"Melissa Picoli: Being adamant in our transparency

I have worked in the beauty industry for over a decade, and it is riddled with unethical behaviors which depend on women’s ancient desire to look their best. Marketing claims based on fluff, ingredient labels distorted and, worst of all, damaging ingredients hidden amongst green-washing. BijaBody is adamant about transparency, which, in this industry, is increasingly difficult. Among the sea of beauty products at our disposal, there are a few handfuls of great ones, created by true product lovers and beauty experts such as estheticians. It makes our marketing efforts more difficult, but worthwhile, because our ultimate goal, our backbone, is great beauty products, ethical ingredient sourcing, and remembering that first and foremost, as an esthetician driven company, we are the client’s skin advocate, not just their product seller."

Thanks Ashley Poulter for featuring us.

xo, Melissa

Summer rolls around and tea drinking dips. Which is a shame because this is the time of year to keep your metabolism strong, your liver healthy and your skin protected from the inside out! We can help. BijaBody's Beauty Tea Blends just received ORGANIC CERTIFICATION! This tedious little process was a royal pain in the...but fully worth it. With the recent news about plastic and toxins on our tea bags, and Celestial Seasoning's ridiculously high pesticide content, making the move to loose-leaf, organic tea is important! And our Glass Tumbler is carbon neutral, fairly traded, so you're pretty much drinking tea and being an awesome world ambassador all at once. Sweetness. 

Here it is, the seal all the cool kids want:

For summer, we reccomend cold-brew. Set up your tea in the morning using a glass tumbler. Your first cup can be made with hot water and enjoyed normally. The rest of the day, just add room temperature water. The skin + metabolism enhanicng properties of the ingredients will continue to steep out throughout the day!

Remember, if you're taking your tumbler with you, keep it in a safe, upright pocket in your purse! Away from your phone. Like our BijaBodyLA beach bunny does in her Stella + Dot bag.

Drink up, buttercups.

xo, Melissa

Excited to partner with Mary Poole of Silver Hammer Designs for this Exquisite Mother's Day Gift!

$75 includes shipping and hand-written note.

Does your mother need one? Buy Here

Reason #27 we sell premium quality, organic, fair-trade LOOSE-LEAF TEA: Plastic in Tea Bags

Reason #28 we sell premium quality, organic, fair-trade LOOSE-LEAF TEA: Epoxy in Tea Bags

Reason #29we sell premium quality, organic, fair-trade LOOSE-LEAF TEA: Poison in Tea 

Reason #1 is because we really think you deserve to drink real tea, and we believe tea should come with life-given botanical health and beauty benefits.

Reason #2: Flimsy tea bags whose contents haven't been on a plant in years are just flavored water, and if I want flavored water I'll add a bit of juice. Or make a margarita.

Reason #3: We are your health + beauty advocate Reason #4: Greenwashing or Healthwashing is lame. Reason #4-10: Real Tea Tastes Better.)

Here's some of what's going down in steeping land:

Plastic and Cancerous Compounds in Tea Bags—A Surprising Source of Potential Toxins: "

The other bad news is that paper tea bags may be just as bad, or worse, than the plastic ones because many of them are treated with epichlorohydrin, a compound mainly used in the production of epoxy resins.

Considered a potential carcinogen by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health² (NIOSH), epichlorohydrin is also used as a pesticide. Besides making its way into tea bags, it can also be found in coffee filters, water filters, and sausage casings.

When epichlorohydrin comes in contact with water, it hydrolyzes to 3-MCPD, which has been shown to cause cancer in animals. It’s also been implicated in infertility (it has a spermatoxic effect in male rats³) and suppressed immune function⁴.

This chemical is already a well-known “process contaminant” associated with modern food production. According to the American Oil Chemicals Society⁵ (AOCS), 3-MCPD can also be found in variable levels in refined vegetable oils, which is yet another reason to avoid such cooking oils and replace them with organic coconut oil."  (The article goes on. and Scarily on. Worth a read. HERE)

Are Tea Bags Turning Us Into Plastic? 

Could plastic tea bags also be bad for our health? They are most commonly made from food grade nylon or polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which are two of the safest plastics on the scale of harmful leaching potential. Both have very high melting points, which offer some assurance to consumers, as one would think the melting point of plastic is the temperature at which one would need to worry about accidentally eating it.

There is another temperature point for plastics, though, that we may need to worry about, called the "glass transition" temperature (Tg) . That is the temperature at which the molecule in certain materials such as polymers begin to break down. As a rule, the Tg of a material is always lower than the melting point. In the case of PET and food grade nylon (either nylon 6 or nylon 6-6), all have a Tg lower than the temperature of boiling water. For example, while the melting point of PET is 482 degrees Fahrenheit, the Tg is about 169 degrees. Both nylons have a lower glass transition temperature than PET. (Remember that water boils at 212 degrees.) This means the molecules that make up these plastic tea bags begin to break down in hot water....So polymers will only leach out harmful chemicals, like cancer causing phthalates, at their glass transition temperature if there are said phthalates to begin with. It almost seems silly to think that either of these materials would have toxins to begin with, considering we eat off of them and in them. That's what food standards are for, right? The Lipton website reassures us their Pyramid Tea Bags made of PET are "the same food grade material clear water and juice bottles are made of and ... are microwave safe." LINK HERE

A scathing new report on Celestial Seasonings teas and parent company Hain Celestial, shows 91% of the samples of Celestial Seasonings teas tested contained pesticides in levels that exceed U.S Federal limits.

High pesticides in 91% of samples

10 out of 11 varieties of Celestial Seasonings teas, one of the largest specialty tea manufacturers in North America, were found to contain excess pesticides. (LINK HERE)

Need some tips for incorporating loose-leaf tea into your life? See this guest post on Fig & Sage from awhile Back: HERE

Also remember: Loose-leaf tea is less expensive. You can steep it several times, and you're not paying for manufacturing/filling of tea leaves. Our blends are actually teh same or lower per ounce than most celestial seasonings, even though they are a gazillion times better quality.

Most tea boxes only contain .7-1.2 actual ounces of tea, and that tea is made form teh dust collected when tea leaves are processed. Most tins of loose-leaf tea contain 2.5-4 (ours is 3.7) of teh actual tea leaves.

Tea is one of the most important economic commodoites in teh world. Millions of people's lives depend on tea industry for livelihood. Buy fairly-traded, organic tea. Chocolate, Tea, Coffee, Honey: These should ALWAYS be fair;y-traded. Not necessarily certified, because there's issues with that too. But know your sources.

We happen to be moving through some inventory of of Fairly-Traded Glass Tea Tumblers right now to get new images printed. Want one? It makes drinking loose-leaf tea so much easier. Use code "intheknow". If you have a local retailer, pick up tehre (it'll be about the same price since you don't have to pay shipping). Otherwise, a little discount love is on us.

Here's to good health. Tea yourself right.

xo, Melissa

BijaBody's BedsideManner Anti-Aging Lip+Hand Treatment is clinically proven to enhance your lusciousness! In our proprietary base of Organic Honey, Rice Bran Oil, Rosehip Seed Oil and Carrot Extract are a series of complementary, highly active, naturally derived ingredients which have been shown to significantly enhance the health of skin, improve collagen synthesis and prevent/reduce hyper-pigmentation.

Our current batch of BedsideManner has a few esthetic issues. A bit of the honey seeped out to the bottom, and due to winter delivery, the consistency is a bit harder than usual. This, my lovelies, is simply part of working with natural ingredients. If we worked with entirely synthetic ingredients, it'd be easy to control every reaction to heat/warmth, rancidity, exposure, etc. But we don't. And our headquarters is in Montana. We work with highly active ingredients, expertly formulated in nourishing, holistic bases. We use the minimal amounts of preservatives and emulsifiers needed to ensure your product is effective and safe. And we ship through two icy cold passes to get to our headquarters from our lab (I know it's cool to make things yourself. But our formulations are way to advanced for that. We really like a fancy lab and an awesome scientists behind our formulation). This means there will sometimes be small differences batch to batch. We're certainly not going to discard all that goodness because the consistency is a tiny bit different and a small bit of the honey seperated some during transport! Besides being ridiculously wasteful, it'd be dumb. We know you're savvy enough to know that's just part of the natural(ish) products game!

Besides, this product is amazing! Here's some exceprts from clinical studies on a few of our actives:

The natural peptide combination contained in BedsideManner has demonstrated its efficacy in restructuring the connective tissue by stimulating the synthesis of collagen and of the glycosaminoglycans (hyaluronic acid).

A clinical trial was carried out on a group of women, between 22 and 40 years of age, with thin, small-volume lips, who normally used lip salves and who presented with problem dry lips: type-1 cheilitis (dryness) and type-2 cheilitis (onset of desquamation) (AKA: Peely, rough lips).

After 2-3x daily application for thirty days, the following results were obtained:

• Clinical improvement of the lips, scored by a dermatologist:
  • Hydration: +50% to +60%
  • Reduction of furrows: +10% to +30% (remember what I've said before, 30% is REALLY high for topical skincare as far as reducing depth of wrinkles! Skincare is way, way mroe effective at preventing that correcting.)

• Enhancement of the volume of the lips measured by 3D morphometry:
  • By a mean of 40% (p<0.05)

• Self Evaluation:
  • All (100%) of the volunteers reported that the state of their lips had improved.
  • 70% of the volunteers reported an improvement in lip comfort and protection, and reduction in the roughness to the touch of the lips.
  • 60% thought that the desquamation showed a considerable (40%) or moderate (20%) improvement.
  • 70% were satisfied with the comfort of the skin.
  • 70% experienced a real feeling of protection.
  • 70% noticed that the lips were less rough to the touch.

After 30 days of use, the lips were moisturized and the desquamation reduced. The volume increased and the outline of the lips was clearer.

Improvement in Lip Volume:

These pictures highlight the 30% improvement. Without seeing it side by side, the client could easily say "My lips look better" but not be able to tell how much better. From an esthetician's perspective, this is dramatic improvement.

Day 1

Day 30

Improvement in Lip Hydration:

This is another awesome example!

Day 1

Day 30

Another primary active ingredient in our BedsideManner Anti-Aging Lip + Hand Treatment is a plant based, Portulaca Extract. Portulaca has been shown to increase Hyalorinc Acid synthesis, one of the key factors in moisture content and health of skin. In vitro tests have been carried out following 3 axes, stimulation of dermal matrix molecules (collagen 1, collagen 3, fibronectin, HSP47), reinforcement of DEJ molecules (collagen 4, laminin 5), improvement of hydric sphere (hyaluronic acid, aquaporin 3). Two clinical studies were carried out. The first involved 29 panelists with a twice daily application of. It associated several complementary methods such as Aeroflexmete, fringe projections (FOITS) and MoistureMeter-D. The second one was carried out on a total of 21 panelists to measure re-densification with an ultrasonor echograph. The results are very significant. We observed a gain of firmness (+13.3%), hydration (+50.6%), softness (10.5%), volume (+15.1%), curvature (+9.2%) and an increase (+19.6%) of the surface of the central area of the lower lip for volunteers with very fine lips.

Stop by your favorite BijaBody retailer and pick up a jar! $18 for 1 oz (That is so much product!). Keep it by your toothbrush. We know you brush your teeth at least twice a day. So add this little ritual: apply a bit on your lips and tops of hands in the morning, while you're getting ready. Massage in. At night, apply liberally to lips, around lip area, smile lines, hands and wrists (and if you're like us and live in a dry climate, go ahead and slather your whole face with it! Oh, and guys love it too.). Massage into fine lines and spots on your hands, wrists and lip area. The first week or so, you may notice a bit of flakiness on your lips. That is old skin being pushed away by new skin. Work through it. This generally happens to clients who have had lip issues, are regular smokers, or whose lips are just naturally really dry.

If you don't have a local beauty retailer, you can get it on our shop. Let us know you read about it on the Blog and we'll add a purse-size (5ml. Tiny but perfect) Daily Body Serum to your order.

xxxo, Melissa