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19 July, 2011

Odacité And Absolution - Bespoke Skincare

Bespoke is the new black.  Or, rather, bespoke skincare is the newest wisdom in product formulation for skincare products, especially in natural and organic based lines. We've come across two stellar lines this past year who are both formulating skincare product lines specific to personal and individual needs.

Blackboard_200x300odacite

Odacité

The first, Odacité, is created by founder Romain Gaillard, a French native who makes his home currently in Southern California. For a novel approach and because it's important to remember that our menfolk need TLC too, we tried out his line of products that were formulated specifically for an adult male whose lifestyle includes some sun exposure and late nights.

Before the products were formulated, senior Skincoach Nairi Khatchadourian sent along a detailed questionnaire to find out what sorts of skincare concerns our tester had. This is the response, along with the product types and explanations, that were received:

Dark Circles Under Eyes: The Odacité skincare includes a "great concentration of Tocopherols (natural Vitamin E) that is known to help with dark circles. It also includes bioavailable Vitamin C of rosehip oil that helps strengthen blood vessel walls, and tea extracts that work wonders at reducing dark circles."

Dark circles can appear as a result of several factors: lifestyle, genetic, lack of sleep, aging.

Odacite

Suntegrity sunscreen is their product to deflect the harmful effects of overexposure to the sun.  It's an effective product which is saying a lot for something that is so respectful of natural ingredients use. Sunscreens still are something of the Holy Grail for natural-based skincare products.

Cleanser. The cleanser includes Tamanu oil from the rain-forest of Madagascar which is a super healing oil. They get the wild-crafted oil from Madagascar 
because wild plants retain the highest potency. Tamanu oil is proven to aid in the elimination of waste material and toxins from the capillaries. The cleanser also comes with two sponges that encourage lymph circulation when used on the face.

Immortelle Toner.Toning  helps shrink pores and restores healthy skin Ph balance. They suggest using the Toner as an after shave. Its base is Aloe Vera so it hydrates the skin and reduces puffiness.

The moisturizer is formulated with pure virgin coconut oil and organic aloe. These boost 
skin hydration by locking in moisture. The fresh organic aloe also heals. It is also, "Formulated with DMAE a natural skin firming agent. Long term use of DMAE  has been clinically proven to greatly decrease the appearance of loose and sagging skin. DMAE also helps prevent and reduce age spots."

Our Greening Beauty test subject felt a significant improvement in his skincare quality after using only these products for three weeks. Not any kind of a Metrosexual, it was difficult to convince him to use any kind of skincare. But after using Odacité Bespoke Skincare, we now have a firm believer in natural, crafted to order, skincare.

Absolution

Absolution

The founder of this organic skincare line from France, Isabelle Carron, describes it as "the first unisex bespoke certified organic cosmetics brand." She has created it from minerals, vitamins and wild plant extracts. The line is formulated with simplicity in mind. It is the founder's goal to offer a few products that can answer a variety of your skin's needs.

This she does with a truly original approach to "bespoke."  Basics of the line such as La Crème du Jour and La Solution + Energie are packaged by themselves but formulated to be sold together so that the client, themselves, can mix the ingredients according to their skin's needs at that moment.

This approach earned Carron a Beyond Beauty Jury Award and a Wallpaper Magazine Design Award in 2010. The product line is also Eco Cert-ified.  The Day Cream (recyclable)-plastic jar/pump is beveled inward at the top so that when you pump a bit of the cream out onto the little "bowl" it allows you to spritz a drop of the Energy Solution onto it so that you can mix it all up right there with your fingertips, just before applying. Other "La Solution" varieties are: Eclat (Clarifying/brightening), Anti-Age, and Controle.

The product philosophy emphasizes Listening. "Listen to Yourself..." it says, "Listen to your skin! Intimate connection, echo of your soul and body, your skin's needs are like yours: constantly changing.

Isabelle_carronweb

The ingredients are potent: Olive tree flavonoids, Aloe Vera, Borage oil whose anti-aging actions is combined with a mineral sunscreen (Mica) - all of this in the day cream. And in the booster you have Echinacea, Edelweiss and Extract of Thermus Thermophillus to name a few. [That last-named ingredient is particularly effective in protecting your skin from air pollution, UV ad electromagnetic radiations.]

You can read more on the new Absolution.me Blog. 

 

12 July, 2011

Athgo International at The World Bank: Climate Change And Entrepreneurship


Treat Yourself to a rewarding experience with Athgo and the

World Bank

4th Global Innovation Forum at the World Bank
Climate Change and Constructive Entrepreneurship

August 10-12, 2011


   
 

Get to know an entrepreneur who made a global career in

entertainment and in advocacy, meet Will.I.Am, the 7 time

Grammy Award winner as the front man and producer of

The Black Eyed Peas

 

Learn from a true serial entrepreneur who founded and manages

the largest and most efficient recycler of electronic waste in the

World, meet the "Clean Tech Entrepreneur of the Year" and the

"Innovator of the Year" Mr. John Shegerian

 

If you are building a new green company, meet Mr. Tom Soto, a

Venture Capitalist whose portfolio clean tech companies have

consistently grown by 150% per year in revenue

 

Interested in creating high-impact solutions while ensuring

entrepreneurial culture, meet Ms. Molly Tschang from Cisco

 

If you are curious about entrepreneurship by way of public sector,

meet Mr. Ivo Ivanovski, the Minister of Information Society of

Macedonia from the age of 28

 
Discover the World Bank, meet Ms. Angelica Silvero
 

Learn about search engine optimization, meet social media guru,

Mr. Evan Bailyn, who used his ability to rank at the top of Google

to build and sell five businesses

 

Learn about clean technologies, specifically electric and fuel cell vehicles,

meet Mr. Jeff Werner, the General Manager of International at Daimler

 
 
Limited seats. Almost at capacity! Learn More | Register | Intern
 
The World Bank Electronic Recyclers International Embassy of Finland in Washington DC


The Climate Project: Interview with Athgo's Chairman Dr. Armen Orujyan

 

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Will.i.Am, Stade de France, Paris June 2011. Photo by Paige Donner
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Black Eyed Peas, Stade de France, Paris June 2011. Photo by Paige Donner
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Will.i.Am, Stade de France, Paris June 2011. Photo by Paige Donner

09 July, 2011

Farmageddon Review

By Gina Hall

Gina Hall is a Los Angeles-based writer. Follow her on Facebook. [Bio Cont'd Below...]

Did you have a good 4th of July? Did you spend it eating organic corn-on-the-cob and knocking back a glass of raw milk? No? Me neither. In America, we tend to celebrate our freedom eating the most inorganic materials agribusiness has to offer. You can commemorate our freedom and our forefathers with fireworks, flags and Cool Whip or you can support a film that shows another fight for freedom happening with less fanfare but with a huge impact 

our lives, liberties and pursuit of good food.   
  Farmageddon isn’t a pastoral Michael Bay film as the title suggests, but it is explosive and may provide welcome respite from this week’s Transformers Bay bonanza. It’s a documentary by mother Kristin Canty, who found her way into filmmaking by sheer outrage. Canty follows several farmers and distributors on the frontlines in a war against raw milk.

Raw Milk? Yeah, the stuff people have been drinking for over 8,000 years ever since someone pulled on a cow udder and found it produced something tasty. Louis Pasteur originally intended the pasteurization process for keeping wine and beer from souring – the French commitment to their alcohol is amazing. The process was extended to milk, and for a long time pasteurized milk was sold side by side with the raw. However, as the industrial food system took hold, the pasteurization process became necessary, as the industrial milk would often make people ill. Pasteurization became the FDA’s failsafe even though the benefits of raw milk, which has more healthy bacteria, has been claimed to improve allergies and digestion. 
Are you rolling the dice with raw milk and its by products like yogurt and cheese? Sure. Raw milk can contain bacteria that can make you sick, or kill you. So can spinach, hamburger and fried Twinkies. But raw milk seems to bring out the nasty side of our government, by which I mean raids, guns and million dollar surveillance operations. The film is a collection of eye witness interviews, expert testimony and actual footage showing our U.S. government spending your tax dollars to stalk small farmers, raid their farms, confiscate their equipment and sue them in court. Rarely with a warrant or cause. 

Canty’s film is elegant in its simplicity it shows you the evidence and allows you to ask most of the questions  – like why do we punish small co-ops for producing healthy foods and subsidize the industrial complex that’s contributing to obesity. Is it really safer to pasteurize dairy products or is it something we’ve just grown accustomed to even though it may be detrimental to our health? And wouldn’t Pasteur, a Frenchmen, be rolling in his grave to know Americans were pasteurizing cheese?           
In the film, perennial food documentary favorite Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin asks “why do they have such a problem with freedom?”  It rhetorical, of course, because we all know the answer is money. Canty tries for straight answers from the FDA and the  Department of Agriculture but what no one seems willing to fess up to is the revolving door between politics and agribusiness.  Canty’s film is a small victory in a larger battle fighting for the freedom to choose better food. It’s a war that can use all the patriots it can get.      

For more information visit farmageddonmovie.com

Recycle, Reuse, Rejoice!

 

01 July, 2011

Paris Treasure Hunt 2011


July 1, 2011 (Paris, France) The 2011 “Paris Treasure Hunt” will be held on Saturday 
July 2 and is expected to be the biggest and best yet.  With  13 town halls involved and 63  
different  routes stretching across more than 225 kilometers, the estimated 25 000 participants 
for the event’s sixth edition  will  have to track  down the mysterious Sandman, the mythical 
character who sprinkles sand over children’s eyes to send them into the dream world.
An unusual and festive exploration of Paris organised by  the City of Paris  in  association  
with  the  town halls  of 12 Parisian arrondissements and the neighbouring town of Saint 
Ouen, the 2011 “Paris Treasure Hunt” will allow Parisians as well as French and foreign 
visitors to become amateur detectives and discover an enigmatic Paris. 

Groups of friends and families set off in pursuit of the Sandman, but in doing so, step 
into  a Paris of  waking dreams and enchanting reality as they come across little known 
areas of Paris: hidden gardens, narrow streets, underground paths and secret 
passages.  They will also  discover  some of the city’s different  neighbourhoods and 
the craftsmen, shopkeepers, artists and  networks of associations that animate 
community life.

An entertaining and festive event open to all, the challenges participants face aim to 
promote the values of solidarity and sharing. Like every year, fully accessible routes 
are available to people with reduced mobility, and expert routes have been created 
for the most experienced detectives.

What’s new for the 2011 edition?
• An extended perimeter: three new  arrondissements are participating in the 
operation. This year, the 10th, 15th and 17th join the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 
13th, 18th, 19th and 20th arrondissements as well as the town of Saint-Ouen for the hunt.

• An intriguing plot: experience a waking dream in Paris and unmask the 
mysterious Sandman who has stolen Parisians’ dreams.

• An iPhone application  for the event: this year the treasure hunt also features 
an option for smartphone-users.

• Going underground: thanks  to a partnership with the RATP, this sixth edition 
also takes place in subterranean parts of the capital.

• Totems:  Participants are encouraged to bring an object that symbolizes their 
team, the charity association Emmaus Defi (one of this year’s partners) will collect 
these totems after the event.

After the Treasure Hunt the 13 town halls set a  rendez-vous where all of the 
participants of its arrondissement’s treasure hunt meet up in the afternoon after the 
event for a festive moment with refreshments and entertainment,  before attending 
the prize-giving ceremony at 4:30pm.  The first prize is  a rendez-vous at the “secret cabaret”, a
unique soirée featuring a spectacular show  in a  secret location and for one night 
only, details of which are given to the winners. Other prizes include outdoor sports
holidays organized by UCPA.