KEFIR AND YOUR BEAUTY

Beauty Secrets

The latest discovery in the skin care industry is Alpha Hydroxy Acid (AHA). These fruit acids are found as a citric acid in citrus fruit, tartaric acid in grapes, malic acid in apples, and –you guessed it- in kefir, alpha hydroxy acid is in the form of lactic acid.

Fruit acids naturally harmonize with the slight acidity of our skin and hair. Lactaid acid creams, by dissolving the lipids that hold old skin cells together, help to remove dead skin particles so that the new skin can emerge into new radiance. 

This is particularly true if such a cream is used on a regular basis. Other miracles of alpha hydroxy can reportedly perform include reducing the appearance of wrinkles and scar tissue, and fading aging spots and freckles (pigmentations from sun exposure).

Given all these great skin care effects, it’s hardly surprising that AHA’s are so very expensive. Just visit the cosmetics counter of any large department store and you will see what I mean. But now you have AHA as close as your fridge! 

Kefir contains all the good AHA without all the negative artificial colorants; dyes, synthetic perfumes, detergents or other strange ingredients that cause people to have allergic reactions to commercial skin care products. If you have particularly sensitive skin, you may wish to carry out a skin patch test with kefir cream.

Put on a dab on an area of skin and leave on for twelve hours. If no reaction occurs, it is safe for you to use.  Here are the basic recipes for making kefir skin care products:

1. Cleanser- Place 2 tsp. of dried elder flower, or 1 elder flower tea bag, in a cup of boiling water and steep for five minutes. Strain. Add 2 ½ tbsp. of liquid honey and allow the mixture to cool to room temperature. Add kefir to the cooled mixture and whip for several minutes until a smooth cream forms. To use, apply generously over face and neck and clean off with damp cotton swab. Suits all skin types.
2. Facial Scrub- Mix 3 tbsp ground almonds with 1/3 cup of kefir. Apply and leave on for ¼ hour. Gently wash off with warm water. This is excellent for exfoliating face and body. Suitable for sensitive skin.
3. Facial Mask- Take ½ cup uncooked oatmeal, ¾ cup of kefir and 2tbsp. Warm liquid honey. Mix kefrir and oatmeal and refrigerate for ten hours. Strain, keeping the liquid and discarding the oatmeal. Add the honey and mix well. Apply the mask and leave on for twenty minutes. Rinse well and apply a moisturizer to the face. This is a great mask for oily skin.
4. Moisturizer- Add three flower heads of marigold to one cup of boiling water. Allow cooling, then removing flower heads. Combine marigold liquid with 2 tsp. Kefir, 2 tsp. apricot oil, ½ tsp. almond oil and 2 tbsp. thick cream and mix well. Rub into skin and until well absorbed. This makes a great day or night lotion for balancing the skin’s acid mantle.
5. Hand cream- Mix 1 tbsp. almond oil and 1 cup of kefir and massage into hands at bedtime. Wear cotton gloves to protect linen. Wash off in the morning. This is a great once a week treat.
6. Kefir Bath- Mix 2 tbsp. melted butter with 2 tbsp. olive oil and let sit for hour. Mix in 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar, 2 tbsp. witch hazel, juice from 3 apricots (use blender) and ½ cup of kefir. Stir Well. Add 2 beaten eggs and 2/3 cups of milk. This is enough for 6 baths as only a cupful is needed for each bath. You can keep this mix in a sealed bottle in the fridge.
7. Kefir Hair Conditioner- Beat 1 egg yolk. Add ½ cup of kefir. Mix in 2 tsp. grated lemon rind and ½ tsp. kelp powder. Massage this mixture into the hair and scalp and leave on for 30 minutes. Rinse and shampoo normally, but add a little bit of lemon juice to the rinse water.  (50-52)

Kefir Rediscovered! The Nutritional benefits of an Ancient Healing Food
Klaus Kaufmann  

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Kefir Rediscovered! The Nutritional benefits of an Ancient Healing Food

Klaus Kaufmann

Kefir & Beauty

It's quite interesting to look back in history and to read that the beautiful queen of Egypt bathed in fermented milk and that her skin was so beautiful that we still talk about it. We learn from history for the present and the future. If rich people can afford something that others cannot then it's not much help for someone who has only a little pocket money.

With fermented milk every one can afford a beauty treatment for the skin which is much, much cheaper than a commercial skin product, where advertising and packaging is the highest part of the price you pay. The product itself costs, in most cases, only a very small percentage of the retail price. 

Kefir puts the best skin care in everyone's hands.

The following selection of recipes give a guidance how to make your own skin care products with Kefir. These recipes will be updated once a week.

Bath Treat

Kefir relaxing and moisturising bath lotion.
1 cup Kefir.
1 tablespoon epsom salts.
2 tablespoons wheat germ oil.
5 drops lavender essential oils.
Mix all ingredients. Add to bath and relax for fifteen minutes

Honeyed cleansing cream

16 Tablespoons Kefir
2 1/2 tablespoons elderflower infusion.
2 1/2 tablespoons honey; melted.

Place 2 teaspoons of dried elderflower (or one elderflower tea bag) in one cup of boiling water; allow to brew for 5 minutes. Strain to remove the flowers as necessary.

Add honey and allow mixture to cool to room temperature. Add the Kefir and beat for several minutes. Do not add the Kefir to the hot infusion or the mixture will curdle. Store refrigerated.

To use apply generously over the face and neck and clean off with damp cotton. This cleanser suits all types of skin.

Kefir make-up remover.

Suitable for all types of skin.
2 tablespoons Kefir.
1 teaspoon almond oil.

Mix ingredients together shake vigorously.
Dip cotton pads into lotion and cleanse the skin.

Kefir & Banana Facial.
For dry skin.

30 ml (2 tablespoons) Kefir.
15 ml (1 tablespoon) honey.
5 ml (1 teaspoon) peach oil.
1 ripe banana.
1 egg yolk.

Place ingredients into a blender. Mix until smooth and creamy

Harald W. Tietze

Copyright 1997 by Klaus Kaufmann http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/

Kefir for pleasure, beauty and well-being.

Why Eat Kefir?

Harald W. Tietze

If you think that the only thing that can heal is a drug then you may see Kefir as a powerful drug. Considering the therapeutic value of Kefir some may think it's a drug but it definitely is not, it is simple living food.

A drug is something that people take to help for a certain period of time in a disease, like a pain killer against pain. Healthy living food is something to preserve our health and life - to maintain our healthy body.

Attempts to see if something is a drug or a food does not need millions of dollars of expense. One can make a test very simply and easily. If you take something, and you can live in good health without negative side effects, then it is a food. The term drug is used for something that you take only in very small dosages, and where you can't live in good health if the drug is your only intake.

Drugs are based on sickness, not on healthiness.

For maintaining health or to regain health, only living matter can help in the longer term. When I studied Agriculture over 30 years ago, one of our teachers warned that by over-use of antibiotics we will develop resistant strains against those antibiotics that they are not effective anymore. It was a monk who was not educated in veterinary medicine.

On the other side our professional teacher for veterinary medicine had scientific evidence about different antibiotics. He explained, backing it up with scientific proof, that antibiotics don't harm, not even in the long term. We hear similar stories of developing resistance from chemical industries producing sprays against all sorts of plants and insects. 

The chemical industry produces new products every few years, stronger and more effective, and now,when we look back to the old monk we must confess that he was right, not only with antibiotics but with all of modern agriculture.

How many resistant strains of unfriendly bacteria and viruses do we have now? Think only about TB, the nearly forgotten illness. According to reports in the last 12 months, 3,000,000 people worldwide die from TB. The antibiotic treatments which worked very efficiently years ago are now useless with these new resistant strains.

If you think agriculture and drugs of modern medicine have nothing to do with Kefir you should think again.

A well balanced intestinal flora is a key for successful treatment of illness. Antibiotics are not very selective as to which bacteria they eliminate. They kill and destroy the balance. When taking antibiotics, a brief improvement may be noticed because the antibiotics kill the unfriendly bacteria that make us ill which is the reason they are taken. 

But they kill the friendly bacteria as well and disturb the balance. With a disturbed intestinal flora the body's immune system suffers and we are more open to develop new illnesses. Antibiotics are taken again, and again, and ...... it's an endless downwards spiral.

Coming back to the old monk, he saw the discovery of penicillin as gods blessing when it's used in cases where penicillin is the only answer in a life or death situation. He recommended that in these cases after antibiotic treatment, sour cream, butter milk, yoghurt (natural only of course) should be taken to rebuild the intestinal flora.

When I wrote my first Kombucha book I warned against too much euphoric beliefs in regard to miracle healing. So I was surprised by the thousands of testimonials I got, proving, that lactic acid fermented living food can really work miracles. This is why lactic acid fermented food does not cure one specific illness but the lot from A to Z and on top of it makes people feel younger with grey hair disappearing and hair regrowth.

Women in menopause, even if they had not been menstruating for many years, suddenly start to menstruate again. Women become pregnant at an advanced age. An illness people have suffered from and treated with drugs for 20 years or more, suddenly disappear within only a few weeks or days. All this is something many can't understand. It's the simplest thing in the world, the friendly bacteria in the intestines.

The reason why Kefir and the other lactic acid ferments work like a wide spectrum miracle drug is only because of the friendly bacteria in it. The miraculous healing effects are only possible due to the other dead food we eat, like processed, chemicalised, irradiated, over cooked, microwaved and so on. These foods are dead and cause our modern health problems of Western Society.

Please note; 12 hour Kefir is a mild laxative, 36-48 hour Kefir causes constipation. Based on today's knowledge we have enumerated those illness' and disorders on which Kefir has a beneficial effect.:

Kefir Douche

A women asked me to publish following helpful use of Kefir to help many others with this simple application:

Use Kefir as a douche for instant relief from the maddening irritation of thrush.

Harald W. Tietze

Dermatologist’s Recommendations for Natural Skin Health: Kefir the best probiotic for healthy skin

by Cynthia Bailey MD on October 22, 2009 in

Diet, Nutrition, & Natural Health

 

Surprisingly, you need  beneficial probiotic bacteria and yeast  to have healthy,naturally beautiful skin!

Your skin is the biggest organ in your body, but the surface area of your intestines would cover a tennis court if it was stretched out flat.  Every bit of your intestinal surface is covered in important probiotic bacteria and yeast that keep you healthy.

Your body depends on its huge intestinal surface to get good things in (like nutrients) while keeping bad things out (like mercury). The beneficial germs that live in your gut play a key role here and that’s why probiotics are essential for the health and beauty of your skin.

As unsavory as it is to think about beneficial germs living in your intestines, the little guys are a really big deal.  You have about 5 pounds of intestinal microorganisms in your gut and you really want them to be the good guys not the bad guys.  They do critical work for you: they make important vitamins (B vitamins, biotin, vitamin K to name a few), they produce germ killing substances that keep you from getting infections, and they’re your ‘hazmat’ team removing food born toxins like mercury.

Modern life has rocked our little intestinal microbes like never before. We start acquiring our microbe population immediately after birth from the things we eat and drink.  Up until modern times a lot of these probiotic microbes came from the bacteria and yeast cultures used to preserve food by a process called fermentation. 

With the advent of modern food science we now rely on preservatives, refrigeration, pasteurizing, and canning (sterilizing food with high heat).   Our diet no longer contains a constant supply of beneficial probiotics. Add to that the use of lifesaving antibiotics, which wipe out what probiotic population we do have, and you can see that for our intestines, it’s a brave new world.

That’s why I recommend foods with probiotics, especially after antibiotics, but frankly we all need them.  I think that our deficient intestinal microbial environment may play a role in many health conditions, including skin diseases like psoriasis, rosacea, eczema and acne.  In my opinion, the best probiotic to replace our lost intestinal microbes is home brewed kefir made from live kefir grains (kefir grains is the name for kefir colonies). 

These are the same microbes that our ancestors used to ferment their food.  Human bodies live symbiotically with these microbes, meaning that both we and the germs benefit from the arrangement.

Brewed kefir from kefir grains contain more of the beneficial microbes than other probiotic sources like yogurt and probiotic capsuels. When home brewed  as I describe in my next post, the organisms are alive and ready to repopulate your intestines immediately. 

Kefir brewing is easy and inexpensive. Kefir milk tastes like buttermilk and if you don’t like the flavor, you can add fruit or honey and make a smoothie.  It’s best drunk at night before bed.  Ideally, this should become a ritual that you continue throughout your lifetime.


An evening glass of kefir
Commercially prepared kefir products available in the supermarkets lack the full benefits of home brewed kefir.  I’d rather you use them than no kefir at all, but they’re typically made from commercially prepared starter powder, not the kefir grains (cultures) and so they don’t contain the full range of organisms and health benefits of brewed kefir.  Some commercial producers may use live, perpetuated kefir grain cultures to make their kefir, but without calling the company and asking, you just don’t know.

There are other probiotic containing cultured foods that are also worth eating from time to time, but none are as easy as kefir.  These include barrel fermented sauerkraut and pickles (not canned/sterilized), miso soup, kombucha, and cultured cheeses.  As with all live probiotic foods, you have to remember not to cook them because high heat kills the beneficial organisms making them useless for repopulating your intestinal microbe population.

In my next post, I’ll outline how to start brewing your own kefir.  You’ll have all the information you need to start reaping the health benefits of this probiotic powerhouse food.

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