The Pursuit of Beauty: Make It a Healthy Philosophy

What is health–physical, emotional and mental health? How can they be truly achieved?

Linked to health, beauty the natural way, necessarily becomes a matter of overall lifestyle. As an objective, achieving natural beauty can become a positive driving force in one’s life.

As we better understand the interrelationship of all that is at work in looking and feeling good, we develop a greater desire to ensure that anything that can be destructive to our purpose is removed and preferably replaced by something that contributes to our wellness.

Then beauty becomes not an obsession unto itself, but a real philosophy of life. This philosophy of life also pays attention to practical telltale signs which manifest in the physical body and challenge us in our drive to achieve our full potential within the natural cycle of life.

Health Shows Up on the Skin

Health is more than the absence of disease and beauty is more than an absence of an unpleasant manifestation of unhealthy or prematurely aged skin!

Health is resilience — the natural ability to probably return to normal functioning whenever the individual is physically or mentally attacked. And let's face it, we seem to be under almost constant attack, be it against our body, our ego or our feelings.

Popular admonition such as, "Don't worry so much or you'll get an ulcer!" reminders of the connection between body, mind and emotions. Our body reflects the destructive results of mental and emotional attacks just as much as it does microbiological causes, bacterial or viral.

This fact is now being re-discovered by both the public and health professionals. In most cases, Western health professionals are trained to respond to the manifestations of physical or mental problems. Fundamentally, they are in the disease fighting business. Their mission is not about promoting optimum health which would create an enhanced sense of beauty and well-being.

The notion of prevention in Western medicine focuses on vaccination and other drug-oriented solutions to contain specific conditions.

Medical doctors are generally not trained to develop an interest in regularly seeing customers who are healthy with a view of ensuring that they continue to remain that way. The unacceptably high and runaway cost of this practice will eventually force changes. As a practical result, the know-how necessary to maintain health has to be sought outside the mainstream Western health establishment.

Under the current demographic title wave of the baby boom, the forces of the market are nudging alert medical and beauty professionals into alternatives and new ways, creating the so-called integrative medicine arena. 

Spa Finder Magazine, January 2009, dubbed energy medicine #1 among new trends that would impact spas beyond 2009 and pointed to the growing importance that spa professionals and their customers are placing on effective and holistic ways to improve results.

For over 35 years, Phytobiodermie has been refining its fully integrative approach to skincare with energetic and natural products based on the energetic principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda.

Light Heals

Sunlight reaches us as electromagnetic waves that include a range of frequencies. It is naturally composed of seven sub groups, each corresponding to one of the seven colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. It can also be observed through a glass prism. The colored pigmentation of things (matter) gives them their specific color so long as there is light to bounce off those things. The energy of colors from Light or from pigmentation are associated with specific energies defined by their frequencies.

 The seven colors that compose natural light also correspond to the energy of the seven major energetic centers in Ayurvedic medicine known as chakras. Five of the seven colors correspond to the five elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Each of the five colors is an energetic harmony with one of the elements and whatever is associated with that element and its functions. As a result, colors, both as matter but most potentially as energy, become tools of energy medicine.

The relationship between light, energy, and life has been scientifically established; light has been used, for example, to modify the rate of growth of enzymes, bacteria and plants, both to accelerate and to slow it down. Light is also frequently used to modify the emotions of humans.

More On How We Got Started

We quickly found out that our primary target market, hotel and resort spas, was obsessed with architecture, interior design and elements of marketing and image-building while often paying too little attention to the methodology behind their treatments. As a result, we had to redirect our efforts. We found greater reception in medium-sized cause often owned by former technicians who understood the value of a common method for all treatments and training.

Our company has a long list of pioneering activities with great results. Consider that in the 60s and 70s, our industry was following the lead of the drug industry, seeking and introducing new chemical solutions as answers to both medicine and beauty. Phytobiodermie® went countercurrent by using natural ingredients: blends of essential oils in bases such as algae, clays, minerals, and cereals, to which are included value added ingredients like vitamins and oligo elements. We introduced the use of light therapy, using different colors of light, as a systematic adjunct to face and body treatments. We also created the Biostimulateur,™ a unique piece of equipment to work on energetic points and reflex zones for advanced practitioners to use. Overall, our truly innovative breakthrough was the notion of working not only with matter (products) on matter (skin) but also using energetic tools to work on vital energy with energetic essential oils and light, the purest form of energy.

What I Believe

With greater demand for non-invasive treatments, I saw Phytobiodermie® very well-positioned, thanks to the Phytobiodermie® method, it's PHYTO 5® energetic skin products and energy-balancig proprietary equipment. Those natural products and energetic tools provide results in a progressive, holistic and non-invasive way.

I believe that spas can make a contribution to wellness and beauty by working on vital energy without risks and as a byproduct of generally accepted spa treatments. We feel gratified when our clients get off the table and declare, "I feel better!" This happens when the flow of vital energy is stimulated and balanced as a result of our treatments. The notion of prevention is also central to energy work. It is at the core of Phytobiodermie® not only to address skin conditions but to maintain balanced skin at its best. Our mission is to educate professionals to the possibilities of TCM and present them with the solutions we offer to spas and wellness centers.

My Story

My first career was in hotel management. My desire was to do something on my own that had some relationship to the hospitality industry. Then I became exposed to a Swiss company that was manufacturing natural skincare products with a unique method based on the energetic principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). This company was called Phytobiodermie.®

Interestingly, my father was a French medical doctor who became a doctor of TCM. As a teenager, my sprains and various ailments were treated with acupuncture and other energy medicine modalities. I was enchanted to realize that no other competitors had the approach of this company and that I had an affinity for the uniqueness of its TCM-based method. The deciding factor was my discovery of the high commitment this company had to its philosophy encapsulated in its motto:

Beauty Is Health Made Visible!

This led to the acquisition of the Swiss company in 1997. Then in 1998 we started the US distribution company which is now based in Central Florida. 

Having anticipated that the spa demand would boom, it was clear that the better hotels and resorts would look for solutions to meet customer demand while creating competitive advantages for themselves. My vision was to offer a wellness space program resting on three premises: 

• All vital energy medicines postulate that the body is not simply matter but vital energy as well.

• TCM teaches that skin conditions and body shapes are telltale signs of what is going on internally.

• Treatments and products need to be selected not only according to the needs of each individual but also with consideration for the effects of each energetic season of which there are five in TCM.

That is a unique specialty of Phytobiodermie.®

The Practical Way to Wellness

From Lao Tzu to Einstein and David Bohn, what do we learn that can help us improve our sense of wellness? The validation by Quantum physics of energy medicine principles has deep and practical applications in helping everyone feel better ─

a pre-requisite to looking good.

All energy medicines teach that the body is not simply vital matter but vital energy as well. In fact, it is more and more understood that the visible body is complemented by an invisible complex of energy fields. 

The 5 Element Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine, with philosophical roots in Taoism, offers simple guidelines to understand the energetic root cause of skin conditions, generally attributed to some aspects of vital energy out of balance. This dictates that all beauty treatments (face and body) should have a vital energy balancing element. In order to do so, the technician needs to have genuine energetic tools that are natural and holistic.

The PHYTO 5 skincare line is formulated with high-grade, natural, essential oils blended for their energetic properties. The products have been tested and proven to contribute to vital-energy balancing, according to the 5 Elements (phases or aspects) of vital energy. The products give highly satisfactory result when used according to an energetic understanding of the body. The reflexive properties of the skin make it possible for “energetic” topical products to become active in a noninvasive way, as it accesses and balances vital energy. It allows aestheticians and massage therapists to address the energetic root cause of skin problems, and of body shape. It is particularly helpful when personalizing an anti-aging regimen. 

Learn how to achieve lasting, superior, results with a strong wellness solution. Indeed, vital energy balancing is the best way to practice prevention according to all energy medicines. Visit: www.Phytobiodermie.com and www.Energetic-Skincare.com 

Mind Over Body

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, there is an ancestral knowledge that each major emotion has a seat within an organ. For example, anger is an emotion linked to liver. A chronically angry person will not, as a result, have a healthy liver even if his diet is otherwise perfect. Consequently, he may display the physical symptoms of a Wood energetic imbalance. (Please see previous posts about the season of Spring/Wood in Traditional Chinese Medicine and how we work in harmony with it in Phytobiodermie's skincare system.)

His book, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Deepak Chopra, M.D. tells us that it is increasingly recognized that beliefs and emotions affect the cells of specific organs, even of the entire body.

We gain balance when there is coherence between what we believe, what we think, and what we do. That is why there is a difference between various types of exercises based on the intent and focus given them during our practice. Certain exercises such as tai chi and yoga engage intent and breathing to direct energy throughout the body. At the beginning, practicing with an instructor helps to focus on the breath and every part of the body engaged in the specific position or asana. It develops intent in a conscious action. It focuses mind over body. This model can be opposed to the more traditional mode of exercising in popular health clubs where music is blasting in one's ears, not to simply provide rhythm but to get the mind off the unpleasantness of physical effort. There is voluntary disconnection between mind and body and a lost opportunity to have one exert control over the other.

To Know Harmony ...

To know harmony

is to know what’s eternal.

To know what’s eternal

is enlightenment.

Increase of life is full of portent:

the strong heart exhausts the vital breath.

The full-grown is on the edge of age.

Not the Way.

What’s not the Way soon dies.

[ Lao Tzu ]