What’s good enough for Natalie Portman, Gwynneth Paltrow, Kashmiri miners, Amazonic women, the UAE royal family, and the Hunza tribe of Pakistan should be good enough for anybody.
Are you looking for a palpable biological and emotional change? Is one of your New Year resolutions to reduce your wrinkle count and stimulate your body’s anti-microbial peptides? Have you lost your elasticity? Want a face you can be proud of? Then treat yourself or significant others to some blue chamomile and a 24-carat gold face mask.
Try Ilapothecary.
The ancient Egyptians used gold in their dental procedures and ate it to keep young-looking.
Medically, gold is now used in injections to relieve arthritic pain and addiction cravings. Cosmetically, it is used in “Ila” products, the brainchild of Brit, Denise Leicester, a former nurse, and midwife. Ila is associated with many spas worldwide. It has just opened a spa in New York. It is based in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds, west England, less than two hours from London.
In Ila’s “Gold Cellular Restore Collection,” three types of gold are used – colloidal, homeopathic ( powdered), and 24 carats. These are blended with three kinds of Boswellia (frankincense) from India, Somalia, and Oman. As well as Himalayan pink salt crystals, babassu palm oil, deeply regenerative bio plant extracts from the Kayapo tribe of the Amazon rainforest, Moroccan argan oil, rosehip, and apricot oils. Marapuama, also known as potency wood, is also used.
Ila’s founder is a qualified aromatherapist, yoga teacher, sound healer, and holistic bodyworker. She is an expert on Eastern and South American healing traditions. She once nursed a sheik in the UAE.
Comments Denise: “Ila certainly wouldn’t have existed without the sheik. He was an amazing man, and those years nursing him opened my eyes to alternative medicine. I went from being a nurse using strict, traditional protocols, a pharmaceutical for this, and a pharmaceutical for that to realizing what incredible natural sources of help and healing the Earth gives us.
“I began incorporating essential oils into the sheik’s treatment plan. The results were incredible.”
Ila is now a high-price brand found in luxurious spas. When she returned home to the UK, she studied at London’s Institute of Complementary Medicine. She traveled around India, immersing herself in Ayurveda. After a debilitating illness from her kitchen table, she began researching and sourcing ingredients and purely natural products from around the world. She founded Ila in 2007, naming it after the Hindu Goddess of Truth. It is also the Sanskrit word for Earth.
“Ours is a pure product range created in complete harmony with nature and delivered with conscious, healing intent. While I’m 100 percent supportive of organic principles, I also believe we must go beyond if we are to support re-establishing balance back to the earth and nature, our selves, family, and community.”
“Our products are 100% organic and natural and ethically harvested. Not tested on animals, No animal derivatives apart from beeswax and royal jelly. No petrochemicals, chemical fertilizers, or parabens.”·
Ila products are hand-blended in a converted farm barn in Kiddington in the Cotswolds in west England, using Ayurvedic traditions of geometry. The staff listens to ragas.
“For some, this might sound ridiculous. But I firmly believe that for a product to contain healing energy, it needs to be formulated in a calm and peaceful environment.”
Leicester believes that skin is a reflection of emotional well-being. Sea buckthorn is rich in Omega 7. She combines this with vitamin-rich moringa oil from the drumstick, ben oil, or horseradish tree, which is also used for water purification. Blue chamomile and sandalwood are other favorites of hers.
“Frequent magnesium bath soaks followed by a rich shea balm are an excellent remedy for easy stress and fatigue.
“The natural and organic industry is growing. Chemists are developing plant-derived actives. I predict ultrasound waves and oxygen becoming more and more popular for deeper rejuvenation.”
