NATUROM SKINCARE RANGE: the art of Science and Nature

Naturom is an innovative high quality skin care and cosmetic brand that utilise the natural power of nature with the advances of modern science. Founded by a collective of health professionals including a Surgeon Dentist, a Medical Dr, Biologist,Cosmetologist and Beauticians it has been designed to give you visible results and new confidence in your skins appearance.  Naturom has fulfilled a previous gap in the market in so far as that it offers a skincare range that is made using herbal extracts in high dilutions selected exclusively by Medical Doctors. You can have total reassurance that the products you use have been extensvly researched and refined by a team of leading experts.

NATUROM is a fusion of science and nature

Naturom are also an ethically based company and on the home page of their company website http://www.naturom.com/index1.html they proudly tell you about their continuous donations to the ‘Rain Forest Aliance’ which is a green charity set up to help protect the worlds most vulnable rainforset areas. As Naturom products are made using the finest organic plant extracts from around the world  protecting the ecology and environment is very important to them. This ethical background means that a portion of the money you spend with them will go back into preseving this wonderful world we live, which is very important to eco-concious customers.

For more information on what the alliance does go to http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/

Naturom products are high end because they dont compromise on quality, prices reflect the scientific research, highest quality natural herbal extracts and modern innovation.

Naturom Facts

NO                                                                                                               YES

• mineral oil                                                                  authentic raw herbal extracts
• parabens                                                                   edible oils, biologic origin
• isothiazolineone                                                        organic herbal extracts
• animal derived bi products                                        quality ingredients

”We prefer to use expensive edible oils and other precious ingredients, cutting down on our profit, because we consider it wise to gain average profit from a larger number of satisfied customer”.  –Naturom spokes person

organic olive oil extract is used

As founder and surgeon dentist Sofia Vasilara says

‘ Naturom doesnt make simple products, it makes innovations”………..

How Science & Nature harmonise in NATUROM

Naturom has a complete range of skincare systems to suit you whatever your skin type is. It is made up of an extensive range, all of which use natural plant,mineral and oil extracts. These advanced technology formulas have all been thoroughly tested according with E.U safety standards. They contain no animal bi-products ( apart from the caviar range).The oils thats are used such as olive oil, soya oil and sunflower oil are all sorced from organic origin and biologically cultivated. The result is that these products contain high natural extracts in dilutions rarefactions. You will feel the difference in your skin quickly. Its important to remember that up to  70% of what we put on our skin enters our blood-stream. Naturom uses edible grade oils that are totally safe.

Scientific studies have shown the following benifits and significant observations when using NATUROM products:

• reduction in wrinkles
• immidiate long-term firming
• deep nutrition and toning
• decreased skin stress
• reduction in eye puffiness and black circles
• immediate tightening of the epidermis
• effective uva/uvb protection
• anti oxidant and free radical effect
• enhanced dermal microcirculation/elasticity
• dermal collagen synthesis
• increased dermal cell oxygen consumption
• activation of dermal metabolism
• authentic herbal extracts in high dilutions
• strict microbiological testing according to E.U standards.
• only company to use all edible oils!
• anti-aging through use of live,edible precious oils.essential amino acids,and biological origin oils.

The range is so extensive and presented in luxury gold packaging and colour coded so its easy to identifie the different products that NATUROM offers.

I was sent two products to test and decided to use them both for a month before I wrote my  review. The first was a day cream in a pump-action slimline bottle -WYETHIA Advanced Moisture Cream. The second was MYRTUS PLUS PURIFIYING VITAMIN FACE MASK which is used with select fresh fruit extracts. Both products supassed my expectations and you could smell and feel the active botanical extracts at work!

WYETHIA DAY CREAM

This advanced moisurising non-oily day cream is from the ‘Exotic herb’ range that NATUROM do. It has a nice light creamy consistency and spreads evenly over the skin. A little goes a long way and you feel immediate hydration. Its great for combination skin such as my own as it doesnt clog pores, especuially on the troubled T-zone area. After a week I noticed an increased glow to my skins surface and the epidermis retained a higher moisture level even against the harsh extreams of a northern european winter. In winter our skin experiences quick changes of artificial heat from centarl healting in our houses to the cold winds of outside. This cream forms a thin barrier on the surface of your skin and can be used under makeup as extra protection from the elements. NATUROM describe it as being aimed at ‘young, tiered,dry or less-young skins’. Certainly its suited to young or middle aged skins, however if you have a dry skin you may prefer a more moisurising cream from their range.

WYETHIA cream had specific effects on my skin and its collagen felt plumper,the texture was smoother after only 3 weeks and it maintained my much needed moisture levels. The cream contains herbal/flower extracts of philyra and calendula flower which calm and smooth, reducing irritation and redness.The Calendula flower has been used since ancient Greek times as an anti-inflammatory and calming ointment. Philyra is very hydrating and firming and has an anti-oxidant effect on the skin cells. I continue to use this day cream and couldn’t be happier.

calming calendula flower

MYRTUS PLUS PURIFYING VITAMIN FACE MASK

This is a high-end home use salon standard face mask. The tub is a good size and it will last you around 3-4 months depending on how many applications you do a week. It is based on the Ivy plant which has strong regenerative properties.MYRTUS PLUS  mask is a non-drying base mask that you can add your own fresh fruit juice too. It s a great idea that gives you control over the effect you want the mask to have. For example if you have very dry skin you could blend the masks paste with some fresh avocado or banana. If you want a slight exfoliate effect use papya juice/pulp. I used fresh orange juice from valencia oranges as they have a toning effect and are high in anti-oxidants. My skin is not very sensitive so this suited me perfectly. If you have a more sensitive reactive skin stay away from very acidic fruit juices as they may cause redness. Instead stick to avocado, banana or apricot. There are many fresh fruits that are benificial to feeding your skin and the internet will offer you lots of information on this subject This site is fun and gives you a list of fruits and their associated benifits.http://funnfud.blogspot.com/2008/06/natural-fruit-facials-healthy-skin-glow.html

MYRTUS is a non-drying mask

The mask does not dry to a hard clay as it is made using organic olive oil but it is purifying. Previously I have always used rather harsh clay based products, either dead sea mud or rassoul clay. They draw out toxins as they dry but also strip your skin of all moisture. The MYRTUS MASK is unique as it cleanses whilst not drying.It enlivens your skin, I added fresh orange juice and made a paste. I applied it to freshly cleansed skin and left it for 20 minutes or until most of the white cream had sunk in and become semi-transparent. The olive oil present in the mask plumped up my skin and the organic aloe extract calmed it. It has a very fresh clean herbal smell and off white look. The mask also contains sea plant extracts that deliver proteins and amino acids to your skins epidermis (top layers). Beech extract offers an ani-ageing factor and pure bees wax hold the ingredients together in a balm. This balm-like quality mean that the mask is easy to applie and doesn’t drip on clothes.

organic aloe is calming

I added fresh orange juice to MYRTUS mask vitamin c and aha's

The mask which I used twice a week for a month gave my skin a very healthy glow. It had a relaxing aromatherapy effect and as it was non-drip you could carry on normal everyday tasks whilst it worked its wonder. Using it with fresh orange juice gave a lift to my sun-damaged skin and evenen out the tonal imperfections. I definatly recommed this mask to people of all skin types as it is so gentle and non -drying. The innovation of using fresh fruit juice power with the NATUROM cream mask base is genius and gives you potent vitamin facials that you create at home. Fruit extracts added during the manufacturing process loose their potency and vitamin c is very unstable. The NATUROM mask acts as a carrier agent to the fruits vitamin and AHA properties and delivers them straight into your skin.

Overall I was very satisfied with the products I sampled. Naturom is a modern, quality, and innovative company who make it their mission to deliver you the best user-friendly products and source the finest natural plant/herbal/oil extracts from around the globe and bottle them for you in convenient attractive packaging. The range has something for all skin types and has an intentional dedicated client base. For a more information and complete product listings visit http://www.naturom.com/index1.html

‘What’s For Dinner’ a fab recipe book by Romilla Arber…

A familliar phrase ‘whats for dinner ?’ and often one parents groan to hear. Coming up with endless tasty treats and making sure they are nutritiously packed and sticking to a budget after a hard days 9-5 is not easy……….’Mc Donalds’ it is then.  Working parents who are on a budget concerning time and money have increasingly opted for  ready-meals and fast-food to-go.  Sold the ‘you can have it all’ dream women have found juggling career and house hold chores near impossible. Food manufactures have known this and fed into this manic fast-paced era by giving us fast-food-to-go and seducing us with their photo-shopped images of food. This mega recipe book that I was lucky enough to be sent as a press release is a a vital tool for busy people who dont want to sacrifice their health.

It seems people are stirring from their mono-sodium malaise and awakening to the fact that in reality we don’t ‘want it all’ just enough to stay healthy and simple seems to be the new buzz word. By trying to ‘have it all’ the baby-boomer generation have also realised-somethings gotta give-that something has been our health. Disease has never been so prevalent in the western world. But this seems ironic as today we are more technically,industrially and medically advanced than ever. So what’s failing our health? A lack of simple fresh organic produce, less relaxation time & non media stimulation (ie TV,internet,computer) and less community spirit are the main issues.
But things are comming full circle and people are demanding healthier food choices and getting down and dirty in their own kitchens. They are rejecting the capitalist food industries ethos of quantity over quality. Movements like  ‘Slow Food’ and farmers co-operatives, Fair trade and The Soil Association are all getting a stronger following. The book featured in this review encompasses this belief, its not simply a cookery book for busy mums, on an ideological level it represents a much deeper cause, a movement away from the processed and back to the humble family kitchen. This I believe is the root of improving the nations health.
The aptly named book by Romilla Arber ‘Whats for Dinner?’ is a reflection of our move towards a slower healthier life and a focus on quality simple food forms. The book offers you 365 days of fast-healthy-food.Recipes you can russle up in the time you can say ”Big Mac ‘n’ fries”. Fast food can be healthy food too.

What’s for Dinner?” is the essential cookery manual for 2012, divided into weekly sections with a menu and shopping list for each week of the year. Romilla felt that knowing what to cook is what puts off most people from going into the kitchen, rather than the actual act of cooking. She discovered that parents who relied on convenience food were less likely to pass on basic cookery skills to their children.

Each week starts with a time saving shopping list – a quick check list for everything needed from freezer, store cupboard or fridge. All recipes are easy to follow including tasty snacks and desserts. It makes pre-prepared meals a thing of the past and invites you to cook in your own home without the stress of endless planning and shopping. The key is the organized shopping lists that encourage you to buy multi-functional food types. Basically its about re-training our way of thinking and getting away from that modern tendency to always think things should be done for us. Yes shock of shocks you may have to wash and peel your own carrots ha ha ! But pardon the supermarket pun you will ‘taste the difference’ m! Romilla empowers you as a cook to really connect with food again and make you think about what you buy in the shops as opposed to shoving things mindlessly into the trolley and arriving home with nothing for a decent meal. Food needs a little planning, not hours slaving in the kitchen but with just a little pre-planning and thought you can make a healthy meal and save yourself a packet too!

Weekly menus are well balanced, healthy and nutritious. It is widely accepted that a diet combined with regular exercise is the key to a healthy existence. “What’s for Dinner?” reflects the wisdom that for a sustainable future we should not, as a nation, be eating meat everyday of the week. Consequently each week contains two  vegetarian vegetable-based meals and one fish meal, while the rest of the week includes different meat dishes including old favourites such as Spaghetti Bolognaise and Shepherd’s Pie to Maldivian Chicken Curry and Spicy Sliced Lamb. However you can pick and choose as you wish.

Whats more when you buy this book you can feel good doing it! All profits from the sale of “What’s for Dinner?” go to Romilla’s Food Education Trust. Romilla believes that as well as parents bearing a responsibility to introduce their children to the joy of home cooked food, schools could also be providing more old style home economic classes. The Food Education Trust will raise awareness of the importance of home cooking to families and educate both parents and children. Additional information can be found at www.whatsfordinner.org.uk
and you can purchase the book from amazon-Whats for Dinner? 

As a Nutritional Coach and Wellness writer I am always pursuing new avenues to promote healthy eating and since having a child this has become a mission! Since  discovering my son is  Autistic the link between diet and mood has become ever more apparent to me. Simply put the relationship between your gut and your brain is direct and unquestionable-you are what you eat.  The odd meal of fast-food wont kill you (though ethically it is usually produced in appalling conditions using the cheapest meat cuts) however people are now relying on processed foods as their main  food source and this is where the health problems have arisen.

Food habits start at a young age and simple home cooking skills are one of the best lessons you can learn in life. We need to go back to basics and re-discover the joys of food glorious food and have fun cooking at home.  Under this sub-text  I began researching on the subject of school dinners and if home economic still meant fairy cakes and flour fights….. Everyone remembers Jamie Oliver’s noble attempt to battle the suet loving dinner-ladies of the north, it was a great mission he set out upon but was like the nature of television fast,of the moment and gone in a flash. So what happened after he left? Did the schools return to there old ways and what about all the thousands of schools he didn’t visit?
Is there a national organisation that seeks to educate our young on healthy cooking?

The answer is yes, the http://www.foodeducationtrust.com/ set up in 2008 by Romilla Arber focuses on educating adults & children on healthy eating and does this via fun and practical cooking lessons given by the founder and mum of 4 Romilla. I found out about  Romilla after research led me to seek out an education outlet to help children learn about the joys of healthy eating and cooking. As a Nutritional Therapist I see children as the future of our new eating habits and want to educate them because they are our worlds hope. This research led me first to find the Food Education Trust and then discover the book ‘Whats For Dinner?’

Romilla is a woman after my own heart and  recognised that many people were relying on convenience foods to feed their kids as they found alot of recipes too time consuming to fit into their busy working lives. A community based project is the best way to reach a large cross section of society and Romilla with 4 children all of school age used her local  primary school as her starting point.

Press releases describe the Trusts mission statement as;

‘The Food Education Trust has devised a programme for children that ensures that they acquire as many useful skills as they can during their cooking sessions. This includes learning to follow recipes, learning about cooking terms, chopping, washing and preparing vegetables. The new kitchen facility means that the Moortown Primary children can now learn how to prepare and cook a nutritious meal, such as pasta with a fresh sauce, delicious stews and hearty soups. They will gain cookery skills for life, enabling them to cook healthy nutritious meals”.

As a Nutritional Therapist I have seen all too often the results of eating a diet made from a large proportion of ready meals and convenience frozen ‘food-stuffs’ ( I say food-stuffs’ because allot of this processed re-formed animal shaped eats are so far removed from their original natural form  and contain so little vitamin and mineral nutrients that they cant fully be designated as a food as such). With child-hood allergies on the rise, Autism and so called ‘Learning Difficulties at epidemic levels thinking about what we put into our children’s bellies has never been so important. I have wanted the government to set up a food-education curriculum for schools for some time and Romilla’s Food Trust does just this.  What we need now is her trust to be government backed and for them to invest and make her  lessons part of the national curriculum. This may in the climate of recession and economising seem frivolous but by educating the young on healthy eating you actually reduce the NHS bills of the future. It is said that 70% of illness and dis-ease is caused by  lifestyle choices. Scientists say 40% of cancers are lifestyle related and the biggest costs for the NHS are on diabetes, blood-pressure,heart-disease and osteoporosis medications in the UK and western world.
In our Grand-parents time things were more simple. GM crops were nothing but a science-fiction nightmare, Ready-meals were un-heard off and generally people didn’t mess with nature so much. Children were raised on local in-season produce and what’s more it has been scientifically recorded that fruits and vegetables had a higher vitamin/mineral content in the past because there were less pesticide residues in the soil, less air pollution, food travelled less and was consumed fresh and quicker. Meat was not injected with antibiotics and was sourced locally an eaten as a treat once/twice a week. With all this in mind Romilla made it her mission to feed her family  healthy, quick and easy to prepare meals on a budget. From this this came the book ‘Whats for Dinner?’
I am super excited by this book and loved the idea that the proceeds of her cookery book  go towards forming a trust that’s aim is to eductae children at an early age to be interested and enchanted by cooking healthy food.  Healthy eating and a persons relationship to food can start at any age but its best to teach the children, cause they are the future. Our babies will be running the country in 20 years time and they need the best nutritional defence against the on slaught of pollution and stress levels that exist in the modern industrialise world. Fact:Food can heal. Romilla’s trust visits schools all over the UK and delivers cookery lessons to primary school children who then re-educate their parents on healthy eating-genius!! Whats more is the kids learn skills for life so generation after generation will benefit, it really a fantastic concept. The children learn to think about where the food comes from, they get to feel it,smell it and are introduced to new tastes. They learn to follow instructions and skills in team-work and health and safety that are valuable to many situations in life.
Food education has as it were gone out of vougue with the schoold national curriculum.I remember my Home Economics lessons were about making scotch-eggs (fried) and fairy-cakes and the teacher how can I say this polity was obese. Not great food lessons for life me thinks.

But why have processed food been so successful? Cause their cheap n easy, they are like the one-night-stand of the food world and you will catch some nasties from them.Processed foods need high salt,fat and additive contents to make their lack lustre ingredients tasty. We as humans are hard-wird to enjoy salt and fat, this is a primevil desire and was essential when we were hunter gathers. We needed high fat meals to give us energy and we would sweat out excess salt as we used to live pysically active lives. Today we lead more sedentary lives but we consume triple the fat in take that a cave man would have.  Studies confirm it, people generally know what is good and bad food wise for them but why do a large proportion opt for the later? Money, time and convenience  all come into play in today’s fast paced lifestyle. Today we want food and we want it fast and brightly packaged with bows on it. The media bombards us with glossy adverts and super marketing campaigns that make that salty high fast food seem ooh so appealing. They rely on us never questioning the origins or content of this food stuff. The ingredients is listed and it appears to be the same as the well lit photo on the box so why question it? You cant go through a day now without hearing about the obesity epidemic in UK and world-wide, the complications and dis-eases that arise from bad food choices.

To this end The Food Education Trust has been working to educate adults and children in basic cooking skills since it was established in 2008, and has already had a huge impact on those it has helped. People like Romilla Arber should be saluted for their contribution to society and its a positive indication that we are finally going back to our food roots. We owe it to our own health, the environment and our children’s children to think locally, eat consciously and act globally concerning food.The Food Education Trust is wholly funded by sales of founder, Romilla Arber’s cookery manual –‘Whats for Dinner?’ For more information and the trusts latest  infomation go to www.foodeducationtrust.org