We’re bringing you deep into the heart of the natural beauty industry with our series, Green Goddess Guides! Take a peek inside the carry-ons, bedside drawers and vanity tops of green beauty’s top names and faces. We’re jotting down their tips and insights ourselves and can’t wait to hear from you about your favorite tidbits.
From now until Fashion Week, our Guides focus the beauties behind each of the incredible brands involved in our Night of Green Beauty shopping event in New York September 4. Find out more and get in on this shopping and juice-sipping extravaganza!
Green goddess Victoria of La Bella Figura Beauty has taken therapeutic botanical ingredients to new heights in her line of power-packed and responsibly-sourced skin treats. Her luxurious Découverte eye serum comes in a deliciously fun rollerball that has beauty editors across the country buzzing. Here’s Victoria on green beauty, easy chic and few superfruits you’re sure to become obsessed with too.
Always in my evening clutch: Gingermints, a ravishing red lip color, my Blackberry, and cash for tipping or as I learned long ago, in case of emergency.
Can’t travel without… Noise-canceling headphones (they make plane travel that much better), a writing journal, cashew nuts mixed with cranberries, our face oils and something inspirational to read.
In a pinch I… I have mastered the perfect top knot because it always looks chic, and on days there is no time for creating perfect waves, this is my easy go-to hairstyle.
Obsession of the moment: Kakadu plums! These tiny little fruits native to Australia offer 3000mg of vitamin C per 100g of fruit – over 50 times the concentration found in oranges! There is no other plant in the world that contains the level of complete vitamin C, bioactives and antioxidants found in these little plums. Because of this scientific fact, we have included the pure natural cell extract of kakadu plums into our Modern Radiance Concentrate for an all-natural skin-transformative product. I am completely crazy for the healthful benefits found in kakadu plums!
Beautifying snack/meal: A bowl of organic berries is my nightly beauty snack in the summer. I eat them while reading beauty blogs or catching up on the latest beauty news on Twitter.
Beautifying drink: Prickly pear juice is fantastic for the skin and is full of antioxidants, but my sister recently made me a beauty smoothie with fresh almond milk, spinach, kale, fresh mango, vanilla, raw honey and sacha inchi oil. Wow, it was delicious and made my skin feel super nourished.
For ultra-glamorous effect: I polish my nails. I am probably the only woman on the planet who dislikes getting manicures, not because it’s an unpleasant experience, but because I have no clue what to do without being able to use my hands! When I do have my nails polished it’s for an event or party. I am obsessed with Jin Soon polishes, which are 5-free, and I stalked my local beauty apothecary in Chicago to get the Coral Peony color before they sold out.
Perfect pout: Karen (LBF co-founder) taught me how to exfoliate my lips so that my lip color looks smooth and flawless. She makes her own lip exfoliating powder and mixes it with stone pressed olive oil and then you just scrub it over your pout without trying to eat it. Lips look and feel amazing and my Kjaer Weis lip tints just glide on.
Beauty tool: I don’t like plugging in tools and remembering to use them, so I prefer more organic and simple tools like a super soft organic bamboo cleansing cloth. We carry them now and the two sides – one scrubby and the other silky – works well with cleansers and masks. I love these!
Weirdest beauty habit: I have so many! I think cleansing my skin with just pure manuka honey was considered weird when I started it over a year ago, but it is quickly becoming less weird with the beauty-obsessed set. I keep a mascara tube by my bedside which contains sacha inchi oil and barbary fig seed oil and I apply that to my eyelashes and eyebrows every night. I swear that has made my eyelashes lush and has kept my eyebrows full and well-conditioned.
In the shower I keep… A collection of Spanish sea salts, beautiful soaps I collect from my travels, sweet smelling natural shampoos and conditioners, Japanese charcoal face puffs and our Luxurious Body Serum which smells like an Italian vacation and is the best all-over body moisturizer. Friends say they look forward to staying at my place just so they could use my beauty products which fill every pocket of my bathroom.
On my bedside table…This is truly my shrine to all things related to beauty. I have a tidy array of products we’re testing, natural perfumes (I like applying a dab right before bed to induce creative dreams), facial mists, and flowers for visual inspiration. My sister makes these incredible coconut and soy wax natural candles and I am often burning one or two of them at a time and always a pen and notebook for scribbling in whenever a good idea comes to me, especially the ones derived from creative dreams.
Once a month I… Do a deep detox. I do this at home and it starts with mineral salts in the bath, an all over body exfoliation with my favorite exfoliating mitt by Come Clean Cosmetics, which brings oxygen to the skin while removing dead skin cells. I even deep clean my scalp and give it a long conditioning treatment with the avocado, coconut, argan, olive and camellia hair elixir we create for super smooth and conditioned hair. I spend a couple of hours doing this and turn off my ringer. It feels so luxurious to treat myself in my own home, and I am unavailable to the world during these times.
After a long-night or rough weekend… I do as my Brazilian friends do and hydrate with raw coconut water. It’s one of the best hydrators on earth and all the vitamins, minerals and electrolytes heal from the inside out. I will also plan a healthy fresh salad and drink fresh juices for a few days after.
On little sleep I rely on… I have to admit that I am one of those people that only needs about six hours of sleep a night. I’ve tried getting more because the experts say that at least eight hours is better, but my body and brain won’t allow it. I naturally wake up between 4:30 and 5 a.m. every day, but if I were ever to only get five hours of sleep then my brain feels it big time. In this case, I need a good breakfast, Decouverte Under Eye Repair Serum and to walk outdoors in the sunshine. It usually reenergizes me and makes me feel better.
The product that changed my skin… Our Barbary Fig Renewal Serum causes old friends I haven’t seen in a while to ask me if I botoxed! It has literally kept wrinkles at bay and brightened my complexion. I use it every night and it goes everywhere I go. I once “bartered” with a German TSA agent who tried taking it away from me and that baby made it through! I think she related with my horror of not having a beloved beauty product while traveling.
Most treasured beauty tip… My Spanish grandmother would always say that olive oil was the cure and the answer to every ailment. She had the softest and most radiant skin even in her 80s. She was the smartest woman I have ever known and I wish she were here to see all this natural beauty love because I think she would have enjoyed being so right.
For glowing skin… Have you ever noticed how amazing your skin looks when you’re on vacation? That’s not a coincidence! Finding the time to relax and find joy will improve your complexion, but I know we can’t always be on vacation so I recommend eating good food, drinking fresh juices, dancing, laughing, spending quality time with good friends and family and being more adventurous. All of these things release good beta-endorphins which stimulate collagen production and new cell growth. It’s a scientific fact!
My go-to DIY: I use manuka honey boosted with turmeric if my skin feels inflamed, or manuka honey with crushed rose petals and barbary fig seed oil on days I need skin rejuvenation. I love experimenting with honey and if I accidentally spill a little, it’s a delicious and healthy accident.
