Featured Article - March 2010

During your spa staycation, you can restore body and spirit with treatments like this moisturizing Blue Corn Cleansing Scrub with avocado.

SOUTHWEST LIFESTYLE
Picture of Health

Recharge with these make-at-home spa treatments

Story by Wendy Sue Gist

It’s the season to rejuvenate and repair both body and spirit. If you can’t find the time or resources to pamper yourself at New Mexico’s healing spas, do-it-yourself treatments can offer the same restorative payoffs. Between regular spa visits, with the right ingredients and an expert’s recipes, you can easily indulge in the convenience of your home.

“The spa should not be a place you go only when you can find the time, but rather a lifestyle, a way of taking moments for yourself each and every day,” says Cherilyn G. Swenson, president of Spabox Organic Apothecary. This Santa Fe–based company offers eco-friendly, spa-quality products made with botanical ingredients with which you can re-create the spa experience at home.

All it takes are a few basic staples of Southwestern kitchens. I use fresh avocados, blue cornmeal, cocoa, honey, lavender, and piñon nuts, and whirl them into all-natural beauty treatments. The skin—the largest organ of the body—absorbs into the body what’s smoothed and slathered onto it.
“All-natural ingredients are very cost effective, less irritating, and gentle on your skin and hair,” explains Janice Cox, a leading expert in natural, homemade beauty products and co-author of Natural Beauty at Home: More than 250 Easy-to-Use Recipes for Body, Bath, and Hair (Henry Holt and Company, 2002). Cox believes that all-natural ingredients are easier on the environment, with less packaging and waste going into our landfills and water supplies.

Be warned: achieving a hale and hearty radiance entails embracing your inner child and getting a little messy. But don’t worry—you’ll clean up beautifully. Ready to start?

Resources Find Tamaya blue corn meal, ground from organic corn kernels, at The Cooking Post, a tribal enterprise of Santa Ana Pueblo. $8.70. www.cookingpost.com When using honey on the face or body, buy 100 percent raw, unfiltered honey made by bees that have visited desert wildflowers, mesquite, and sage willow; from Bee Bliss Farms, in Lemitar. From $10. www.beechamahoney.com Organic lavender flowers can be bought from Purple Adobe Lavender Farm either at their Abiquiú farm or their Santa Fe Farmers Market booth. For flowers: From $6. Call (505) 685-0082. For body products: www.purpleadobelavenderfarm.com Find plenty of ready-made treatments with the natural products featured here at www.spabox.com Ahhh-mbiance Use these tips to create the perfect atmosphere for your at-home spa—Quiet: Turn off the computer, TV, and phones. Candlelight: Change the mood with the soft glow of Beeswax Candles in Artisan Pottery Vessels, with pure aromatherapy options such as rosewood and cedar. $15. www.spabox.com Scent: Try a smudge stick of New Mexico Desert Sage (believed to dispel negative energies). Complete Ceremonial Smudging Kit includes Silver Wolf’s guide to smudging, Sacred Sage: How It Heals. $24.99. www.madeinnewmexico.com Bathrobe bundle: Wrap yourself in an absorbent, supersoft Ojo Chamois Robe. $75. www.ojocalientesprings.com Sip spa water: Spa water is popular at many high-end spas. Janice Cox suggests placing thin slices of lime and cucumber and a few sprigs of mint in a pretty glass pitcher filled with cold water. Let sit in the refrigerator a few hours. The pure beauty will brighten your mood, but that’s not all—the cucumbers, limes, and water are great for your skin! Pour over ice and drink between treatments.

Avocados are not only for mashing up into guacamole. They contain hydrating power, and make stellar moisturizing treatments for dry skin and hair. Avocado oil is rich in nutrient waxes, proteins, and minerals, as well as vitamins A, D, and E. And because the antioxidant powers of vitamin E help protect skin cells from damage by free radicals, I smear it on my face for a younger-looking complexion.

Blue corn is unique to the American Southwest. A historical staple of the Pueblo Indians, it is used in their rituals and diet to this day. Blue cornmeal makes tasty piki bread, but Native Americans also used ground blue corn as an exfoliant to rub away dry skin cells, and open pores to free the body of impurities. Santa Ana Pueblo’s Tamaya Mist Spa & Salon, 22 miles north of Albuquerque off U.S. 550, uses blue corn in its Three Sisters Salt Scrub, which includes Anasazi beans, pumpkin seeds, and mineral-rich desert salts to exfoliate, stimulate, and rejuvenate.

Don’t stop browsing your cupboard quite yet. Piñon-flavored cocoa is a common New Mexican indulgence, but did you know that the antioxidant-rich cacao bean offers yet another delicious treat? Plain cocoa powder is a Southwest spa staple used to enrich skin vitality. The Chocolate Decadence treatment of Santa Fe’s Absolute Nirvana Spa includes a delicious body mask made of raw cacao, yogurt, and honey. The flavonoid-rich chocolate may help combat cellular damage, even as it nourishes the skin and promotes a youthful radiance.

Golden honey could win the Oscar for Best Beauty Ingredient. This incredible substance, which boasts antibacterial properties, is also a natural humectant; that is, it helps the skin retain moisture. When I’m dry, I like to add a bit of raw New Mexico honey to my bathwater. (The honey dissolves in the hot water and isn’t at all sticky.) The Spa at Loretto, in Santa Fe, provides a luscious Milk and Honey Body Wrap to naturally hydrate the skin.

Have some herbs stored away from last summer’s garden or farmers’ market? Lavender derives its name from the Latin word lavare, meaning “to wash.” By now, almost everyone has heard of lavender’s healing properties. Long respected for its calming effects on the body, lavender is a natural antiseptic used to aid skin ailments, muscle tension, and more. Fragrant fields of the herb can be found lavishly growing around New Mexico, including at the picturesque Purple Adobe Lavender Farm, an organic farm in the Chama River Valley of Abiquiú. Purple Adobe uses lavender to enrich their lotions, bath salts, and lip balms.

To create an enchanting high-desert spa sanctuary in the tranquility of your home, insert into your player a therapeutic CD of ambient music, such as Desert Spa (Solitudes, 2005). Place candles of pure, soothing aromatherapy scents such as cedar around the edge of the tub to create a warm glow. Inhale and, as your sinuses clear, you’ll think you’re unwinding in the consoling natural beauty of a New Mexico forest. “Spas are all about the details,” says Spabox owner Swenson. For luxurious pampering, she suggests, “fill the bathroom with simple touches like fluffy organic towels and fresh flowers or herbs.”

It’s imperative to avoid allergic reactions: Before using any of these treatments, be sure to test a small patch of skin for a reaction and/or consult with your physician. “If you have a known food allergy, chances are you will have a reaction using that food on your skin or hair,” warns Janice Cox.

As you bud into spring, try these self-spa treatments to restore moisture, banish stress, and refresh yourself.

Wendy Sue Gist, who holds a master’s of science degree in natural health, enjoys losing herself in the caress of her Southwest-inspired home-spa sanctuary.

Chocolate Piñon Body Polish

Those with dry skin will enjoy the gentle exfoliation provided by this body polish. Piñon nuts function as scrubbers, and contain natural oils to help soften the skin.

½ cup raw sugar
¼ cup walnut or other light oil
1 tablespoon piñon nuts, chopped
1 tablespoon cocoa powder

Stir all ingredients together until well mixed.

Use: Stand in shower or tub and massage body polish into damp skin. Rinse well afterward.

Makes 7 ounces.

 

Multipurpose Lavender Splash

Use this as a mouthwash to freshen the breath and clean and disinfect the gums. It can also be used as a skin freshener or an invigorating after-bath splash. Lavender leaves contain more essential oil, but the flowers, too, can be used.

2 tablespoons fresh organic lavender leaves and/or flowers (or 1 tablespoon of dried, untreated lavender)
1 cup boiling water
2 tablespoons rosewater

Place lavender leaves or flowers in a ceramic or glass container and cover with boiling water. Let cool to room temperature. Strain. Stir in rosewater and pour into clean container.

Use: Pour small amount into clean glass. Rinse mouth after brushing teeth and gums.

Makes 1 cup.

Blue Corn Cleansing Scrub

This rich exfoliating scrub for the whole body—including the face—is perfect for all skin types. Avocado, rich in natural fats and protein, deeply and gently cleanses the skin while helping to restore its moisture.

2 tablespoons organic blue cornmeal
½ avocado, pitted, mashed
½ teaspoon pure New Mexico honey

In small bowl, mix together all ingredients until smooth.

Use: Massage mixture into damp skin. Let sit 15–20 minutes. Rinse well with warm water. Follow with a rich moisturizer.

Makes 3 ounces.

Treatment recipes created by natural- and home-beauty expert Janice Cox, co-author of Natural Beauty at Home: More than 250 Easy-to-Use Recipes for Body, Bath, and Hair (Henry Holt and Company, 2002). Reprinted with permission.