Photo by Juliane Huang

Would you call me crazy if I told you you can smooth your skin, clear your pores and soften your hair with only a few simple ingredients probably already found in your kitchen? Yogurt, honey, oatmeal and almonds. Yeah, you probably would. “That’s not beauty,” you might tell me. “That’s breakfast.”

You wouldn’t be the first.

Think of it this way: would you eat that honey almond mask you find at the pharmacy? What about the cucumber sugar scrub you just bought for thirty dollars or more at your local Body Products Galore Store? Then why would you put in on your skin?

And I’ve personally used each of these numerous times and have always been happier with the results than with any product I’ve bought.

Still not convinced? OK. To prove how beneficial these home-made products can be, I enlisted the help of the Matador Life team in testing out my favorite beauty concoctions.

All the ingredients necessary. Hungry yet?

Yogurt, Honey & Oatmeal Mask

Like it sounds. You mix plain yogurt, raw honey and rolled oatmeal together in a bowl until it’s a spreadable consistency. Put on your face and relax for about half an hour. Wash off. The oatmeal is best when slightly ground, but you still want a bit of texture to it.

This mixture is particularly good for dry and especially inflamed skin. Obviously this applies to slight inflammation. If you have a weeping rash, go to a doctor. This bit of breakfast cereal won’t help. If you have a bit of redness, though, oatmeal can soothe and smooth your skin. The yogurt tones and moisturizes while honey has gentle antibiotic properties.

The lovely Candice Walsh roped her roommate Renee into the process and had the following to say after applying this mask to her face.

Candice is ready to put oatmeal on her face.

It was ridiculously easy to make, more enjoyable with a teaspoon of honey to get started. A small amount of each is more than enough.

Renee — my roomie — and I spread it on our faces. The texture was weird for a facial, gritty, but the mixture was extremely cool and felt nice to apply. Both of us are redheads, so our skin has been through sheer hell with this Canadian winter. We’re very prone to dryness and irritation.

After 30 minutes, the facial starts to harden and become crusty, but not so that it becomes uncomfortable. Renee and I both agreed when we washed it off that our faces felt nice…really moisturized but without the greasiness.

You can modify this recipe to include finely ground almonds instead of oatmeal for a gentle scrub and extra moisturizing.

Avocado Skin Treatment For Dry Skin

As with all these treatments, they’re fantastically simple. Step one: Mash an avocado. Step two: Mix with a bit of plain yogurt and raw honey. Put on any body part you want to be more moist than it was before.

The inimitable Nick Rowlands roped his mother and brother into testing this mask. He provided us with ongoing commentary before and after they slathered this taco topping on various parts of their bodies.

Before:

Top: before; Bottom: after!

Nick: “OK. According to my editor, Leigh, this thing is great to put anywhere you want to feel more moist. How do you feel about that?”

Jamie: [Sniggers] “I’m all oily and greasy coz I’ve been working all day. Feel a bit of trepidation about putting avocado on my face because avocadoes are for eating. Not for putting on your face!”

Mum: “What a waste of a good avocado! I’m a bit apprehensive. I won’t like the gunginess of it.”

After:

Me: “So, how do you feel now?”

Mum: “I’m positively glowing, but it made my nose red.”

Jamie: “I’m gonna go home and watch the Sex and the City movie!”

Mum: “And I’m going to save some in a pot and do a face mask before Frances’ wedding.” [Frances is Nick's sister. She's getting married on Saturday.]

It concerns me, though, that anyone felt itchiness or tightness while wearing the mask. This should not happen with this or any other of these recipes. Also, it should not make your nose or any part of your face red. The ingredients are extremely gentle and if you feel any discomfort, wash it off immediately.

And of course, congratulations Frances and the Rowland family. I’m so glad my little avocado concoction could be part of the pre–wedding week. Oh, and Jamie, don’t blame my mask for your desire to watch Sex and the City. If you suddenly had the yen, that’s all you.

Herbal Facial Steam

This is my favorite. It’s relaxing and helps clean your face. Also, if you have a cold or allergies, it can help clear out your head a bit. You’ll find yourself sweating quite a bit with your head over the water. Again, nothing should hurt or burn.

Take any of the following plants, flowers or herbs: Chamomile, mint, calendula, basil, rosemary, lavender. Whatever you use should be dried. Boil water and pour over the herb(s) of your choice. Tent a towel over your head and let the steam and herbs from the bowl comfortably wash over your face for about ten minutes.

Chamomile will help dry an oily face but also works for nervous tension. Rosemary is a bit more drying and will also help with acne. Basil is good for overall relaxation. Mint stimulates. Lavender is gentle, helps with just about anything from stress to insect bites to rashes to really anything. Calendula is antibacterial and helps clear out pores. Mullein can help clear your sinuses.

Photo by: Mel B.

Oil & Sugar Body Scrub

Take any oil you want. Almond, sesame, peanut, cocoa and olive oil are heavier and better for dry skin. Grapeseed or sunflower oil are good for more sensitive or oilier skins.

Fill a bowl with about one cup of sugar. Then slowly add oil, mixing with a chopstick until you have a consistency you like. Some people like it looser and oilier, but you want it so that most of the oil is mixed in and not floating around. You can also add ground herbs or essential oils to this.

This is great to use in the shower. You rub the scrub slowly over your skin in the shower, then rinse off when you’re done. Careful not to slip. It is after all, oil.

Deep Conditioning Hair Mask

Heating the mixture in a hot water bath.

Take one egg and about 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a heat safe dish. Mix together well. Then heat.

Heat a pot with about 1 inch of water. Put the dish in and let the mixture heat up very gently, mixing the entire time. When it starts to emulsify or look more thick and cohesive, take it off the heat. It should still be comfortable to touch with your bare hands. You can also heat it in the microwave. Heat for 2-3 seconds. See if it’s warm. If not, try another 2 seconds. It happens very quickly.

Too hot and the egg begins to scramble. If that happens, just keep scrambling and put it on some good bread with cheese and a dash of hot sauce.

Assuming you don’t overcook, the next step is to slather the stuff all over your hair. Cover hair in a plastic bag. Cover plastic bag with a towel and sit and relax. My hair is extremely thick and dry, so I find I can’t leave this on for long enough. The more the better. If your hair is thinner, more oily, try for 15-30 minutes.

The fabulous Juliane Huang slapped this eggy mixture on her long strong locks e-mailed the results at the end:

Juliane has egg in her hair.

The hair mask was very easy to do, and my hair is feeling super soft and silky right now– success! I had heard about this mask years ago, but never got around to trying it. Plus didn’t know specific instructions so got really interested when you told me about it.

It totally smells like egg, though. I suppose because the mixture was heated, it brought out the egg smell more? The smell disappeared after I washed it out.

End result– soft, silky, and not limp! that’s usually my problem with conditioners; they tend to weigh down my hair and make it really flat and limp. This mask doesn’t do that AND still conditions!

Some last notes: It’s better to use raw honey and ingredients that are as unprocessed as possible and don’t contain any ingredients other than itself. So no flavored oatmeals, sugared yogurts or salted nuts.

So there you have it. Cheap easy methods you can take directly from your kitchen.

Thank you to Candice, Juliane and the Rowlands for being such good sports and for teaching me the word gungi.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Learn more about herbal remedies and other simple methods of keeping yourself healthy and relaxed both on the road and at home in Matador’s Travel Heath section. For more information about potential herbs to use, check out 10 HerbsTo Use For Common Ailments.

Photo by Denise Finzer /Feature photo by Kendra Wivell

Why? Because Facebook “does not allow photos that attack an individual or group, or that contain nudity, drug use, violence, or other violations of the Terms of Use.

What was the photo? It was Emma breastfeeding her two children a mere six hours after the birth of her second. Now look at all the other photos shown in this essay. They too have been banned by Facebook.

Photo by Emma Kwasnica

Each represents an incredibly private moment between mother and child, yes. But do they represent content that is “hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”

Facebook says yes.

A Brief History of the Debate

Kelli Roman founded the Facebook fan group Hey Facebook, Breastfeeding Is Not Obscene after a photo of hers was deleted from her profile. Soon after, the group’s supporters hosted an online nurse-in to protest. Heather Farley, whose photo can also be found in this essay, organized the physical nurse in at Facebook, Inc. headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

Now it looks that there may be a class action lawsuit against Facebook. Those potentially leading the suit charge that while Facebook allows plenty of breast photos, it seems that breastfeeding ones have been specifically targeted for removal.

Hmmm, maybe that’s be the reason Facebook failed to return my repeated calls?

What Does Facebook Have To Say?

After the online and physical nurse-ins at Facebook headquarters, Facebook representative Barry Schnitt spoke to the press.

We agree that breastfeeding is natural and beautiful and we’re very glad to know that it is so important to some mothers to share this experience with others on Facebook. We take no action on the vast majority of breastfeeding photos because they follow the site’s Terms of Use. Photos containing a fully exposed breast (as defined by showing the nipple or areola) do violate those Terms and may be removed. These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users, including the many children (over the age of 13) who use the site.

Of course, Facebook does not address why the female nipple is objectionable yet the male nipple is not. Nor does Facebook explain why classic art imagery of Mary breastfeeding baby Jesus would be removed. Nor do we know why photos of mothers breastfeeding older children that show no exposed nipple or areola would present a danger to children.

Meanwhile, many legitimate groups and individual profiles display full and partial nudes and exposed breasts presented in a sexual or other non-breastfeeding related manner, yet those photos do not seem to be banned with equal frequency as breastfeeding photos.

What Is Their Policy?

It’s important to remember that Facebook itself does not choose photos for removal. Instead, they rely on community members to report photos they deem to fall outside of Terms of Service guidelines. The photos then go to a team of people within Facebook who make the final determination.

Dr. Paul Rapoport — the founder of Topfree Equal Rights Association an Ontario based group that advocates equal rights for women to go topless — believes Facebook’s policy to be random and impossible to enforce in any fair manner.

How they choose what they choose is an unanswerable question. They hire a bunch of people who don’t seem to have training. You can see from the photos that have been deleted there’s not much of a pattern to it. It’s sloppy and careless. With that kind of capricious nonsense, you can’t form any kind of rule.

In response to the Facebook bans, Paul published an entire section on his website of banned breastfeeding photos.

What Do Facebook Users Have to Say?

April Purinton posted this photo of herself tandem feeding her twins Rhys and Quin.

Photo by April Purinton

There is nothing in this photo that directly violates the guidelines Facebook determines. Yet her photo was removed with only an e-mail to let her know. She wasn’t even told which photo was removed, although it wasn’t difficult to ascertain.

“After three years of infertility and a traumatic and pre-term birth, I finally tandem nursed my babies successfully for the first time. Facebook told me this picture was offensive. And warned me that they will delete my account if I continue to break the rules.”

That same blog post includes examples of non-breastfeeding photos April found on Facebook that show the same amount of exposed breast, yet hers was singled out for removal.

The Cultural Aspects of Breastfeeding

Comments on a recent article on The Traveler’s Notebook highlight how different cultures and religions may inherently find an exposed breast to be offensive. Matador intern Heather Carreiro says she would feel uncomfortable sharing this photo with many of the people she knows from her time living and teaching in Pakistan.

It’s basically about the cultural relativism of modesty. In context of Pakistan and northern India, women — outside of posh areas — are expected to be covered. Leaving your dupatta (large scarf) at home or not using it fully cover your chest – in addition to your clothing – is seen as being close to naked. Even just seeing the contours of a woman’s body often makes people uncomfortable. With that in mind, you might be able to imagine how my sharing a link [with an exposed breast] would be kind of like sending a link to an X-rated site

007 Breastfeeding publishes a collection of person-on-the-street comments, asking people worldwide for their views on breastfeeding in public.

Breast feeding is very common in Pakistan. Even working women take babies to their working places and feed them. It is free source of pure milk, full of vitamins and protein. According to Islamic teaching, there is emphasis on mothers to adopt breast feeding for their babies up to two year duration.

Photo by Heather Farley

Coincidentally or not, the World Health Organization also suggests two-years as the optimal time for mothers to breastfeed their children.

In fact, many countries, often considered as part of the imprecisely-titled undeveloped world consider breastfeeding to be the primary form of feeding infants and young children. In Ghana, where bottle feeding is for orphans, “if a baby cries and you do not breastfeed, people draw the conclusion the baby is not yours.”

But What About the So-Called Developed World?

In the United States, Canada and Europe, we regularly see partially nude women on television, movies and in advertisements. Even children’s movies include characters who expose almost as much breast as April Purinton or Emma Kwasnica do in their photos.

Why the disparity?

Why are western, non-religion based cultures so comfortable with breasts but not breastfeeding? What is it that causes so many western women to see two years of breastfeeding as an acceptable norm for women in these developing countries and yet not for themselves?

Economics certainly can play a large role in that. Let’s say you’re working a full time job. Are facilities available for you to breastfeed your child at work? Doubtful. It’s also likely your child will be at a daycare in another part of town and thus impossible for you to breastfeed.

If you still prefer your child receive breastmilk, you will then have to pump.

Photo by Anne Hinze

Which, if you’ve never pumped, as I assume a large percentage of the population has not, can be done by hand or with a machine.

Either way, it can be time consuming and often yield frustrating results as many women who could successfully breastfeed their children often will not find the same milk yield through the pump.

Economics, though, is most certainly not the entire story.

Says Iris Marion Young in The Politics of Women’s Bodies:

Patriarchal logic defines an exclusive border between motherhood and sexuality. The virgin or the whore, the pure or the impure, the nurturer or the seducer is either asexual mother or sexualized beauty, but one precludes the other. Breasts are a scandal because they shatter the border between motherhood and sexuality.

Have we become so conditioned as a society to see the female body as purely sexual that we have lost touch with reality?

Emma Kwasnica explains her point of view. “Breasts have the primary function of feeding babies.” While breasts do play a role in initiating the reproductive process, the reality is, they are one of many erogenous zones that come into play. There’s only one part of the body that produces milk enough to sustain a child for the first year of life.

Breasts are not biologically intended to solely play a sexual role in our lives, just as childbirth cannot exist independently of the sexual act. Yet somehow images of sexuality that include pregnancy, breastfeeding or other images of motherhood are considered perverse, obscene and pornographic.

Photo by David Miller

The community led banning of honest, normal photos of motherhood and the human body hints at a much larger issue.

It shows a slice of society that seeks to disassociate humans from their nature, ultimately turning women into large, empty breasted dolls designed for sexual pleasure and caricaturing men as primarily sexual beasts who have lost the capacity for multi-faceted thought in relation to the women with whom they attempt to mate.

In truth, divorcing form from function of the human body does us all a huge disservice. Are you suddenly no longer beautiful and sexual because you have become pregnant? What happens after labor and delivery? Will a man no longer be attracted to his female partner because he’s watched her give birth or breastfeed? Surely we are far more complicated and less capricious beings than that?

Barry Schnitt claims Facebook believes breastfeeding to be natural, beautiful and healthy. Based on the photos you see here and the guidelines presented by Facebook, does his statement ring true in your ears?

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Breastfeeding and childbirth tie in closely to discussions of self-esteem and body image. How does the leaning to say only certain types of bodies or body parts are appropriate for public exposure while other types must hidden play itself out both as a cultural phenomenon and on the ways we see ourselves?

Photo by Peter Rivera

BeautifulPeople.com, a controversial social network, has cut thousands of profiles from their website because of apparent holiday weight gain. Many people who posted photos of themselves after vacation were voted off the site by other kill-joy members who disapproved of their indulgences.

The following is a recent quote from the site founder, Robert Hintze:

“As a business, we mourn the loss of any member, but the fact remains that our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld.

Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.”

I’m not kidding, I can’t make this stuff up.

Photo by Matt Forsythe

Just how many people were expelled? 1520 Americans, 832 Brits, and hundreds of Canadians, Polish, and Germans. I can’t decide which fact disturbs me more, the shallowness of the site’s goals or the number of people who actually have/had accounts.

Here’s something else interesting. BeautifulPeople.com also offers a Business Area where people can view business and employment opportunities…restricted to beautiful people? Are brains at all a requirement?

Somehow I can’t see how a business can succeed if its number one requirement is attractiveness, unless it’s the Playboy Mansion. That’s not to say, of course, that beautiful people can’t have brains. But if you’re trying to find a job or expand a business, some ethical issues definitely arise when advertising to a website where only the high cheek-boned, slim waisted population is allowed to apply.

However, there’s no need to fret over the recent cut of members, because BeautifulPeople.com has sent emails to all ex-members encouraging them to reapply once they get back into shape. Nothing screams motivation like having thousands of users around the world vote you off a social network for being a fattie. Perhaps those voted off can try a more logical approach, like having endless plastic surgery to resemble Barbie or Jessica Rabbit.

Ah, BeautifulPeople.com. I may never join your high ranks of shallowness, but at least I’m not the annoying wiener at the holiday dinner party turning up my nose at a slice of pizza because I’m afraid of calories. Now pass me a beer and shut up.

Community Connection

How do you feel about social networks which judge people solely on appearance? Share your thoughts, or spread some positive self-image.

It’s incredible how a few kind words go such a long way. These creative notes left in random places show just how simple it is to make someone’s day.

Notes enroute

Photo by JoAnna Haugen

Photo by JoAnna Haugen

JoAnna combined her passion for travel with Operation Beautiful to spread the word while on the road. The first note was left on the tray tables in row 12 of Alaska Airlines flight 610 from Las Vegas to Seattle, while the second note was left on a bathroom door in Seattle’s Sea-Tac airport.

Dance to feel beautiful

Photo by Karin Norgard

Karin Norgard, a dance teacher in Alaska, shares her thoughts on the project:

I love dance because it makes people feel more confident about, expressive with, and connected to their bodies. So when I heard about Operation Beautiful, I immediately posted a note to my dance students at the health club in Anchorage, Alaska, where I teach. Its message not only builds up men and women who may feel self-conscious as they learn and start to open up, it reminds me why I love dancing and teaching my passion to others. It has also given me an extra dose of inspiration when writing articles on dance for my website, Joy in Motion. The response I get from a simple post-it note and from my articles is one and the same: people are excited about learning to love their bodies as well as their spirits.

Reaching out to all generations

Photo submitted by Ann Schroeder

Ann Schroeder of Relate Magazine, an online publication dedicated to inspiring teens to follow their dreams with confidence, wrote us to say the magazine had recently partnered with Caitlin and Operation Beautiful to reach the Relate audience. She writes: “The most memorable and surprising submissions were from the age groups which submitted. We had women from their offices submitting as well as teens submitting. It was a great feeling to see these notes start flooding in.”

The note above, posted to a co-worker’s computer screen, was submitted by a woman working in an office in St. Louis.

Dare to be humiliated

Photo by Joannaline C. Young

Joannaline, a MatadorU student, was so inspired by the Operation Beautiful project that she also wrote about it at WorldNewsVine. She posted seven post-its in seven different magazines, using Spanish to appeal to a wider audience. She writes: “I looked around me about every 2 seconds to make sure no one knew what I was doing. I pretended to take out a book from the shelf as people walked by. At every snapshot, I felt a rush of adrenaline immediately followed by a sense of triumph.” She concluded the possibility of humiliation was definitely worth it.

Starting with the kids

Photo by Debbie Oser

Debbie Oser is a “mompreneur” raising two boys, ages five and eight. Her company, Keeping it Positive, sells Positive Affirmation products. She writes: “I started the business after seeing how Positive Affirmations changed our sons’ attitude and behavior to be more self-assured and confident. I knew that I wanted to help spread this confidence to as many children and adults as I could.”

Debbie posted her note in the girls bathroom of her son’s elementary school in North Wales, PA.

Musical inspiration

Photo by JeBron

Singer/songwriter JeBron left this note in his home in Atlanta, Georgia, for a loved one to find. He says, ”When I placed this post-it, I was thinking to myself, what could I do to make a woman feel beautiful?”

Those tough decisions

Photo by Sarah Nelson

Sarah describes this note posted in Austin, Texas, as “decision making made beautiful.”

Thanks everyone, for your creative contributions!

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

How do you help reinforce positive body images? Share your comments below.

Photos courtesy of Operation Beautiful.

  
Already a strong advocate for ending the negative buzz about obesity, or “Fat Talk,” Caitlin was inspired by Gives Me Hope – a site where users can share stories of random acts of kindness – to embark on her own mission to change the world’s perception of beauty. Operation Beautiful was born.
 
The rules are simple: 1) write something motivational on a piece of paper, stick it in a public place (like a bathroom mirror), and 2) include the website address to share the love.

Sceptical that such a simple act of kindness can positively affect someone? The following are just two examples of the many comments from the mission page:
 

I went into the bathroom today and saw a stick note: “You are beautiful the way you are. operationbeautiful.com.” I smiled and pulled out a camera. Later, I heard some girls in class describe it as “cute” and one went and pulled it down to keep. It was very encouraging.

im only a kid BUT I LOVE THIS IDEA! i want to do it at school and everywhere! (i’m 12) YOU ARE AWESOME!!!!!!

Chatting with Caitlin via email, I asked whether she was surprised about the success of her project and the willingness of people to participate. Here’s what she said:
 

“Operation Beautiful started on a whim.  I was having a bad day, and I wanted to do something nice for someone else, and I know that random acts of kindness make me feel good!  I wrote the words “You are beautiful” on a piece of paper, stuck it to a mirror, took a picture, and asked the readers of my personal blog to participate.  At the time, I never knew how huge Operation Beautiful would become, but in hindsight, I am not surprised.”

Submission Guidelines:

Readers, get out there and start reversing negative body images and attitudes. Write something motivational on a piece of paper, include the web address operationbeautiful.com, and stick it in a place where someone else is sure to find it, like a co-worker’s desk or inside a gym locker.

Bonus points for Creativity!

Then take a photograph of your creation and attach it in an email to candice@matadornetwork.com or leigh@matadornetwork.com with the subject line “Operation Beautiful.”

We’ll select our favorites to share on Matador Life.

Be sure to include: information about where you left your post it (ie city, town, country, specific location). Optional to include: any stories you’d like to share about why you chose to post where you did or any reactions to it. You can remain anonymous but if you’d like to include your personal blog or webpage, let us know..

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