Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre to Run Courses on Natural Therapies

Starting in November 2009, Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre will begin running a series of courses covering a range of Natural Therapies.

Courses include ‘the layman’s guide to natural therapies’, which has been a popular course for people who are interested in alternative medicine and it’s range of disciplines, but because they lack information, have not yet sought such treatments.

This course will look at the major natural medicine modalities and discuss:

• What they are
• How they work
• How natural medicine and orthodox medicine can complement each other
• How natural medicine can help maintain and regain good health
• Find out which therapy is best for your particular health issue
• How to find a qualified natural therapist
• What natural therapies can and cannot do
• And much more.

Not only has this course been of interest to the lay person, but many health professionals have also attended this course with a few to find out more and increase their level of understanding about natural medicine and it’s disciplines.

“We first conceived this course over 10 years ago, because we found that people from all walks of life were increasingly interested in what natural medicine could do for them”, said Susan.

“The aim was not to sell alternative medicine, but rather to provide information that is factual and provides a more complete picture of how an individual could use natural medicine to improve their health. What surprised us initially was the high level of interest expressed by orthodox medical practitioners and nurses”, said Susan Siegenthaler, who as formulated and taught this course now for many years.

Susan is a medical herbalist and Aromatherapist with over 25 years of experience in private practice and teaching. Together with her husband and business partner Danny, a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, they’ve started their new clinic, Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre and are now offering this course free to anyone that wishes to find out more about natural medicine.

The course will be held over 4 weeks at: Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre. For more details please call (02) 5673 0784 or drop in at:
Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre
Shop 7/1147 Grose Vale Rd.,
Kurrajong Village, NSW 2758

Wildcrafted Cottage - Kurrajong Now Open

Wildcrafted Herbal Products Pty Ltd. has opened its first retail store, in Kurrajong Village, NSW, where its full range of natural skin care products is now available and on display.

Wildcrafted Cottage – Kurrajong, is the brand new retail outlet for Wildcrafted’s full range of skin, body and personal care products. “We wanted to make all our products available in one place so customers could come into our shop, sample the products, and ask questions directly from the people who make them,” said Danny Siegenthaler.

“So far our brand, Wildcrafted Herbal Products, has been primarily available via our website and to patients that come to our Clinic, but there was no specialised outlet where people could go to experience, smell, touch and try the products. Now with the opening of Wildcrafted Cottage, not only can people come and test our natural skin care products, but they can also sample our full range of personal care, hair care, Aromatherapy spa-blends and Therapeutic creams,” said Susan Siegenthaler.

The formulations of all the products throughout the entire range of Wildcrafted Herbal Products are based on the principles of herbal medicine. Susan, a renowned medical herbalist, formulated each of the products to maximise their safety and effectiveness.

Wildcrafted’s range of natural skin care products, as well as all the other products, only contain 100% natural and certified organic ingredients to ensure the highest quality, effectiveness and purity of every product.

“Over the last 25 years we’ve fine-tuned our formulations to be as safe and effective as possible”, said Susan. “My aim has always been not to just make another range of natural skin care products, but a range of products that are of therapeutic potency and effectiveness”, she said.

Wildcrafted Cottage opened its doors in October 2009 and is located in Kurrajong Village, northwest of Sydney in the lower Blue Mountains. Kurrajong is surrounded by natural bush land and is a picturesque, small Village, making it an ideal choice for the first of Wildcrafted’s retail stores.

The whole range including the latest line of anti-ageing products are now on display at Wildcrafted Cottage - Kurrajong.

Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre & Wilcrafted Cottage Now Open

Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre is now open and we invite you to come and take a look, or visit the Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre website to see what we do and where we're located.

The aim of Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre is to provide the local community in the Hawkesbury region with a one-stop natural medicine centre where we offer a wide range of alternative medicine.

In addition, our Wildcrafted Cottage (the retail shop attached to Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre) stocks all of the Wildcrafted Herbal Products currently available. These products are hand made by our medical herbalist and strictly adhere to herbal medicine and aromatherapy principles.

The range of products available include 100% natural & organic skin care products for both men and women, as well as a full range of personal care and spa products to endulge in.

Further, Wildcrafted Herbal Products full range of therapeutic creams and compounds are also available.

If you're in the lower Blue Mountain area of western Sydney it is a great time to come and visit us at Kurrajong, a lovely Village along the Bell's Line of Road.

See you there

Wildcrafted Herbal Products to open its first Retail outlet & Alternative Medicine Clinic

Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre is now becoming a reality. After almost 2 years of planning, construction of Wildcrafted's first retail outlet is in its first phase.

Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre will however be far more than just an outlet for our products. It will also incorporate an Alternative Medicine Centre, offering Traditional Chinese Medicine, Western Herbal Medicine, Remedial Massage Therapy and more.

In addition we will be holding Classes and Workshops on related, relevant topics for patients, the general public as well as our students. Yes, we will be running different courses as well. So stay tuned and all will be revealed over the next few weeks and months.

In the mean time you can follow the construction of Kurrajong Natural Medicine Centre on our blog.

Can Science Really Validate Alternative Medicine

This is a really good and valid question. The short answer, in my opinion, is no. Scientists cannot test the effectiveness of alternative medicine adequately. Why? Because western science works within a strict paradigm that is at best difficult to apply to a range of aspects in alternative medicine.

Let’s start with what should easily be verifiable by western science. The effect of a specific herb should be readily testable and should provide consistent results. Problem is, the tests often get very different results and do not agree about a specific herbs’ effectiveness. Why? This is where it gets a bit more complicated.

Firstly, in order to test a particular herb for it’s medicinal properties and effectiveness, the scientists must use the correct species of herbs. This is simple to achieve, however, there are major differences in the same species, depending on how and where it is grown, the time of day and year it is harvested and the condition of the soil the herb was grown in, not to mention the different processing methods that can be used.

Let’s look at an example that is very typical. Echinacea is a herb that most people have heard of and where science provides at best confusing information and results.

Now, Echinacea has 2 major species that are commonly used by medical herbalists. The first is Echinacea purpurea, the second is E. angustifolia. Now, these two species of Echinacea have different actions, and depending on the parts of the plant that are included in the herbal extract, these functions will vary again.

Let’s just stick to Echinacea purpurea and look at the many different extracts that are used in the market place.

The single best quality of this herbal extract comes from Switzerland and is made by a company called Bioforce AG. No, I’m not in anyway affiliated with this company, nor are they paying me for including their product or company name in this article or elsewhere.

As a herbalist, I’ve used many different preparations of Echinacea purpurea from different companies and have found that the best results come from the herbal extract of Echinacea purpurea produced by this company.

But why is that, what makes their Echinacea extract so much more effective? The first reason is the way they grow the herb. Firstly, they grow it in organically prepared fields, which are surrounded by buffer zones that keep any leaching into the primary fields from occurring.

Secondly, their crops are grown in rich mountain soil above 1800 meters. This appears to have a major influence on the properties and their concentrations in this herb. Thirdly, once the herb is ready to be harvested, the herbs are processed in their fresh, living state within 24 hours of being harvested. That means the plants are still alive and viable, with all their active and non-active constituents still intact.

The product is a green plant extract full of the goodies that make up this herb.

Alternatively, you can purchase Echinacea purpurea that has not been grown in organically prepared soil, that has not been grown above 1800 meters and is grown on much poorer, non-organically prepared soil. The plant is not processed within 24 hours of harvesting but instead is processed as a dried herb. Despite these major differences, they are of course still the same species and therefore treated as if they were the same. While preparations from such plants are generally standardised to meet minimum therapeutic quantities of the active ingredients as set by the British Pharmacopoeia, these preparations widely vary in other, so called non-active ingredients.

Even blind Freddy can tell you that the extract resulting from the two differently grown plants is going to be different and will have difference in their therapeutic effectiveness.

Herein lies the first problem for scientists. They are not really testing the same herb and therefore will get confusing results. They may be testing the same species, Echinacea purpurea, but not the same quality of the herbal extract. Unfortunately, they are probably not even aware of the fact that there are differences in plant constituents depending on where the plants have been grown and the methods used to make the extract.

This, just by the way, is also a problem for the herbalists that use Echinacea purpurea to treat their patients. While it’s easy to establish whether an extract is a green plant extract or not, it is often difficult to find out where the plants used to make the extract have been grown, etc. In our clinic we have often found one brand to work much better than another, despite the standardised active ingredients.

Now, if the scientists are looking for the chemicals that make up the extract (plant) to identify which of the chemicals are responsible for the range of therapeutic applications, they will find widely different concentrations and different ratios of ingredients depending on the origin of the plant/s. If they are not aware that this is (a) possible, and (b) provides different therapeutic results, then of course their results will not agree with other studies that have used plants from a different region.

The second problem scientists face (possibly unknowingly) is that the strict paradigm of science is not designed to accommodate the paradigms of alternative medicine. For example, what western medical science refers to as the Liver is totally different to that of traditional Chinese medicine. For example you would be very hard pressed to find an orthodox medical doctor that would consider the Eyes to be part of the Liver, however, a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine will very much consider the Eyes as part of the Liver.

These two differing paradigms are not easily merged. Let me give you an example. An individual that presents with consistently red eyes, a reddish face and short temper is highly likely to be diagnosed in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as having heat in the Liver (no, not the eyes, the liver). Now an orthodox medical practitioner may diagnose this as an allergy or a range of other problems, but is unlikely to diagnose a Liver disease.

I’m not saying either of the two approaches is right or wrong, what I’m trying to point out here is that the two paradigms are vastly different and are therefore difficult to unite under a single, testable paradigm that easily accommodates both philosophies.

This then makes it very difficult for western scientists to adequately validate alternative medicine and its therapeutic methods, if the paradigm under which they operate is vastly different.

In conclusion, unless we are testing the same thing in the same way, there is a very strong chance of obtaining different, non-conclusive, results. This is one of the major reasons that orthodox medical science is more often than not critical of alternative medicine, herbs, and other aspects.

Unless we can unite the paradigms so that every time a particular plant species is tested for its therapeutic actions and effects and the extracts are identical in all aspects, there will never be any agreement over the effectiveness of herbs.

Similarly, if we can’t find a suitable common denominator that can adequately unite differing paradigms, then any resulting tests are unlikely to be conclusive or shed insight into the effectiveness of alternative medicine.

Danny Siegenthaler is a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and together with his wife Susan, a medical herbalist and Aromatherapist, they have created Natural Skin Care Products by Wildcrafted Herbal Products to share their 40 years of combined expertise with you.

Subscribe to their Natural Skin Care Newsletter and receive a free eBook providing hints & tips on how to look after your skin

© Wildcrafted Herbal Products 2009

Cellulite Kit - Product Release

The first sign of cellulite is every woman’s nightmare. Cellulite is an irregular accumulation of fatty cells immediately underneath the skin, which leads to a dimpled appearance known as cellulite or ‘orange skin’. So, let’s take a closer look at cellulite, what it is, why mainly women get it and how you can get rid of it.

Cellulite occurs around the hips, thighs, and buttocks. Because of the close proximity of cellulite to the surface of the skin, it creates a dimpled appearance in those body regions.

It occurs mostly in women as well as in some men, and can affect most age groups. Even if you do not have a weight problem, eat healthy food, drink plenty of fluid and exercise on a regular basis, you can still have cellulite.

Factors that are attributed to the development of cellulite are: age, genetic predisposition, Hormonal changes, unhealthy diets and lack of exercise. However, even fit and healthy top athletes can and do get cellulite. Basically the reason women get cellulite is because women have to store fat to give them enough calories to get them through pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Medical herbalists at Wildcrafted Herbal Products Pty Ltd. have put together a select range of products formulated to give you the best chance at winning your fight against those bumpy regions and smooth out that dimpled skin.

Get Your Cellulite Kit Now and start fighting your cellulite today.

Moisturizers - What Do They Actually Do and How Do They Work?

No matter where you look there are skin care products on offer that will make you supposedly 10 years younger in a millisecond. Yeh, right... Most of these products tend to be some type of moisturizing crème and they promise that regular use will make your skin look younger.

But sales pitch aside, what is it about moisturising crèmes that affects your skin? How do they actually work? Are all the moisturising crèmes the same?

Let’s take a basic look at the anatomy of a moisturizer.

The first thing to consider is the base that gives the moisturizing crème its over-all functionality. There are basically two types of moisturizing bases: Oil in Water and Water in Oil preparations. - Isn’t that the same thing, I hear you ask. No. They have quite different effects on the skin. Why? Because when the product is an emulsion of water in oil, the oil is more dominant and therefore it’s most effective for dry skin.

When the product is based on oil in water, however, products are less moisturizing and are formulated for slightly oily skin.

At this point however, it is also important to note that depending on the inclusion of other ingredients such as essential oils and herbal extracts, the overall effect of the base-cream can be modified.

The additional ingredients are chosen based on their therapeutic actions, as well as their vitamin, antioxidant, essential fatty acid, and fragrant content that ads to the functionality of the moisturizer. In other words, the formula of the moisturizer is targeted at a specific skin type or skin problem. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

A good quality moisturizing crème has two basic functions. Firstly, it prevents/reduces the loss of moisture from the skin; and secondly it acts to protect, nourish and hydrate the skin. How?

Okay, here we need to take a very quick, simplified look at how the skin works.

The skin is a living, breathing organ, that has a multitude of functions including protecting the inside of the body from our external environment. The skin is almost totally waterproof and it has a protective layer called the acid mantel, which prevents microbes from getting into our skin and cause problems. Because of its inherent structure, only very, very small molecules can freely pass through the skin to the inside of the body.

Other, larger molecules don’t get a free passage. They either remain on the surface of the skin or they get ‘carried’ across the skin-barrier. For example, some essential oils, certain drugs, etc., have molecules that are too big to pass through the skin, which means they need to be carried across the skin-barrier, by a ‘carrier agent’.

In a moisturizing cream this may be achieved by including a carrier oil such as Jojoba in the formula. Once carried across the skin-barrier, the essential oils or herbal extracts can then ‘do their job’ which may be to reduce inflammation or promote blood circulation, or what ever.

So, on the one hand a well formulated moisturizer has ingredients that stay on the skin’s surface and take on the functions of protection and moisture loss prevention, while on the other hand, it contains ingredients that do enter through the skin-barrier to act on the underlying skin layers.

Both these functions/actions of a moisturising crème are very important and the ingredients play a vital role in the effectiveness of a quality moisturising crème. This brings me back to the therapeutic actions, vitamins, antioxidants, essential fatty acids, etc., that ad to the functionality and effectiveness of the moisturizer.

As you are probably aware, there are two types of moisturizers – 100% natural ones and of course the non-natural ones. The difference is the type of ingredients that are used to make up the product and its functionality.

I don't think I need to go into why we should only consider using 100% natural skin care products, as I have covered this topic in considerable depth through many other articles, but it is important to reiterate, that many of the commercially available skin care products found in supermarkets and department stores do contain potentially harmful chemicals and for this reason alone we’d do well to stay away from them.

However, moisturizers that use exclusively natural ingredients such as herbal extracts, essential oils, natural carrier oils and shea nut butter and others, do help to prevent loss of moisture from the skin, benefit the underlying skin layers and can have significant therapeutic effects on the over-all health, look and feel of the skin.

It is for these reasons that a daily skin care regime should always include the use of a natural moisturizing crème.

Do we really need to use a moisturiser?

Now some people would argue that we do not need to use any moisturizers at all, as our skin is perfectly capable of moisturizing itself. After all, our skin contains literally millions of sebaceous glands that excrete sebum (the body’s natural moisturizer) onto the skin’s surface, which is sufficient to keep the acid mantel (protective layer) in tact.

Well, for some people, mind you very few of them, that may be right and indeed they may not need to use a moisturiser, especially if their skin is slightly on the oily side of normal and they are living in a moderate climate. But most of us know that if we do not use a moisturiser, our skin will have a tendency to become dry, rough and at times itchy and flaky.

The problem with today’s modern lifestyle is that we expose ourselves to heating and/or air-conditioning, are surrounded by polluted air, engage in regular physical exercise which makes us sticky and sweaty, and we are basically covered from neck to toe in clothing all day.

Obviously that requires a certain level of personal hygiene and most of us have a shower and use soap to wash our bodies – not the face maybe, but the rest of the body. As a result, this removes the natural oil that the body secretes thereby removing the moisturizing function of the skin.

Now for some people, the removal of the ‘acid mantel’ stimulates, or rather over-stimulates, sebum secretion and they end up with excessively oily skin... not exactly the aim of the exercise, is it. Others end up with dry skin because the body’s sebum production is not sufficient to rebuild the moisture/oil layer on the skin’s surface. In extreme cases this can lead to eczema and/or dermatitis, and who wants that...

So what becomes important now is the type of cleansing agent that is used - but that’s for another article. Suffice it to say that using most of the commercially available soaps is not a great idea, but rather we should use a mild, natural cleansing agent that is close to the skin’s natural pH (approx. 5.5-7.0) and use a good quality, natural, skin-type specific moisturiser to replenish the skin’s moisture and help it to rebuild the protective acid mantel.

I hope you’ve gained some insight into how moisturizing creams work and why they play an important role in the maintenance and health of our skin. Read more on natural skin care products.

Vitamin D and Sun-light: Essentials for a healthy Life

For decades now, both Susan and I have been telling our patients, and anyone else who would listen, not to stay out of the sun, but to use the sun to help maintain their general health, avoid osteoporosis and auto-immune diseases. When used correctly there is little chance of causing skin cancer, but incorrect use of the Sun and therefore over-exposure to UV-rays can of course be dangerous. We've even published an article "Sunlight, Vitamin D and Your Skin" on this very topic.

Traditional naturopathic medicine has always used short-time, early morning (before 9am in Summer and 10am in Winter) exposure to the sun as part of any health regime to treat a range of diseases.

The following transcript, of a news story televised on Australia’s ABC, confirms what Natural therapists have been preaching for years; but now even the scientists confirm this – so, it must be right…(sorry about the sarcasm...)

Transcript from Catalyst: Vitamin D - ABC TV Science: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2514231.htm (12/03/2009)

Have we taken our fear of the sun too far? We’re told to keep out of the sun – so what are you to think when your doctor tells you that you’re not getting enough of it and as a result you now have a serious vitamin D deficiency? Dr Norman Swan soaks up some rays to find out what is really going on.

NARRATION:
The sun’s ultraviolet rays produce most of the vitamin D your body needs. But it’s a double edged sword – too much sun can cause skin cancer and too little can lead to vitamin D deficiency.

Sophie:
Our summers were spent basically down the beach but now of course life is different
because of John’s melanomas we’ve had to stay out of the sun and I guess that’s what’s led to the vitamin D deficiency.

Dr Norman Swan:
Sophie and John’s story isn’t unique there are lots of Australians with vitamin D levels that seem to be too low and that has enormous potential implications

NARRATION:
GP, Dr Larry Light, routinely tests his patients for their vitamin D levels.

Dr Larry Light:
Your vitamin D levels….

NARRATION:
And almost 80% of his patients over 60 are vitamin D deficient.

Dr Larry Light:
It's almost unusual to find someone over the age of 60 with normal Vitamin D levels.

Dr Norman Swan:
Dr Lights approach to people like Sophie and John could well be on the money low vitamin D levels have been associated with an increase risk of colon cancer schizophrenia diabetes multiple sclerosis falls and bone fractures not to mention heart disease. It all seems too amazing to be true but is it? And it’s all for something that’s not even a vitamin.

NARRATION:
It’s actually a chemical messenger – a hormone. Vitamin D is produced in your skin when it’s exposed to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. It then goes through a series of chemical processes in the liver and kidney where it’s converted to it’s active form – the hormone, calcitriol.

Prof. Rebecca Mason:
Now the most important thing that calcitriol does is help calcium and phosphate absorption from the environment into the body. Particularly important for strong bones and good muscle function. What we've found out though, that there are proteins that respond to Vitamin D in just about every cell in the body. And Vitamin D has effects in most tissues in the body.

NARRATION:
In recent years low vitamin D has been associated with the development of autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes… but Dr Jenny Gunton and her colleagues have found a link with all types of diabetes.

Dr Jenny Gunton:
It looks like people with diabetes are more likely to be vitamin D deficient. It’s not clear why it covers all types of diabetes but we think that it plays an important role in the function of beta cells and they’re the cells that make all the insulin for your body. The beta cells don’t work as well if you don’t have enough vitamin D. We don't know whether or not you can use Vitamin D to treat diabetes but it's a question that we're starting to look at. We're certainly treating people who we find to be Vitamin D deficient and it looks like it's helping their diabetes.

NARRATION:
The real scientific test to see whether vitamin D is truly of benefit is to give it to people in a trial.. and a recent study is taking trials involving 57,000 people taking vitamin D supplements and what they showed was that supplementation was associated with a lower risk of dying of any cause.

Dr Jenny Gunton:
I think Vitamin D deficiency is becoming a public health issue. It's becoming incredibly common in people who are otherwise healthy.

Prof. Rebecca Mason:
The groups who are really at risk are the people who are older. People who have dark skin. The people who cover up. And anyone who's chronically ill.

Dr Jenny Gunton:
Normal levels for vitamin D are a controversial topic but its very clear if your levels are below 25 that it’s very bad for your bone density and increased risk of osteoporosis and breaking your bones; up to 50 which is the current cut off for normal you still have abnormalities in calcium handling in the body.

Dr Norman Swan:
So if you’ve got a low level of vitamin D what’s the best way to replace it? Sunlight’s pretty good, 90% of vitamin D is made by sunlight having an impact on your skin, but sunlight also causes skin cancer do we really need more sun?

NARRATION:
Rebecca Mason and her team have made some remarkable findings – getting your vitamin D levels from the sun can be safe and may also have a protective effect.

Prof. Rebecca Mason:
What we've shown is that Vitamin D compounds used topically both in human skin and in animals reduce UV induced DNA damage and in animals reduces the immuno suppression and the skin cancers. We think that this reflects a natural protection in the skin that Vitamin D is giving you.

NARRATION:
Some experts recommend exposing 15% of your body to the sun every day for six to eight minutes before 11am or after three pm; and double this time during winter, if you live in Tasmania, or if you have dark skin.

NARRATION:
How does this sit with the Cancer Council’s Slip Slop Slap campaign?

Professor Ian Olver:
It’s very important that the sun protection message during the summer remains and the vitamin D message can complement it for times when the sun is unlikely to burn you skin.

NARRATION:
But getting out into the sun at a particular hour of day for just the right length of time is not practical for everyone….

John Biggs:
I've had two melanomas and do my best to sort of keep out of the sun.

NARRATION:
So for people like John, supplements have their place. But what’s the recommended dose?

Prof. Rebecca Mason:
The only supplements that are generally available here are about a thousand international units and most of them are in the Vitamin D3 form. In the same form as we make in the skin. If you've actually got significant levels of Vitamin D deficiency. So most people now are recommending a loading dose of at least say five tablets a day for a couple of weeks and then going back onto the one thousand units a day.

Dr Light:
Your vitamin D levels have risen from the original 23 up to 82 nanomoles per litre. So taking those capsules, I think it was about four at night paid off.

NARRATION:
But what about diet? With only 10% of the vitamin D your body needs coming from food is it a realistic source?

Dr Jenny Gunton:
We don’t get enough vitamin D from the diet unless you take supplements in nearly all cases, because you only get it from oily fish or cod liver oil and I’ve never had cod liver oil but I’m told it tastes memorably awful.

NARRATION:
So if you just want the maintenance dose of vitamin D, you would have to eat the equivalent of one large fillet of oily fish, or one tablespoon of tasty cod liver oil every day.

Sophie:
I’ll be taking vitamin D now for the rest of my life one capsule a day just to make sure that my levels don’t drop and that I can get on with life

Dr Norman Swan:
So what are the main messages here - well a lot of us are low in vitamin D and we don’t even know it, you can have your levels checked but they’re expensive to do, for some of us just being out in the sun for a few extra minutes a day particularly if we’re exercising that’ll be good, 15% of your body uncovered, many people though are going to require supplements sometimes in quite significant doses so it’s probably a good idea to have a chat with your doctor first.

Story Contacts
Dr Jenny Gunton
j.gunton@garvan.org.au
Garvan Institute of Medical Research
Prof Rebecca Mason
rebecca.mason@bosch.org.au
Bosch Institute, The University of Sydney

Boy, it's nice to be vindicated.

All You Ever Wanted To Know About Acne

If you are looking for information on Natural Acne Remedies or any other information on Acne the following is a great place to start:

Natural & Herbal Acne Remedies

Natural Acne Skin Care

Home Made Acne Remedies

Acne News & Articles

Acne Library

Herbal Acne Products

Good quality, reliable information on acne can be difficult to find, however the above link provide a great place to start.

Dermatology, Skin Care, Skin Problems & a range of Hints & Tips

This library contains a directory of articles written by Danny and Susan Siegenthaler who together have over 40 years of experience in the field on natural medicine. Danny is a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and his wife Susan is a medical herbalist who has taught hundreds of student in medical aromatherapy and herbal medicine.

These articles draw on their years of clinical experience and provide the reader with high quality information about natural skin care and related topics.

In addition there are several Universities and medical references worth bookmaking. Many of them are great sources of authoritative information.

University of Maryland Medical Center.
UMM provides a great deal of quality information on dermatology. The information if well researched, backed by references from scientific sources and is written in mostly non-medical terminology. They also have a large authoritative section of information on herbal medicine.

Articles on Skin Care, Skin Problems and Solutions
Over 100 articles on all aspects of skin care, natural skin care products, natural approaches to treatment of skin disorders and much more.

Information on natural and organic skin care is very confusing to say the least. While we all know that we should avoid synthetic or artificial ingredients in our food and drinks, we are less well informed on the ingredients in our beauty and personal care products.

Merck Manual - Skin Disorders
The Merck Manual is a searchable, online reference text, that provides expert medical information.

Sun Damaged Skin: Avoiding skin damage from the Sun
The incidence of skin cancer is still rising even though there are warnings on TV and other media on a regular basis. Outdoor activities are great; They provide exercise and enjoyment, however, while outdoors we need to make sure we avoid risking sun damage to our skin.

Your Skin Care Regime for Spring
Spring is the time to rejuvenate your skin by following some basic steps: exfoliating, cleansing, nourishing, toning and moisturising. But there is much more to healthy, vibrant skin than a daily skin care regime. The following article provides some practical hints and tips on caring for your skin and preparing it for Summer.

Are You Finding Information on Natural and Organic Skin Care Confusing?
Information on natural organic skin care is very confusing to say the least. While we all know that we should avoid synthetic or artificial ingredients in our food and drinks, we are less well informed on the ingredients in our beauty and personal care products.

Oily Skin - Why You May Have Oily Skin & What To Do About It
Often, oily skin is associated with acne, however, here we will focus on the classic oily skin type and look at the causes and solutions for oily skin.

Skin Care Advice: The Good, Bad & The Ugly
There is a plethora of information about what to do and what not to do when it comes to taking care of our skin. The media is full of reports and the cosmetic/beauty companies run full-page advertisements in popular magazines telling you how you should take care of your skin and the various treatments you should impose on your skin.

Are Natural and Organic Skin Care Products Too Expensive?

There is occasionally discussion among consumers about the retail prices of natural and organic products. Some people wonder if they are being charged a fair price for the goods they purchase or if they are just being ‘taken for a ride’ on what could be the latest fad for ‘natural and organic’ products. This article hopes to shed some light on some of the main factors that influence the retail prices of natural and organic products.

The Real Costs of Natural and Organic Skin Care Products - Too Expensive or Too Inexpensive?

We are asked daily in our business about the cost of our products: some people want to know, given that our products are based on organic and natural ingredients, why they are so inexpensive and others ask why our products cost so much. Two different questions asked from two different perspectives.

The first question is asked from the belief that organic and natural raw ingredients are frequently high in price and so it is expected that products based on these types of ingredients would be expensive. The other perspective is asked from the belief that the production of natural and organic ingredients (well, they do grown on trees don’t they?”) should cost less than the manufacture of synthetic or mass-produced ingredients and thus products based on these should be inexpensive.

The first question is probably closer to the truth than the second in its assumption about the cost of ingredients that are natural and organic.

The production of natural and organic goods, be they foods or raw materials used in further manufacturing, is labour intensive and the demand is currently relatively small compared to the mainstream. In addition, organic producers must go through a cost intensive process to achieve organic certification of their products. These three factors are primary contributors to the basic gross costs of natural and organic products.

Leaving aside global economic crises, the cost of essential oils can significantly influence the ultimate price of natural and organic skin care and personal care products that contain these ingredients. Growing, harvesting, oil extraction, quality testing, market demand and availability all play roles in this.

Essential oils are extracted from the leaves, roots, flowers, fruits and nuts of plants that may be grown as commercial crops or may be wild-harvested (although the latter occurs less and less frequently today due to conservation concerns). Extraction processes vary according to the part of the plant from which the oil is to be extracted and the quality of the oil required at the end of the process. In keeping with increasing demand for pure and high quality essential oils, extraction methods have become more sophisticated and technology-based on the one hand whilst growing and harvesting techniques have returned to more traditional, sustainable and labour-intensive methods.

For the most part, the amount of plant material required to produce a kilogram of essential oil can be huge. For example, it has been estimated that it takes about 500kg of rose petals to produce 1 litre of rose oil (and individual rose petals don’t weigh very much!).

Climatic conditions have a major influence on essential oil prices. For example, a bad season in which there is insufficient rainfall or the occurrence of natural disasters such as storms, hail, floods and fires, can affect the amount of plant material available for harvesting and therefore, the amount of essential oil that can be extracted. In this scenario, a limited amount of essential oil available to the market can cause a dramatic increase in price. Man–made disasters such as wars also have a detrimental effect on the availability of many of our much-loved essential oils.

Australia has a relatively small essential oil producing industry, with most of the essential oils sold in Australia imported from elsewhere. Included in the list of ‘elsewhere’ is Hungary, China, India, Egypt, West Indies, Thailand, Italy, USA, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, France, Somalia, Madagascar, Spain, Brazil, United Kingdom, Paraguay, Bulgaria and Tunisia. On average, of the most commonly sold essential oils available in Australia, only 16% are produced here.

We won’t even bother to factor in costs like import duties and other taxes on the imported essential oils.

Market forces also exert an influence on the cost of essential oils. One of the most useful and sought after essential oils in the perfumery and cosmetics industries is Rose Oil and this of course, increases its demand in the market place. The average cost of 1 kilogram of Certified Organic Rose Otto oil is AU$12,000!!! Amazingly, this is not the most expensive of the essential oils.

It is true that essential oils from plants that grow abundantly, easily and have a high essential oil content are less expensive. However, these are also often the essential oils that are less useful in skin care and body care formulations.

The average price of a 25ml bottle of pure certified organic essential oil is currently AU$72.00, so it can be seen that skin and body care products containing pure certified organic essential oils may have a good excuse to be more expensive than the average mass-produced, synthetic-based Brand X product.

Why then, you may well ask, do manufacturer’s put certified organic essential oils into their products? Why not leave the nice aromas out altogether?

The answer is simply that essential oils are not in the products solely for their wonderful aromas. Essential oils have amazing and often profound direct beneficial effects on the skin and hair as well as producing beneficial psychological and psychosomatic effects via their influence on the nervous and hormonal systems.

Natural and organic skin and body care products that contain essential oils are not just exerting a superficial or cosmetic effect on your skin but also have the potential to positively influence your health and well-being, with effects that are definitely more than skin deep.

Take a look at our 100% natural & organic skin care range

So, to return to the original question of whether the cost of organic and natural skin care products is too expensive or too inexpensive, it all depends on what’s in them and how much of the ingredients a product contains.

At Wildcrafted, our products contain therapeutic quantities of ingredients, this by necessity makes them expensive to manufacture. However, our costs are minimised, because we do not distribute them through traditional supply chains. That is we supply our products directly to our customers via our on-line store, which means they are not as expensive as they would be if customers where able to buy them at a local store.

If that were the case, the retail price of our products would be approximately double that of what our customers are currently paying.

Wildcrafted’s aim has always been to provide the highest possible product quality and effectiveness at an affordable price.

We hope that we have been able to shed a little bit of light on some of the contributing factors involved. We also hope that we have been able to show that the health benefits gained from using an organic and natural product go beyond cosmetic improvement to your skin and hair.