My friend told me today, over the phone, that she had bought a bottle of serum. I asked her “What does it contain?” She said ‘Why don’t you check it yourself? I don’t really know.” And so, I did.

And found what I expected to find.

The first most important thing about a serum is that it is first and foremost a ‘protein’. It is not oil, and it is not fat. So, when it is sold as a mix of some very exotic and rare oils, functional yet oils nonetheless, I find that unethical. More so when it is a high-end product, and expensive. Call it miracle oil, secret formula oil, call it magic lotion – but it cannot be called and sold as serum. 

If you visit Estee Lauder’s outlet, and buy their night serum, that 50$ bottle, they tell you very clearly, to use it along with a good night crème. Ever wondered why? I mean, if you are anyway spending 50-100 $ on a bottle of serum, why would you need to apply another coat of an expensive night crème? Should this magic serum be doing the magic?

So, here’s the actual truth about serums and how they work; something the beauty industry doesn’t want you to know. 

Serums are humectants, which means they pull and hold moisture. One such example is today’s fashionable Hyaluronic acid. HA, as it is commonly called, is a wonderful thing. We produce HA in our bodies, and it can be found under our skin, while we are young. HA is responsible for fresh hydrated youthful and glowing skin. Its production diminishes as we age, and so we need externally applied HA. HA enters our skin, when applied topically, and begins pulling moisture from the underlying skin layers toward the surface. Some larger HA molecules stay on the top surface and begin pulling moisture from the air to the skin. This gives our skin a well plumped hydrated look and feel. 

However, and this is a big however, if you are living through a Delhi summer, or winter for that matter, you probably just emptied your pocket in a futile attempt to erase those lines. You see, HA absorbs moisture for your skin from the environment. And if humidity levels are under 50%, there isn’t enough moisture in the air. And while HA cannot get the moisture from the air, it is still trying to pull the subcutaneous moisture from you. So instead of hydrating your skin, you have dehydrated it!

So, the beauty specialists will tell you to use HA with an occlusive, a crème, to be applied over the HA application, a moisturizer, which will give the HA enough moisture to pull into your skin. And if you investigate any good moisturizer, it will usually have, albeit a very tiny percentage, of glycerin – all moisturizing creams use glycerin, usually by default. And it is a more effective humectant than HA. 

In the end, one might intelligently question – what really improved my skin texture? HA or the skin creme? 

Further, HA is not an anti-ageing agent. It is ONLY a humectant, and helps deeply hydrate the skin, if you live near the sea, or if you use it during monsoons. Not if you live in NCR, or in an air-conditioned environment. And for me this gets funny – you might want to have a humidifier running if you wish to justify your purchase. Well, with the humidifier running, you may not really need anything for your face, you know? Also, an anti-ageing agent is collagen, for example, which repairs the age-related tissue breakdown. Not HA, not Vit C serum either.  Having said all the above, I must also say that the bottle of exotic oil my friend bought is also a treat, nonetheless. All those oils used are actually very good. And they should be promoted for what they really are – miraculous oils for mature skins, not serums. 

Thanks for joining me!

Before you get to read this article, chances are you have sometime somewhere come across the word ‘aromatherapy’ and you knew it had something to do with all kinds of nice aromas, smells and even perfume. At some point you also did buy ‘lavender soap’ and ‘sandalwood lotion’ and you believed that you were using aromatherapy products.

 

Little did you know that Aromatherapy is a wholly alternate form of therapy using the subtle energy of the plant’s essential oils. Today we use a lot of those essences in the artisan bath & body products, however that isn’t really the correct way to use these precious gifts of nature. Aromatherapy is a system for prevention of disease and an enabler for better quality of life in various. It’s a versatile science that has found many applications in modern life.

Having said that, aromatherapy is not a standalone system of cures. From an aromatherapist’s perspective, healing is physical, emotional and spiritual, and being Indian, this line of thought sits with me very well. It would be fortunate for a team of doctors, psychologists and aromatherapists to work together to come to a holistic cure. After all, that is the key phrase today.

I have a distinct advantage over many of my ilk. Not by design, I assure you, because I am not clairvoyant, I found that I had studied all the three sciences,  namely Medicine, Psychology and Aromatherapy. I studied psychology for three years, medicine for six and have been independently studying aromatherapy as a science for thirty years now, before it all began to take shape in my mind. Sometimes I get a feeling that my true vocation is– holistic healing. I do not claim to be anything, but extensive study and 30 years of mature experience does give one an edge. So here I am – to share experience and what I have learnt.

So how does this work? We have all read how various essential oils travel through our respective olfactory systems and affect us, so I don’t need to waste our moments reading the same lecture, you may research it yourself online. What I would like to share, however, is something you might not yet know.

If you are from one of our eastern civilizations, you clearly know of prana or chi. They are both the names for ‘life force’, prana in Sanskrit, and chi in Chinese. Everything alive has a life force, and this life force manifests as a vibration. A vibration is measured by frequency. So, more prana means a high frequency and no prana means dead. It’s very simple actually.

We already did this in school, if you remember – every atom in the universe vibrates with a frequency measured in Hz. Every element on the periodic table has a frequency. Plants and animals have numerous organic reactions going on in their systems breaking down and building molecules all of which have a vibrational frequency.

Gary Young, the founder of Young Living essential oils managed to measure the frequency of essential oils on a BT3 Frequency monitor before its discontinued production and determined the frequencies of various essential oils.  He believed that that owing to their frequencies, essential oils can help man maintain an optimum frequency to the extent that disease cannot exist in his body.

Listed below are a few EO frequencies that were measured by Gary Young:

 

Rose (Rosa damascene) Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) Myrrh (Commiphora myrrha) German Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) Juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) Sandalwood (Santalum album) Angelica (Angelica archangelica) Peppermint (Mentha piperata) Galbanum (Ferula gummosa) Basil (Ocimum basilicum)

320 MHz 118 MHz 105 MHz 105 MHz 98 MHz 96 MHz 85 MHz 78 MHz 56 MHz 52 MHz

As you can see, therapeutic grade essential oil frequencies range from 52 Mhz to 320 Mhz. Fresh produce has a frequency up to 15 MHz, dry herbs from 12 to 22 MHz, and fresh herbs from 20 to 27 MHz. Processed and canned foods have no measurable frequency whatsoever. Neither has dead meat, or any ingredient at the butchers. No prana, no chi. No prana foods are OK for filling up your stomach though, or for protein.

Also, of interest is Dr Bruno Tainio’s research and here is what I found of relevance for this reader. Below are the frequencies of the human body under altered states of being –

Frequency of the human brain – 71-90 MHz
Healthy human body overall – 62-68 MHz

When you have cold symptoms – 58 MHz

When you have flu symptoms – 57 MHz

Candida infection – 55 MHz

Epstein Barr Virus – 52 MHz

Cancer – 47 MHz

Beginning of death – 25 MHz

And here’s how Aromatherapy works!

Do you remember that lesson from school physics where they have a platoon of soldiers marching over a suspension bridge and the bridge collapses? That is resonance.

So here, if you feel you are heading toward a flu, which begins at 57 MHz, you should begin using Peppermint, Tea tree, and Eucalyptus oil – whose frequencies lie between 69 MHz – 78 Mhz. Massage your chest and forehead regularly for relief. Peppermint with a frequency of 78 MHz begins resonating with you having a flu ridden frequency of 57 MHz, and after a while the resonating frequency of anything above 57 MHz is reached to lift you out from the grip of la grippe (which is what a flu was called in Europe during the epidemic times).

This is also how my mother cures herself of headaches. She just massages a drop of rose absolute on her forehead.

Cerebral oils like Juniper and fennel help in keeping an alert mind and there is a reason Lavender is a very popular essential oil – it is the aspirin of Aromatherapy. So is Rose absolute – but then it is a rare and expensive oil, worth much more than its weight in gold.

So essential oils have some of the highest frequencies of natural substances and when used appropriately, can create an environment where disease cannot exist. When we extract essential oils from plants, we are borrowing a bit of the plant’s natural life force. It is truly the life essence of that plant – be it from a flower, leaves, bark, fruit or root. And it is a responsibility we undertake to use it with reverence for it for its potential therapeutic value.