The Miracle of Shiso

Did you know that same ingredient they serve with the popular Japanese culinary specialty sashimi (freshly prepared raw fish) is the same stuff that contains potent ingredients to beautiful radiant skin?

For over a thousand years, Asian herbalists have noticed that Shiso plants have the ability to survive the most extreme droughts and climatic conditions, as well as helping the surrounding plants to grow. As a result, Shiso has become the jewel of Japanese culinary art, as well as an important ingredient in macro biotic food because of its healing powers. Shiso is used in salads, spaghetti, meat dishes and it is also prepared as a flavorful herb in a variety of dishes, including Japanese pizza (Okonomiyaki) topping.

Shiso provides a strong taste with intensity that might be compared to that of a mint. Shiso is rich in omega-3 fatty acid and alpha-linolenic acid with anti-inflammatory properties and has a prominent anti-oxidant effect. With Shiso’s valuable properties, it is widely used in medical, food, and cosmetic industries worldwide.

With today's increasing environmental hazards and the damaging rays of the sun, Shiso is the miracle ingredient to prevent your skin from pre-mature aging. And for the first time in cosmetic history, THANN's research and development team combines art and science to unlock the miracle of Shiso!!!

THANN have successfully dissolved the Nano Shiso in Rice Bran Oil without using any chemical intervention, which means it has pure and concentrated ingredients to help give you that soft and smooth skin!  THANN Shiso Collection contains Vitamin B1 & B2 to protect and revive skin cells by providing anti-oxidant benefits that are more effective than any artificial anti-oxidant in the market. When massaged on skin, the Nano Shiso particles combined with Rice Bran Oil will easily absorb into skin, providing various benefits as natural anti-oxidant, moisturizer and emollient. 

Take advantage of this week's Thann Special Promo! Go and visit http://www.thann.ca/ for more details!





Thann Thursday: Discover the Rice Collection

  

If there's one thing strikingly noticeable about Asian women is that they have (in general) beautiful, luminous skin. It's not a secret that they have a strict regimen of both skin care and diet that provides that inherent glow but there is also something that have been kept a secret from the West until recently.

Today, let's unravel that secret...

Rice Bran Oil.

What is it you ask? Despite its uncommon use in skincare in the West, this oil has a long and successful history in Japan where women, known as the “Rice Bran Beauties” have been using the oil on their face and body for hundreds of years. Rice Bran Oil is the oil extracted from the germ and inner husk of rice. Rice bran Oil has been shown to reverse the effects of aging by slowing the formation of wrinkles thanks to its concentration of three Vitamin E's.

 

Rice Bran Oil is full of antioxidants, such as Vitamin E, ferulic acid, linoleic acid, oleic acid, palmitic acid, and oryzanol. The oil acts as both a carrier and emollient. In Japan, Rice Bran Oil is used as a skin and hair beauty enhancer. It is also used throughout the world in a variety of cosmetics, especially for those that treat dry and mature skin. 

Benefits of Rice Bran Oil

* High in antioxidants to fight free radicals and aid in slowing down the effects of aging.

* Considered to be hypoallergenic, making it ideal for clients even with the most sensitive skin.

* Protect collagen and elastin to maintain the suppleness of your skin.

* High in fatty acids, making it very beneficial for mature, delicate and sensitive skin.

* The small molecules enable it to penetrate into the skin without being greasy.

Did you know that Rice Bran Oil is the key ingredient in Thann’s skin care products? Only the highest quality of Rice Bran Oil is used in Thann products to provide all the benefits that it has to offer. Today is the perfect time to try the benefits of this century old Asian beauty secret! From now until August 17th, you get 20% OFF discount on all items in the Rice Collection:

Try Thann’s beautiful range of natural Bath & Massage Oils (containing 95% of rice bran oil), which can also be used as intensive weekly moisturizing treatments. For face care, The Rice Collection also contains a high percentage of Rice Bran Oil. 

Lastly, for lips so soft and smooth, don't forget to pick up the Rice Extract Lip Balm! With Aloe and Rice Bran Extract, the soft and smooth texture of this Thann lip balm enriches your lips with natural plant extracts that moisturizes and nourishes all day and all night long.



The Ultimate Grand Prize



We can't even tell you how excited we are to share this amazing news with you! Just over a week ago, after all the hard work and the unbelievable long hours over the course of a year, we finally got THERE!

Got where you ask?



Well, we finally broke into the United States market via our highly anticipated premiere at ShopNBC!!!

And broke into the US we did! We had an incredibly successful stint that we actually sold out a few of our top best sellers within minutes! Hence, the free flow of champagne, the abundance of delicious mini cupcakes and the endless joyful laughter at Friday night's celebration party!



It was perhaps one of the most adrenaline-pumped hour of our lives!

The amazing and luxurious Thann Body Butter.



We also had a superbly successful Twitter campaign, headed by Twenty York Street, which created the perfect amount of buzz we needed to accompany our long-awaited debut at ShopNBC!



Super delicious mini cupcakes courtesy of: Little Cakes.

We are very, very happy about this and we would like to share this huge success with you - our loyal clients and friends! In honour of Thann's major milestone, we have joined forces with one of our closest partners in the hospitality industry, the famous Arc Hotel, to give you:

The Ultimate Thann + Arc Hotel Grand Prize Give-away!

Ottawa's first luxury hotel, the Arc Hotel is dubbed by Time Magazine as "The Place to stay in the Nation's Capital!" Imagine an urban oasis that welcomes guests to a place of luxury and design, an unmatched sophistication that will give you an experience like no other.

Are you ready to hear the details of the Ultimate Thann + Arc Hotel Grand Prize Give-away?

Your Ultimate Arc Hotel experience is so incredible, we are so excited to share these details with you:

• One night stay in a MAJESTIC KING ROOM
• VIP Valet Parking
• Belgium Chocolates
• Sparkling Wine upon arrival
• Arctinis
• Breakfast for 2 

And if all these are not enough, how about a huge beautiful basket of Thann's best and most coveted products?

Absolutely brilliant, right?!

 

To enter, all you simply have to do is follow THANN Skincare and Arc the Hotel in Twitter and Facebook and submit your entry (in Twitter or Facebook) by filling in the blanks:

My favourite @thannskincare product is ____ and I deserve @arcthehotel stay because ____.

So, what are you waiting for? Go and enter, now!

Good luck!

Photos courtesy of: CL Buchanan Photography.



What Makes Her A Natural Beauty?

Platinum blonde and the fake n’ bake are a thing of the past. This rang true to me during a recent visit to Vancouver Island, where hippie-chic, au-natural beauty is the norm. In a city where most would tell you that a male:female ratio of 1:7 makes for a highly competitive dating market, its reassuring to see that indeed less is more. Less makeup, less product, less pressure to be anything but the natural beauty that they are.

Today’s women are celebrated not just for the natural look but for the embodying beauty holistically. And men, though we certainly do not need their approval, are just as happy as we are to ditch the superficial exterior created by chemical based cleansers and lost hours with straighteners for essential oil extracts and natural-curl comebacks. Even more, for some men, natural beauty lies not in mineral makeup and algae mascara as the natural beauty industry may have us believe, but rather – according to the handsome young man seated next to me in this café - natural beauty is “that which is there when your looks fade away.” The glowing goddess beside him reiterates that natural beauty is the “natural glow that we women exude when we are able to define ourselves and simply be real”.

The city of Victoria, B.C. proudly houses many naturally beautiful faces and spaces. Women wander with Pacific Ocean infused locks and sulfate free skin – shining amidst the gloomy backdrop that is West coast weather. One natural beauty explains

“I moved to Victoria because I felt I could be me here. Everything is more natural. When you bike to work and head to yoga at lunch, you don’t worry so much about uncomfortable shoes and eye liner. You usually get rained on anyway and end up looking worse. We have some of the lowest cancer rates here in B.C. and one of the healthiest populations. Natural beauty just works..."

With endless options for natural clothing stores, natural skincare stores, natural health food stores and even natural jobs, its not surprising to me that the women on Vancouver Island are paving the way for women everywhere to uncover their pores and unearth the beauty within.

*Ashley

Are All Natural Beauty Celebrations The New Tupperware Party?

21st century ladies are spending less time playing with plastic and parabens and more time nurturing their natural beauty. The 1950s marked an era where plastics were proclaimed to empower women as they returned from working in warzones to hosting tupperware parties and earning their own income in the private sphere of the home. Though the traditional Tupperware party – where a host invites over all their friends to see the product, earning profit from any sales made – still has its aficionados, the modern woman is shifting away from plastic and progressing towards purity.

Though acclaimed business-wymn Brownie Wise was the Vice-President of Tupperware and the mastermind of the Tupperware Party, this does not negate the questions raised by some feminist theorists who critique the Tupperware era for restricting women to the private sphere of the home, reinforcing traditional female roles (cooking, cleaning, homemaking) and using women as tools for consumerism and marketing. The Tupperw-era has been declared by some as a way of “preserving domesticity” (Vincent, 2008: 171) or commodifying identity and “reinforce the sexual division of labour in the family” (Banks and Zimmerman, 1987: 85). Thankfully, the modern take on the tupperware party is filled with women liberated not by food storage but by the celebration of all-natural beauty.

Spa pamper parties, natural beauty retreats, natural makeover suarez, organic pamper parties – you name it – are finding their way into women’s lives throughout Canada. Unlike the tupperware party, these gatherings contain no harmful chemicals, preservatives or synthetic additives. Nicole, a natural beauty babe from Victoria, B.C. boasts:

“We host our natural beauty parties to celebrate our respect for ourselves based on the all-natural products we choose to use on our skin. We share products, tricks (have you tried coconut oil in your hair?), tips and ultimately just enjoy the company of like-minded women who are doing something for themselves!”

Many natural beauty parties go beyond consumerism into a realm of healing and creativity. They provide a space for women to share their understandings of natural beauty. Natural beauty parties often integrate the use of natural products in massage, facials and aromatherapy and can even incorporate herbal teas, yoga, chanting and crystal healing rituals as well. What does this say about the wymn of today? Has she ditched the polymers of the past in the pursuit of purity? Judging by the attendance at our first ever Thann Natural Beauty Bash, I would certainly say so.

Until next time,

Ashley McEachern, Thann Canada

References

Vincent, Susan. May 2003. Preserving Domesticity: Reading Tupperware in Women's Changing Domestic, Social and Economic Roles in Canadian Review of Sociology, 40:2, 171-196.

Banks, Jane and Patricia Zimmerman. January 1987. The Mary Kay Way: The Feminization of a Corporate Discourse. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 11:1, 85-99

Sweetlife: Live in Style

All-Natural Thai Beauty Products at Thann
http://bit.ly/eLqBju

Sometimes an intoxicating aroma is all it takes for us to fall in love.

And that’s exactly how we fell for Thann, the country’s only store dedicated solely to all-natural, Asian-inspired skin-, hair- and body-care products from Thailand.

A heady mix of exotic scents, including orange, nutmeg and lemongrass, greeted us when we walked in. The store’s Zen ambience prompted us to linger and try some of the products.

The best-selling Shiso Body Butter ($52/350g), made with delicious-smelling cocoa butter and licorice and Shiso extracts, hydrated our thirsty skin. The Oriental Essence Aromatic Salt Scrub ($41/350g) with lemongrass oil left our skin smooth and replenished.

Truly love at first whiff.

Thann
www.thann.ca
829 Bank St.
613-667-0540


Read more: http://www.sweetspot.ca/SweetLife/shops_and_services/31209/all-natural_thai_beauty_products_at_thann/#ixzz1DVsdH3DE

Get Kissable Lips Before Valentines Day!

So you woke up to winter lips – cracked, bleeding, sore and anything but kissable. Well, you have one week to soothe those puckers back to succulent for Valentines Day dessert. Here are some tried and true au-natural tips for getting back those kissable lips!

Why Do Lips Crack?

First and foremost, let’s get to the bottom of this chap attack. The skin on your lips is much thinner then elsewhere on your body. What this means is that there is just no room for those magical little oil glands to protect, hydrate and moisturize your lips when they are attacked by free radicals. When we say free radicals, we are talking about heat (indoor and outdoor), wintertime chill, the wind, the sun and even that inevitable process of aging. Indeed the primary cause of most skin damage comes from sun damage, so slap on the sunscreen all year long, but there are loads of other tricks to stay soft this season.

Are There All-Natural Solutions To Cracked Lips?

Of course! Here are a few of the easiest all natural saviors to get you back to soft:

1) The primary cause of dryness being UV rays, make sure that your all natural balm comes with UV protection.
2) Do not bite, lick or chew your lips. This includes licking off chapstick or trying to moisten your lips. It will only make it worse.
3) Fill up on H20! Another primary cause of dryness is dehydration, so drink up – 8-10 glasses a day!
4) Renew your lipstick (or, better yet, ditch it for an all natural lip balm like Thanns’ Rice Extract Lip Balm
5) Breathe out your nose, and save your mouth the work.
6) Do not smoke. If you are smoking, chapped lips are the least of your problems. For help on quitting, check out http://www.cancergameplan.ca/
7) Exfoliate without over-exfoliating. Find that happy balance, because either extreme and your lips will notice. Do a scrub 2-3 times (max) per week, and even less if you have particularly dry skin.
8) Show in warm – not hot – water.

What All-Natural Products Can Make My Lips Kissable?

Lots! The logic is simple – you want to pack your pretty lips with vitamins b, c and e – which you will find in many natural product ingredient lists. Stick to the tried and true with hydrating lip balms based in any or many of the following natural lifesavers:

- Rice Bran Oil: Rich in essential fatty acids and vitamin E to moisturize and protect skin from free radicals.
- Aloe: Anti-inflammatory; Great for soothing lips and enhancing suppleness.
- Shea butter: Combats sun damage and adds softness.
- Almond butter: Relaxes skin tissue to prevent dryness and flakiness.
- Wheat protein: Contains proteins & amino acids.
- Beeswax: A renowned all-natural emulsifier.
- Mango: Creates a protective film over the lip that helps keep moisture in.
- Honey: An incredible moisturizer for healthy lips.
- Coconut and Sunflower Oils: Packed with Vitamin E to moisturize and hydrate.

So there it is. You have one week before puckering up and with a few minor changes to your bad habits and your natural health cupboard, your lips will be as kissable they deserve to be.