'll find at health food stores forgo the use of synthetic fragrance, though fewer use natural preservatives. It is important to note that we can even be sensitive to essential oils, so once we start using natural products, we have to figure out what our remaining sensitivities are. Now if you're still dealing in highly synthetic personal care products, you have such a combination of potential irritants that it's hard to narrow things down enough to begin to filter out what's causing your problems. For sensitive skin, I like Aubrey's green tea products. Terressentials also offers a line that's free of essential oils for ultra-sensitive skin. Aubrey has reconfigured their skin care products and now has a line specifically for sensitive skin, which I think is great. I have found that most women today have sensitive skin because they have fallen victim to what I call "skin regimen overkill," and bought into extreme regimens promoted on TV and by their dermatologists which strip the skin of its basic barrier and antibacterial defenses.
(HL)—Why do you like Aubrey's Green Tea line?
(KJ)—It offers a much milder cleanser that is great for acne-prone skin, purifying it without stripping the skin of its natural oils. In addition, the line has Matcha green tea, which is anti-inflammatory, and more potent than most other green teas. Green tea is a superstar ingredient, both internally and externally. You'll see it boasted on the labels of every kind of synthetic product next year, but you are not going to get the purity or potency you will see in products like Aubrey's.
(HL)—You mentioned earlier your Total Transformation Cruise® in the Caribbean during February 2004, sponsored by—among others—Aubrey Organics. Can you tell us what this journey—literally, physically and spiritually—entails?
(KJ)—The details for the cruise are available online at www.totaltransformation.com and at www.informedbeauty.com; it begins on February 1st and is a real-time, dawn-to-dusk experience of all my principles—the low glycemic, gourmet menu; the self-affirming Oscar-caliber makeover with natural products, performed by stylists who work on celebrities (who incidentally are my colleagues in the New York fashion world); herbal nightcaps; freshly made skin products, a detoxification elixir; and strategic snacks, like sugar-free Belgian chocolate.
When most people take a vacation to get away, they wind up coming back feeling somewhat taxed and they haven't thought about themselves or had any time for solitude... this is a chance to really look at what you're doing with your body and to scrutinize all of your lifestyle choices and also live decadently at the same time. I call it the seven purest days of your life.
The Best in Green Tea Personal Care - Green Tea Exposed
Producing only small batches of their products, Aubrey Organics uses an especially potent form of certified organic green tea in its cosmetics and personal care products called Matcha, which is taken from the youngest whole leaves. Science News reports, "Matcha green tea packs the antioxidants. A green tea used in Japanese tea ceremonies contains much more of a beneficial antioxidant than ordinary green tea."
Aubrey's Ultimate Moist Green Tea/Rosemary-Mint hand and body lotion is a moisturizer that contains not only Matcha green tea to protect skin against premature aging but also organic evening primrose oil, shea butter and Rosa Mosqueta rose hip oil.
Aubrey's Green Tea Sunblock for Children SPF 25 is one of our favorites for both children and anyone with sensitive skin with a combination of Matcha green tea, Canadian willowherb and shea butter.
Aubrey's Green Tea & Ginkgo Moisturizer is fragrance-free and free of formaldehyde-releasing preservatives.
A light daytime moisturizer, it protects from sun, pollution and the premature skin aging and restores softness and elasticity. It helps prevent free radical damage with matcha green tea, Ginkgo biloba and vitamin E; moisturizes with organic jojoba oil and organic Rosa Mosqueta; offers moderate sun protection (SPF-10); and can be worn daily under or without makeup.
Back to Aubrey Organics
(Resources: the above information was taken from the www.aubrey-organics.com website)
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