Raw Gaia
100% living - organic - vegan
Lisa Lennon, together with her partner Hector, founded a company called Raw Gaia, the world’s first range of skin care products made using only 100% living, organic and vegan ingredients. Here Lisa tells us why 'Raw' is just so good for your skin and a life force in itself...

Please allow me to tell you a little bit about how all this started. For years, I had been looking for a really good moisturizer, whose ingredients would get as close to nature as possible (without having to resort to covering my face with avocado!) and that would be free of any chemical and toxic ingredients.

I was unable to find anything suitable, so I started experimenting in the kitchen, doing some research and eventually came up with what we now call “For Her Daughters Living Moisturizer”. I was amazed with the results on my skin, so I gave it to quite a few people to try. The feedback and response was so wonderful, that it led us to start selling this moisturiser and then develop a whole range of skin care products.

Why are skin care products made with raw, living ingredients better for you? Simply because the natural ingredients still retain all their life energy, antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and essential fatty acids and therefore your skin is truly nourished.

This is the way it works:
• The life energy in the ingredients is highly nourishing and healing.
• Antioxidants help to reverse skin ageing and inflammation and help heal scar tissue.
• Minerals play a key role in beautifying the skin, hair and nails. Sulphur, for instance, is a central component of collagen and connective tissue, which provides elasticity & flexibility to the tissues.
• Vitamins such as A, C and E are moisturizing, soothing and healing to the skin.
• Essential fatty acids help to remove toxins from tissues.

	Lisa making Body Bars

Now, a crucial aspect is this: To ensure that the life force and all these nutrients are retained, skin care products MUST be made at temperatures below 40C. If ingredients are heated above this level during the manufacturing process, most of the antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and the life force in the ingredients are destroyed. A good example of this is cold-pressed olive oil, which has long been considered a topical remedy for wrinkles and facial lines. Not surprisingly, olive oil is the best source of raw vitamin E. However, it is also is extremely sensitive to temperature and light and becomes completely corrupted when heated.

This point is so important, that I would like to elaborate a little more. Heated oils and fats when used in skin care products –even in the so-called most natural ones- are actually one of the worst offenders to skin beauty. They contain highly toxic transfatty acids, which may be absorbed into the cell membranes, causing them to become porous and weak. Heating oils and fats also leads to the creation of free radicals, which are unstable oxygen molecules that have lost an electron. Collagen, a protein molecule that constitutes 80% of the dermis, is particularly susceptible to free radical damage, which includes wrinkles, lingering scars and stiff collagen.

In contrast, cold-pressed fats and oils kept at low temperatures help to beautify the skin, strengthen the cell membranes and restore nutrients to the tissues.

Because all Raw Gaia products are made with 100% organic, natural and living ingredients, infused with essential oils of the highest quality, through a special, low temperature process, they are very, very effective. Many people have mentioned to us that their skin starts to feel firmer and softer, blemishes and dark patches start to disappear, that their eczema has improved after using our products, etc.

For your information, our skin care range is certified by The Vegan Society and is not tested on animals. As much as possible, we source our ingredients through fairtrade. We do not use anything nasty like any petrochemicals, artificial colourants and parfums, glycols, lauryl sulphates, parabens, preservatives, synthetic additives, bulking agents or hidden ingredients.



Click here to view Raw Gaia products at The Natural Store. We will be adding to our Raw Gaia range over the next couple of weeks >>