Nature’s Beauty Kit: Cosmetic Recipes You Can Make at Home (Fulcrum Publishing, 1995) is a slim paperback, 117 pages before its appendices and index, offering an odd assortment of recipes, rituals, and advice. The author, Deb Carpenter, has taught at Oglala Lakota College and scatters some commentary about traditional Lakota beauty care practices throughout the pages of her book; I think this, the effort to collect and share underappreciated American wisdom, is the most interesting aspect of Nature’s Beauty Kit; unfortunately, the effort is unsustained and unorganized, without even an index entry for “Lakota” or “Native American”, so the only way to find the little information that is provided about Lakota practices is to read every page of the book.

Some very practical guidance is also offered:

• frequent reminders to always patch test before using a new product, because “natural” does not mean “harmless”;
• repeated (though unexplained) instructions that unused homemade cosmetics must be discarded after a few days (the explanation, of course, being that without preservatives the product will break down and become unpleasant, unusable, and perhaps dangerous, just as any food product would; for additional comments on preservatives, see this issue's other book review)
• insistence that the best way to make sure the skin receives proper nutrition is to support it from the inside, by eating well, not from the outside, by coating it with lotion

Interspersed with these sensible observations, some practices are suggested which seem bizarre but harmless (chanting while massaging face or feet), and others which are mundane and useless (cider vinegar can rinse away dandruff but can’t eliminate it, since dandruff is caused by a fungus and vinegar is not anti-fungal; castor oil can’t do a thing for liver spots but make them greasy, no matter how often it is applied). Some ideas just don’t make sense: yes, lecithin does contain phosphatidylcholine (the book does not use this grown-up word), material useful for building and repairing cells, but simply adding one tablespoon of liquid lecithin per four ounces of night cream, without careful formulation to create a dispersion or emulsion of small particles, will create nothing but a sticky, expensive, jar of glue (A discussion of the importance of phosphatidylcholine is available in our January 2005 issue). There are also some surprising inconsistencies, suggestions I didn’t expect to find in a book called Nature’s Beauty Kit: add food coloring to bath salts; make liquid soap by melting down bar soap and adding perfume and food coloring.

Other suggestions offered in Nature’s Beauty Kit are possibly dangerous: applying a compress of grated potato to the eyelids is a good way to get food fragments in the eyes, causing infection; dunking one’s face into a bowl of ice water and ice cubes and holding it there as long as possible, four times per morning, certainly should not be attempted by anyone with a weak heart. Other ideas, though well-intentioned, are just false: yes, hair is “more than a fashion”; no, hair is not “a living part of us.” Hair is not alive; it’s the product of a living animal, as milk and perspiration are, and is physically and socially useful to that animal just as milk and perspiration are, but is not itself alive. Living cells contain DNA; hair does not. Hair follicles are alive, and the scalp in which hair follicles are supported is alive; hair, while interesting, important, sometimes problematic, and often beautiful, is not “a living part of us.”

I think the most serious deficiency of Nature’s Beauty Kit is that it offers many instructions but few explanations. For example, stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), to which reactions are often as severe as to poison ivy and poison oak, is listed as a key ingredient in many hair-related preparations. Why, and why would anyone follow Carpenter’s instructions about handling it (wearing heavy gloves, so as to avoid the plant’s tiny hypodermic needles and plentiful formic acid) as the dangerous material it is, and then proceed to apply this material to their own skin? There are, of course, many resources available which explain the structure and traditional uses of Urtica and other botanicals; one such resource, based on Grieve’s 1931 A Modern Herbal, is the subject of another review in this issue. I strongly suggest that anyone interested in following Carpenter’s recipes do so with at least one eye on something like A Modern Herbal, making sure to investigate what to expect from an ingredient before using it; explanations, not instructions, are essential to safe use of natural materials.

Preservative-Free and Self-Preserving Cosmetics and Drugs (Dekker, 1997) is a collection of essays all related to developing issues in cosmetic and drug preservation.The authors address a new trend in cosmetic products: formulations without harmful preservatives. Or do they? The book provides good coverage of preservation aspects of different ingredients and provides pointers to the mechanistics of anti-microbial activity of different ingredients. Overall, the writing is clear, with natural connections between chapters written by different authors. The book is recommended for manufacturers concerned about pressure from consumer groups to avoid parabens and other well-established preservatives, or under the same pressure from companies offering new preservatives which compete with familiar ingredients. It may also be suitable for educated consumers with a basic scientific background.

The book provides a list of popular preservatives which are currently in use and discusses how to combine individual ingredients which have specific anti-bacterial activity but do not qualify as standalone preservatives to reach critical preservation power. The authors name products with such preservation types as “self-preserving products” and discuss practical methods of reaching cumulative preservation power in “self-preserving products”. The authors point out that such preservation must be confirmed for each product variation, and maybe for each batch. This could make products very expensive and inflexible, unable to accept even minor modifications, constraints more reminiscent of drug manufacturing than cosmetics manufacturing. The other suggestion, “contamination-resistant packaging”, is currently practical for single-use products made under sterile conditions.

One missing chapter in this book is the un-written chapter about post-application preservation, or maintaining preservation power while a product is on skin. Though the book mentions the fact that severe injury, including blindness, due to under-presevation has been reported and has raised the concern of regulatory bodies, there is no effort to address potential post-application under-preservation issues which are more likely in “self-preserving products” and in “contamination-resistant packaging” than in products preserved with standalone preservatives.

Self-preserving products are based on cumulative stress on microorganisms from individual bacterial-limiting aspects of certain ingredients. Cumulative stress is likely to be synergistic, and thus a non-linear effect. Even a slight dilution may render the cumulative “self-preservation” useless. Unlike food, which must be preserved until it is eaten, at which point the effectiveness of preservation is moot, topical formulations are meant to stay in contact with skin for 12-24 hours if used properly, and may be left on skin longer by consumers neglecting or ignoring label instructions. If a formulation is rich in natural nutrients and is left for an extended period on the skin and diluted by perspiration, it can provide a fertile ground for growth of microorganisms, either those already in the formula or new ones acquired from the skin or the environment. This issue of post-application contamination is critical, particularly in regard to natural products which are less likely to have adequate preservatives added during their formulation. Ironically, it is natural product consumers who are leading the anti-preservation campaign.

The other missing chapter in the book is a detailed discussion about why is it important to seek new methods of preservation. What is wrong with current preservatives? Other than a vague comment about irritation from some products containing preservatives, there is no real discussion. There is no suggestion of even the possibility that in many cases the irritation is related to the overall formula quality and not to the preservatives or any specific ingredient in the formula. They do not mention that, in some cases, people who were “irritated by a preservative” in one product could tolerate the same preservative in another product, which means that the problem is with the overall product and not necessarily with the preservative. Allergic reactions are mentioned. Some individuals can have allergic reactions to the mildest known ingredients; those individuals cannot and should not use those ingredients. Irritation is not the same as allergy; look for an in-depth discussion of this key distinction in a future article.

The book is an interesting snapshot of a difficult moment, with scientists increasingly interested in meeting consumer expectations and consumers increasingly aware of, and increasingly shaping, the processes of scientific inquiry and product development. The impossibililty of satisfying all parties here demonstrates how difficult it is to maintain a scientific aura while addressing a trend imposed by consumer demand. While the authors are careful not to be labeled as anti-preservationists, they are far more reluctant to take issue with the sensibility of this trend; they seem to be carefully clinging to their scientific integrity while avoiding clashes with potential customers.