I love best those ‘girlie’ breakfast conversations where everything is laid bare. Free of all the things one does in the mornings to become the person you want to be – a reflection of all those make-up ads which show you women who are unreachable because their pictures have been blown, photo-shopped, with bumps and lumps removed and skin retouched.
Amazingly, this conversation included a stray male. What he was doing in the middle of this conversation is unfathomable, but there he was, quite excited to be included in what he thought was going to be women revealing their innermost secrets – and to him. Normally, he would be expected to smile politely and leave as soon as he could get away without being rude. This guy loved every minute.
Color took center stage.
I thought I understood what part color played in this makeup business, but this breakfast ‘seminar’ changed that understanding completely.
Even though they were staying at a Bettina Network Hedge School, which is notorious for organic everything – no chemicals in the mix – no artificiality in anything – every woman at the table had on makeup. All store bought and kept in a makeup case carried wherever they travelled.
What they wanted was re-enforcement that their makeup – as they applied it – looked natural and they did not look “made-up. For me, that was astounding. Raised in a family where the last thing in the world you wanted to do was apply make-up to your face and wind up looking like Godzilla’s wife full of pasty stuff on top of even more pasty looking stuff and a face where one could not smile without that makeup breaking into lines and cracking, we were very far apart. I don’t think I have worn lipstick more than two or three times in life and I am now quite old. So, there we were with stereotypes, but at two ends of the spectrum, very far apart. As it turns out I was into as much make-up as everyone else at the table, only a different kind and applied at different times.
If you notice these things – as you age, your skin changes. If you have light brown skin your face becomes a rather dull looking white with eyebrows that turn white, no matter their natural color when you were young, and that whitish dull skin does you no good. I was very proud of my light brown skin. I felt I looked healthier than most because of it. I certainly didn’t have that so-called “white” skin which dried out and became very wrinkly as one aged, nor did I have that darker brown skin which sagged from maintaining its natural oils even as one grew older. And here I was, about to reveal that my beautiful light brown skin, with its touch of a pinkish/red/orange color was not entirely natural, no matter how it looked.
When you are young, your face is blotchy with break-outs all over and what you long for is that beautiful even-toned unachievable skin that is advertised in almost every cosmetic ad from the beginning of creation.
The women brought their make-up to the table and we examined it all very closely. Amazingly, even the expensive stuff looked pretty similar to the stuff that came from CVS, Walgreens, and other such places. Even more amazing was the ingredients – we could not pronounce any of them when ingredients were on the labels. We could only conjecture what was in those bottles and jars which did not reveal their ingredients. We didn’t find any ingredients we knew and when we did they were in minuscule amounts.
When these different ingredients were put on your face, we couldn’t detect differences between the stuff that cost a fortune and the stuff that came from the pharmacy stores. Thy all seemed to give the same look. The difference in the make-up on the table was the amount of disposable income different women at the table had to be able to spend on cosmetics. One spent a couple hundred dollars a month and we gasped, in awe.
My ‘cosmetics’ that morning were Grapeseed Oil, AloeVera Gel and Beta Carotene tablets in oil in a capsule – all organic. I had a lot more, but I wasn’t going to reveal all in one morning and I certainly was not going to reveal anything bringing me close to a couple hundred dollars spent in one month. If I spent that kind of money on my face I would be super-thin, because I wouldn’t have money left to spend on food.
The first thing that left the table was the stuff used to take make-up off at night. With all it was supposed to do, my grape seed oil did better. The next thing out were the ‘astringents’. My Aloe Vera Gel was better suited, did not have chemicals or preservatives of any kind, although it did need to be kept in the refrigerator and used quickly. Not only was it a good astringent, but it also tightened into a mask.
The Bettina Beauty treatment for the face is a Bettina Blog written some time long past, but it is still among the Bettina Network Blogs so I won’t go over it here, but it is necessary to do on a two to three times a week basis to keep your face from sagging, crinkling, becoming pasty white and wrinkly and more. This mornings beauty regimen helps, but does need to be supplemented with other organic treatments.
That Bettina Network Beauty regimen makes all the rest possible.
After we put on the Aloe Vera Gel, we had a few minutes conversation about what it does, allowing it to tighten into a mask. We then rinsed it off with the requisite ten splashes of water and moved on to the Beta Carotene tablets.
I clipped one to put on my face after it was rinsed of its Aloe Vera Gel and there were gasps all around. I looked like something out of a cowboy and Indian movie and I was clearly the Indian – very red of skin and oily of face with the Beta Carotene oil going into my hairline – deliberately.
I should say here that my hairline was showing the grey line around my face where the rest of my hair was beautifully colored, but the hairline was growing in and it was a mixed grey and black, but mostly grey. My eyebrows were also a mixed grey and black, giving me a rather older look, so they took received an extra rubbing into them of the Beta Carotene capsule.
The women couldn’t wait to get to their bathrooms to put on their department store makeup to go out for the day. I cleared the dining room and was left with my red face, dirty dishes and the one male person at the table. He helped me with the dishes, but not before he used the beta carotene on his face. Looking at him, I saw just how ridiculous I looked, but he was confident this was going to solve his problem. He wanted instructions for the day on how to handle this, but I had none. I just go about my day. Rinse my face with ten splashed each rinse whenever I use the bathroom for other purposes. So he left declaring he would do the same.
The next morning we all appeared at breakfast. The women without makeup and their makeup on the table, as we agreed to the morning before. Me and the one male with no makeup bottles or jars in front of us because we didn’t have any to put there. And who do you think looked stunning? The two of us did. By then, the red had been absorbed into the skin and the constant rinses after having gone to the bathroom several times helped remove the excess Beta Carotene color. Our skin glowed.
No grey around the face from hair growing out and our eye brows were a beautiful mixed color of dark, medium and lighter brownish red. And you know, the most delicate and dangerous thing you can do when having your hair dyed or dying it yourself, is trying to match your eyebrow color. That dye will put your eyes out if it goes to the wrong place and will probably also fool with your ability to see even if it is only absorbed a bit through the skin – which has to be absorbed through a bit of your eyelid to make the eyebrows look great.
I looked 20 years younger – with a face that looked slightly flushed, like younger skin looks when you are excited and the rest a beautiful even color. The whitish grey look was gone and in its place a bronze look which almost approximated a day in the sun. I looked very sun-tanned and almost as if I was blushing. He looked the same.
Our one male person had been concerned about his eyebrows and mustache turning grey, but didn’t know what to do about it – and this was a middle to upper level business executive who felt he needed to keep a fairly young appearance to keep his job.
The women were flabbergasted because the only thing we did that morning was to rinse our faces with the ten splashes of warm water. I followed my splashes of warm water with ten splashes of cold water just to look a bit more flushed – only that didn’t last. The Beta Carotene created color lasts about two to three days. On some people it will last a week through many splashed of water. No soap, however. We never use soap, ever, at all.
The women left their make-up on the table and used the beta-carotene capsules on their faces. I don’t know how they faced the day because it takes, generally, putting it on overnight and letting it absorb with a morning rinse before starting out for the day – or – putting it on in the morning and leaving it on all day with several splashes of water rinses throughout the day for the color to become ideal. It will then last two or three days before you need to reapply the beta carotene, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. They thought the results were good enough to make due and get together a new lifestyle routine to accommodate this new make-up regimen. I would like to have followed their red faces around with a camera as they went about their day, but the dirty dishes were calling.
Whatever they did, the next morning they were all beautiful and ecstatic. One mentioned the difference in cost between what she used and one capsule of beta-carotene, but I had to remind her that the cost added up to more than that because she did need to do constant upkeep with products like organic Aloe Vera gel, all of the oils we talked about and the Bettina Beauty regimen with Vitamin C, D, etc. That didn’t matter to her. Those oils last a couple months and so does the rest of what is needed so she was off to the organic store to supply her make-up case with everything new.
We all wondered how she would get through airport security. They are accustomed to women’s make-up cases, but not those with oils and organic ingredients which are normally thought of as food. We imagined her being put into detention for days while airport security checked and re-checked her ‘new’ makeup for some new kind of terrorist plot.
_____________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
_____________________________________________
Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to:
bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, breakfast table talk, health, health and beauty, Hedge Schools
