Why Arbonne? Why not (fill in the blank)...

[Kathe]

Ok so what is the big deal about Arbonne?
Why have I devoted the last 11 years of my life telling people about it?
What makes it so different than everything else out there?
Why don't I just go to (name your store) and buy whatever they are selling?
Isn't it all the same anyway?

Here is why Arbonne is different:

1. Botanically based. Most (and when I say most that means at least 95%) skin care, cosmetic and beauty products are chemical or petroleum based. Why? Because those bases are cheap to produce. You can buy a 50 gallon container of mineral oil for a few dollars. (We'll talk about mineral oil later). When you have a petroleum or chemical base it completely ruins the product. Whatever else you add to it doesn't matter because it won't absorb properly.

Arbonne uses only botanicals from plants for the base in all products. Then adds more botanicals, herbs, etc to make a complete product.

2. Gold standard ingredients. These are the absolute best ingrediants found in the world. None better. And they don't compromise. If they can't get the best, they stop selling the product until they can.

3. Formulation. Arbonne research and development (AIRD) is located in Scion Switzerland. Headed by Pierre Bottigliere who is the past president of the swiss/european cosmetics chemist society. He is one of the best formulators in the world. Ingredients must be combined in such a way that the final product actually works. It has true benefit.

4. Delivery system. Arbonne uses vitasphere which is a type of nanosphere technology. It gets vital ingredients into the skin deep and fast so they don't lose their properties.

5. pH correct. Most companies say they are pH balanced. This pretty much means that the soap is alkaline and the toner is acidic and they somehow meet in the middle. Every Arbonne product, with the exception of 2 of them, are pH correct at 5.5. Exactly what the skin needs. The 2 exceptions are the RE9 facial and body serums. They are acidic because the fruit acids help refine the face.

6. Hypoallergenic. OK this is a big one. Most companies in the US test on animals. They have to do that for safety purposes. They rarely test on humans. If they want to use hypoallergenic on their label they test on 10 humans for 3 days and if 3 or less break out they can use it. Arbonne tests EVERY product on 50 people for 14 days and must have ZERO in order to put the product to market. Not only that the studies MUST show benefit or they don't put it on the market.

7. All testing on voluntary human panels is done by independent labs.

8. Never tested on animals. We don't have to because there are no safety issues. No chemicals used.

9. No animal by-products. In fact we are VEGAN products. If you want a not-so-fun project google "animal rendering plant". You'll learn way more than you ever wanted to know about animal by-products in skin care, cosmetics and even food. (I'll never eat gelatin again)

10. Forumulated without mineral oil or petrolatum. First of all it damages the skin. It is a humectant oil, made from petroleum. Crude oil goes through a refinement process and one of the products that comes from that is mineral oil. Because it is a humectant oil it seals the skin and does not allow nutrients to penetrate or toxins to come out of the pores. It is too large to penetrate the skin. However it does draw moisture to itself and will dehydrate the skin with continued use. That's why people are addicted to chapstick. It is 42% petrolatum, another by-product of crude oil and a humectant. It can also be an allergen to many people and cause little white dots/pimples on their skin. Arbonne doesn't use ANY pertroleum product or by-product.

11. Forumulated without chemical dyes or fragrances. These can be highly allergic to many people and are just not necessary.

12. Nutritional supplements are all standardized. That means you get the same exact ingredients in every tablet, no exception.

13. Nutritional supplements meet US Pharmacopoeia (USP) disintegration time standards

14. Nutritional supplements made without dyes, colors, starch, preservatives or salt.

There you go. You get a prize if you read all of this! J/K

[Kathe]

Here are some links for you to start educating yourself on what they put in skin care and food products. We are what we eat and since our skin is like a sponge, whatever we put on our skin we basically eat. In fact, according to scientists, when you put something on your skin it is absorbed into your major organs (heart, liver, lungs, etc) within 1 minute. There is a cool experiment you can do to prove this to yourself. Take a piece of fresh garlic and place it between 2 toes. You will taste it within 1 minute.

I found the following by googling "animal rendering plant". There are lots more.

Rendering Plants Recycling of Dead Animals and Slaughterhouse Wastes

Rendering plants and health

Rendering (industrial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

I found the following by googling "gelatin".

Gelatin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Good health comes from knowing what we are eating and making good food choices. It also comes from putting things on our skin that is good for us rather than just for cosmetic purposes.

Read food labels and know what is in your skin care, body care, personal care and cosmetic products.

[Kathe]

USA Today 12/27/03

From USA Today:

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Cow parts — including hooves, bones, fat and innards — are used in everything from hand cream and antifreeze to poultry feed and gardening soils.
In the next tangled phase of the mad cow investigation, federal inspectors are concentrating on byproducts from the tainted Holstein, which might have gone to a half-dozen distributors in the Northwest, said Dalton Hobbs, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Now, it's the secondary parts, the raw material for soil, soaps and candles, that are being recalled.

While some people fear consumers could be infected by inhaling particles of fertilizer or other products containing the mutated protein responsible for mad cow disease, a bigger concern is stopping tainted byproducts from infecting animal feed, believed to be the main agent for spreading the disease.

But tracing all of the sick cow's parts to their final destination, including numerous possible incarnations in household products, has proved challenging.

"It's like the old Upton Sinclair line — 'We use everything but the squeal,'" Hobbs said. "We have nearly 100% utilization of the animal. But when you have so many niche markets, it makes it incredibly challenging to trace where this one cow may have gone."

Los Angeles-based Baker Commodities, Inc., announced Friday it has voluntarily withheld 800 tons of cow byproduct processed in its Seattle and Tacoma, Wash., plants. The company, like other "renderers," takes what is left of the cow after it is slaughtered and boils it down into tallow, used for candles, lubricants and soaps, and bone meal used in fertilizer and animal feed.

If the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determines that the material is tainted, the company's loss could total $200,000, said spokesman Ray Kelly.

"It's obviously a tragic thing for the whole beef industry, but it's definitely a sizable hit for us," he said.

Darling International, Inc., the nation's largest independent rendering operation in the U.S., has also been contacted by the FDA. But officials at their Tacoma and Portland plants, as well as at their international headquarters in Irving, Texas, declined to comment on how their operation has been affected.

"Our first priority was to make sure it didn't go into the food supply," said Hobbs, reiterating that meat sent to two Oregon distributors was recalled earlier in the week.

Companies that use bone meal from cows to create fertilizers popular with rose growers may find themselves under the spotlight. At the height of Britain's mad cow epidemic in the 1990s, three victims of the human form of mad cow were found to be gardeners.

In 1996, the Royal Horticultural Society of London released an advisory, cautioning gardeners to wear face masks after it was reported that the dust from the bone-meal soil could carry the mutated protein.

But Scientific American editor Philip Yam said there was no conclusive evidence the gardeners died from inhaling soil containing the infected cow tissue.

A far greater risk is the cow material — including roughage and offal — used in animal feed, said Yam, whose book, "The Pathological Protein," is a scientific account of the disease.

In 1997, the FDA banned cow feed that included cow byproducts, after scientists concluded that the feed was the main transmitter of mad cow disease. The disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, is found in a cow's nervous system.

Yam points out that while giving cow feed to cows was outlawed, feeding it to poultry is still legal. Some farmers, he said, are still in the habit of feeding their cows "chicken litter" — the remains of the poultry feed, scooped off the ground, feathers and all.

"It's one of those loopholes," Yam said. "It sounds good in theory — don't feed cow to cow, feed the remains to chickens. But in practice things happen."

Critics also speculate that while chickens cannot contract BSE, they could act as carriers of the disease if they pick up prions in their feed and are themselves processed into cattle feed. Consumer advocates have also questioned whether feed processing plants have all strictly separated cow feed from other feed produced at the same facilities.

The Food and Drug Administration has said it will probably write new regulations that could require companies that slaughter "downer" livestock — animals that are sick or injured — to dispose of the brain and spinal cord before mixing animal feed and pet food, expanding on the 1997 ban.

Robert Assali, who manages Southern Oregon Tallow in Eagle Point, Ore., said he sees the end of his profession if the mad cow hype continues.

"We're going to become a mortuary service — just hauling animals to landfills," Assali said.

[Kathe]

Why Are Ingredients Important?Michelle Cain

The skin is a living, dynamic and unpredictable organ, as well as the second largest functioning organ of the body. Skin protects by preventing bacteria, germs and pollutants from entering the blood steam. Everything we put on our skin is absorbed and goes through every vital organ.

Our skin breaths out waste and toxins, and takes in oxygen, moisture and nutrients. Ingredients used in most American skin care formulations contain potentially harmful ingredients, or at the very least ingredients that can cause allergic reactions. How can this happen? The FDA does not regulate what can be put into skin care products. All the cosmetic company has to do is list the ingredient and they can use it. Arbonne International products are for the discriminative label-reading consumer.

Mineral Oil The #1 most used ingredient in American skin care. A mixture of refined liquid hydrocarbons derived from petroleum. Mineral oil and all petroleum-based ingredients are products of black crude oil. Mineral oil cost about $1.00/gallon, as compared to essential oils which can cost as much as $100.00/gallon. Mineral oil’s molecular size is too large to be absorbed by the skin, thus it forms a film on the skin’s surface blocking the pores natural respiration and secretion process, as well as absorption of other nutrients.

Lanolin Oily excretion of sheep, lanolin is a common lubricating ingredient in skin formulas. Extracted from the wool, lanolin has been indicated as a cause of allergic skin reactions in sensitive people.

Collagen An animal product, collagen is added to formulas as a moisturizing agent. Collagen molecules are too large to penetrate the skin and can therefore clog pores blocking the skin’s own natural respiration and secretion process, and absorption of other nutrients.

Chemical Dyes and Fragrances Formulated chemically from a wide variety of sources. Artificial colors are known to cause allergic reactions. Chemical fragrances have been known to cause reactions and photosensitivity in some people. There are an abundance of herbs and botanicals that serve the same purpose, hence there simply is no need to add chemical dyes and fragrances to skin care formulations.

SD40 Alcohol / Alcohols Strips the skins natural acid mantle, exposing the pores to bacteria and germs. “Skin care products that strip do much more than cause skin problems, they leave pores exposed allowing bacterial growth in the pores which is where these harmful elements enter the blood stream and cause illness or even death,” reported Dr. Bruce Hensel on Day & Date.

Free Radicals & Antioxidants Free radicals are highly reactive molecules that can bind to and destroy body components. Free radical or “oxidative” damage is what makes your skin age. Free radicals have also been shown to be responsible for the initiation of many diseases, including heart disease and cancer. Antioxidants are compounds that help protect against free radical damage. Antioxidants in the form of nutritional supplements as well as topical application give you the ammunition to fight off the aging process. All of Arbonne’s moisturizers contain the most effective antioxidants to combat the visible signs of premature aging.

[Kathe]

What is in your current skin care, cosmetics and soaps?

Umm….Animal By-Products?


We hear this catch phrase all of the time “animal by-products” but who really knows what they are and where they come from? It is a nasty little secret that the cosmetic companies DON’T want you to know. I recently found out myself when I read the book, Mad Cowboy by Howard F. Lyman. In his book he writes:

“I’m a fourth generation dairy farmer and cattle rancher. I grew up on a dairy farm in Montana, and I ran a feedlot operation there for twenty years. I know first-hand how cattle are raised and how meat is produced in this country.

When a cow is slaughtered, about half of it by weight is not eaten by humans; this includes the intestines and their contents, the head, the hooves, the horns, as well as bones and blood. These are dumped into giant grinders at rendering plants, as well as the entire bodies of cows and other farm animals known to be diseased.

There is simply no such thing in America as an animal too ravaged by disease, too cancerous, or too putrid to be welcomed by the all-embracing arms of the renderer.

Another staple of the renderer’s diet, in addition to farm animals, is euthanized pets – the six or seven million dogs and cats that are killed in animal shelters every year. Added to the blend are the euthanized catch of animal control agencies, and road-kill. (Road kill is not collected daily, so in the summer, the better road kill crews can generally smell it before they can see it…) When this gruesome mix is ground and steam-cooked, the lighter, fatty material floating to the top gets refined for use in such products as cosmetics, lubricants, soaps, candles and waxes.”

“…and that, my friends, is the cold, hard truth about where the “animal by-products” come from that the cosmetic industry tries to pawn off on the American public”.

The average woman eats approximately 2 pounds of lipstick per year!