Congratulations to Angela Huston for winning JUARA's Mother's Day 2009 Contest

Thank you everybody for submitting your beautiful stories about why your mom is the best. There were several amazing essays to choose from. In the end, Angela Huston's touching story about her mother impressed us so much that we crowned her the winner of our Mother's Day 2009 Contest. Angela and her mother will each receive a $50 JUARA gift certificate to redeem on our site. Congratulations Angela! It is our pleasure to share with all of you her beautiful story and hope that it inspires you as much as it has inspired us.

Why my Mom is #1!

My Mom is the best Mom in the world because of THOUSANDS of reasons. First, she worked harder than most to become a mom. You see, she was unable to conceive and thus turned to adoption. After many years and heartbreak (one child she had for 4 months was taken back by his birth mother) she finally persevered in having a family when she adopted me. She was wonderful from day 1, always there for me 1000% of the time. I cannot remember a moment in my childhood when I doubted my mother's love or support of me. What makes her such a tremendous mother is because she is truly an amazing human being. Many years ago there was a neighbor family that was devastated by the death of the father; seeing the mother suffer a nervous breakdown and having no family nearby to help, my mother offered to take care of the preteen son, and he lived with us for a year. That is just one example of how generous my mother is. Recently, in her 60's, my mother helped a student from the college she works at. The student could not afford to stay in school and pay for rent but she refused to let him withdraw from College...My mom moved him into her house and gave him a room to stay in rent free for the remainder of his education! Her greatest lessons are not in what she told me but what she has SHOWN me. Now in her 70's, my mother continues to show my children what being a great human being is. Some may say she became my mother by chance, but I believe that some higher power had a hand in granting me the world's best mother! I thank God for her every day, and hope that I become half the human being that my mother is.

Angela Huston

Make Magic Fizzy Tea aka Kombucha - Metta Murdaya

I've been drinking Kombucha, the active ingredient in our Sweet Black Tea series, (moisturizer, eye creme, lip treatment,) for quite some time now with positive results; I have more energy, a more balanced appetite as I swear it curbs my guilty snacking desire and more. Needless to say, I'm a fan. So to add to my growing (no pun intended) "I'm going to grow something" kick which includes nurturing indestructable houseplants, I decided to brew Kombucha.This concoction is a healthful brew of black tea, sugar, and a special "mushroom," that is called a SCOBY (acronym for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast,) that ferments together over time to create a yummy, tangy, carbonated beverage that contains healthy organic acids that can seriously improve your energy levels, digestion, and provide many other health benefits. Now I say grow because at the end of the brewing process, the mother scoby actually grows, or creates, a new baby scoby you can use or give away! Despite the safe history of home brews for over 2000 years, I didn't want to be the clueless idiot who screwed it up, a trepidation I admittedly felt. My consolation is that I have historical averages on my side - if I followed directons and kept everything clean, how badly could it go? The first batch where I combined the 'mother' scoby, black tea and sugar, the fermentation, which takes usually 5-10 days before happy drinkability, took about 2 weeks thanks to freezing New York end-of-winter weather. It resides on my fridge in a jar, and wow - it's fun to watch develop. Day 1 it was clear. By day 3, I would shine a light through the tea, and it was cloudy, like the submarine in ocean depths of the Hunt for Red October. Mother scoby was kicking off all sorts of growth, and I saw strands aiming for the surface, where the baby scoby gets created and covers the whole surface of the liquid. So little jar, little baby scoby. Wide jar, wide scoby. I didn't think about this when I bought my 2-gallon jar, so now I'm going to get a fantastic scoby the size of a frisbee. Not so aw-how-cute, but definitely woah-huge impressive. Day 5, I notice a film starting to grow at the top, some scary looking discolored yeast/bacteria formations, bubbles and a slightly sourish smell. I thought it was time to panic, thinking something had gone wrong. But after some research, I realize it's all good and accepted the fact making kombucha was not going to be pretty like watching your chocolate cake batter rise in the oven. But so much more fun. It's dynamic. Zip to the last day, when air bubbles have formed (like in soda,) baby scoby is a thin film, smooth and tan-cream colored, and it's ready to go. Voila!

As the weather gets warmer (oh finally!), and so does my apartment, each batch has only taken about a week to fully ferment to bottlable, shareable, yummy drinkable fizzy healthy tea. When it's done, I bottle it in a GLASS bottle (no plastic, ceramic, metal, etc.) only and keep in fridge to avoid overfermentation/too much gas build if it sits in a heated area for too long (glass shattering has been reported though I've never experienced it... oops) and enjoy! I'm now on my 5th batch or so, I've lost count, my baby scobies have created new ones, and I've gotten requests for my scobies that I'll gladly give away to proliferate scobies the size of frisbees in my neighborhood.

Ideas I've gotten to mix the Kombucha with - I like straight, or with apple juice and cranberry juice. So easy to search online on how to make it, and all I have to say is, if I can do it, so can anyone. Give it a go - if nothing else, it makes for great party conversation! To your health!

-METTA MURDAYA

Are You Really Eating Healthy? - Jill Sung

It occurred to me recently that I might not be eating as healthily as I think I am. Random events with free cookies, the candy hand-out at work every now and then, and lattes pepper my diet occasionally...or at least I think they do. So I came up with the idea of keeping track of what I eat. I know a food diary is a pretty common idea for keeping track of what you eat if you're trying to lose weight, but I never thought to use it just to double check that my eating habits really are as healthy as I think they are. I've been keeping my food diary as a spreadsheet on Google Documents (http://docs.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wo) - so that I can fill out the diary anywhere I have access to the internet (home, work, etc.). The beauty of it, I also keep track of my spending habits and exercise habits as well.
I've been keeping track for a month now, and sugar does tend to find its way into my diet more than I had thought. Now I know, and I'll be keeping an eye out for sugar. I'll check back in a month and see if I've improved. Or let me know if there's any other bad habits you think I should keep track of!

- JILL SUNG

Productive walking?! - Jill Sung

I love moving around and the concept of exercising, but can’t get myself to walk into a gym. The utter dread of exercising in a room full of strangers for an hour is related more to boredom and time moving so slowly than anything else. When I walk around the city, I’m energized by the small traces of life I see all around me, whether it be street graffiti, people talking animatedly on the streets, or the rare brave squirrel that makes it past the gated clumps of grassy gardens we New Yorkers love. Don’t get me wrong, I love walking in the forest and the suburbs too, it’s the diversity of life and living around me that I love. But I’ve come up with something new since I can’t bring myself to walk into a gym and enjoy it for more than 1 week. I’ve discovered body weights. (http://www.bodytogs.com/) Weight training is super important for body health, especially as we age. It helps to build strong bones, which our bodies depend more on from weight training than drinking in calcium (ie. Milk) as we age. And you burn more calories when you're walking around with weights on. It's a win win. Plus wearable weights are perfect for the winter when I'm wearing warm clothes (at home or work) No one can tell I'm wearing them on my forearms or calves under my clothing. So just don't tell my work mates I'm working out while working with them. And someone please help me come up with a solution for the summer!

-JILL SUNG

Tip: Make Your Favorite Moisturizer Last Longer - Metta Murdaya

We just had an amazingly fun and successful event on February 4th with Three Custom Colors makeup line and Red Market Salon NYC, and all I have to say is I'm so excited that even in this cold and freezing New York weather, we had a line out the door before the event started! Having the weather forecast say it was going to be one of the coldest evenings of the year made us anxious that no one would want to trek out for a beauty party. But the anxiety of an empty room became a feeling of excitement when the stream of people arrived! For those who waited in the freezing cold to get in, congratulations and kudos, because 20 degrees is seriously no picnic. We offered free make-overs, skincare consultations, and free hair blow-outs, goodie bags and drinks. Everyone from clients to beauty editors came to revel in a night of primping and pampering. It was really fun. My take-away: Despite the recessional woe-is-the-world news, doom-and-gloom hunker down and save nervousness - let's face it, whenever we can have an opportunity to look and feel beautiful, we'll take it. Beauty and healthy skin inspired confidence - and how to do that now when everyone's watching their wallets? I spoke to a few women who were avid Creme de La Mer fans. They said as much as they loved using it, they didn't want to use so much that it would run out quickly, especially these days!

So their question was how does one get beautiful, perfectly hydrated skin without skimping on their fave pricey and lovely moisturizer? By using our JUARA Tamarind Tea Hyrdating Toner before applying the moisturizer! The toner is the perfect addition to make a favorite moisturizer last longer, since it's a hydrating elixir that soothes and adds oil-free moisture to your skin, addressing the dehydration that we all face, enabling one to use less of their La Mer (or other favorite) moisturizer while acheiving the same results. Unlike the old-school toners which have alcohol and can strip and overdry skin, think of the JUARA Tamarind Tea Hydrating Toner more as the first step to moisturizing rather than the last step of cleansing. Alcohol-free, fragrance-free and filled with a chock of hyaluronic acid and tamarind seed extract to hydrate and increase suppleness of skin, this natural and silky liquid will absorb quickly into your skin. Then you can seal all that goodness with your favorite moisturizer; you won't need as much since the toner has already given your skin a head start with hyrdation. And at $27 a bottle, this no-cotton-ball-needed toner in a pump will go a long way. (Why waste the precious liquid on a cotton ball anyway, we ask?) No need to spend a million bucks to look like it. That's our recession tip!

Does anyone else have any suggestions on how to make their favorite products last longer?
And if you are in NY and would like to be invited to our next exciting party, please sign up on our mailing list here!
-METTA MURDAYA

REAL SIMPLE Part 2! How to simply adapt your skincare program to extreme weather conditions - Yoshiko Roth

I absolutely love my 1-2-3 basics (see my previous posting): Rice Facial Cleanser, Tamarind Toner and Sweet Black Tea & Rice Moisturizer. It is so simple, quick, easy, and it was spot-on perfect for my normal-to-dry skin before the crazy arctic temperature change in New York a few weeks ago.

When the arctic wave hit, my skin needed more! The dry, cold wind through the wind tunnels of NYC were wreaking havoc on my skin. I still loved my Sweet Black Tea & Rice Moisturizer because it boost my radiance and smoothes my skin and wears superbly under foundation, but it just wasn’t rich enough for this type of extreme cold. My mother, also a health and skincare nut, had a great idea. “Why don’t you just mix a few drops of facial oil with the moisturizer to make it more emollient?” How simple is that! I tried it right away the same night and a single drop added to my hazelnut-sized amount of moisturizer made ALL the difference. So I started incorporating it daily: 1 drop of oil in the morning, 2 drops at night. Perfect!

My mother knows I am obsessed with travel-sizes and mini-sizes of product. The smaller and cuter, the better! After she suggested the added-oil treatment for my skin, she actually found the tiniest, most adorable oil-capsules at our natural drugstore back in Germany and mailed them to me. These capsules are about half the size of a finger nail and contain 2-3 drops of pure rose-hip oil (Alverde Wildrosenoel-Kapseln) and are perfect for travel. They are tiny and never leak! Going back to my obsession of fitting my entire beauty regimen into a quart-size zip lock bag when I travel: Now, with my cleanser, toner, moisturizer and oil-capsules, I can carry around a skincare program in a single zippy bag that is good for hot-humid weather all the way to arctic-dry winter climate. It is my completely customizable skincare program in a zippy bag! In hot-humid weather, I just use the oil-free hydrating toner alone. In normal weather, I apply the toner and moisturizer. And finally, in really extremely cold, dry climates, I use the toner followed by the moisturizer mixed with a drop of oil. I could travel the whole world with this one small zippy bag!
-YOSHIKO ROTH

The Art of the Cremebath. -Metta Murdaya

Now here’s a hair/spa treatment we are missing out on in the US. Imagine having big yummy bowls of creamy, dreamy, custardy botanical hair mask slathered all through your newly shampooed hair in a gloriously revitalizing head massage as you sit and relax in a comfy chair. After 20 minutes of head heaven, your hair is then wrapped in a warm, moist steamy towel as this massage wonderfully moves to your shoulders and neck, releasing all tension. Then moves down to your arms, forearms, all the way to your fingertips. Delicious olive oil and lotions are combined to create a massage oil that will give you that mmmm-give-me-more-just-right-there-oh-yes! feel as your muscles are released. (No dirty thoughts now, this is a family show!) Imagine this goes on for another 45 minutes. Try not to drool from bliss. I call this heaven. The Indonesians call it a traditional cremebath. Short of being a full spa treatment, this head-to-arm treatment is a traditional beauty ritual that you can find in many spas and salons in Indonesia. Convenient because it takes less time and doesn’t require you to disrobe, it nonetheless gives you release and pampering in just the right areas. And since we all need air hair washed, it also has a purely functional aspect to it too, rendering your hair clean, healthy and beautiful, so this treatment is very popular with the women there, myself included. After the treatment, you are served tea or Jamu, an ancient herbal health tonic, you can sip while slowly reconnecting to the world out there… where you can begin to dream about getting the next cremebath…

One can choose from a variety of conditioning masks with different traditional benefits. Their claims for the masks with following ingredients are:
Ginseng – energizing, for thinning hair
Candlenut - increases shine and darkens hair (what I chose!)
Avocado – hydrating nourishment for dry hair
Aloe Vera – straightens hair

I went with a friend of mine in Jakarta, Indonesia. Sometimes they’re in fancier salons, but ours was in a local salon with a simple Javanese theme, with batik chairs and traditional rotan furniture. We wanted to be in the same room so we could chat through the treatment, but once the fingers touched our heads, we both, as if on cue, became radio silent for the next hour, lost somewhere in “this feels so good” and “Calgon, take me away!” land. But definitely bring me back, especially after I saw the price tag on this ritual: $6. (It can go up to $15 in fancier salons/spas.) If you’re in Indonesia, I highly suggest you look for one in a salon/spa near you.
-METTA MURDAYA