Natural body care.

The joy of a warm embrace.

At school, we were taught that our normal body temperature is 37 degrees Celsius and that a higher or lower temperature indicates that we are ill. Despite this, our core temperature is as rhythmic as everything else in life. It is the highest at 3 p.m. in the afternoon and the lowest at 3 a.m. in the morning.

Our entire body acts as a service provider for this basic 24-hour thermal rhythm, which is incidentally directly linked to our awareness.

In today’s world, however, we often lack the basic warmth – whether because our clothes are too thin or due to everyday stress. Our bodies have cooled down and this causes us problems with regard to falling and staying asleep. We remain wide-awake long into the night, perhaps yearning for a warm evening atmosphere. It’s simply impossible to fall asleep with cold feet.

Interview.

Interview with Annette Greco Head of Galenic Development, and Florian Junge, Team Leader Brand Management Cosmos about warmth and rhythm in relation to body care.

Ms Greco, you develop various Dr. Hauschka skin care products for the face and body. Is the skin on the body different to that on the face? Won’t one cream suffice for everything?

Annette Greco: Our facial skin has very different needs to that on our body. It is an organ of the head, just like our sensory organs the eyes, mouth and nose. Rather than being highly metabolically active and warm, these are cool and associated with catabolic processes. Accordingly, our facial skin breaks down more. This is not followed by anabolic processes, explaining why our face is the part of our body where we tend to develop wrinkles. I don’t know anyone who complains about wrinkles on their thighs. However, no-one has ever said “I’ve got cellulite on my cheeks” either. My body experiences clear metabolic processes with heat development. My face experiences clear nervous/sensory processes with catabolic effect. The care products for the body and face therefore need to differ.

How do the facial and body care products differ?

Greco: When it comes to the face, I always have to strengthen the anabolic processes. With regard to body care, on the other hand, the focus is on the dynamics of warmth. When developing body care products, we ask ourselves how we can support the generation of body heat by externally applying products but also how we can distribute this heat and allow it to flow but also release it.

Florian Junge: Daily protection still plays an important role for facial care. I cover my body with clothes but my face is more exposed. I have to protect it differently. The preparation for the day ahead is different than with body care.

And what about the oil-free night care that you recommend for the face? Is this also important for the body? Should I avoid using oily body care products in the evenings?

Greco: No, that’s not necessary. If you view Dr. Hauschka as skin care that respects rhythms, the reason becomes clearer. The face and the body quite simply follow different rhythms. In the case of the face, we support the anabolic and catabolic rhythm. As the anabolic processes generally occur in the aqueous element, the anabolic night care for the face is purely aqueous. When it comes to the body, we follow this rhythm by supporting the great fluctuation in inner warmth. Body care is therefore all about warmth, which gives me a sense of inner comfort, but that I also radiate or release again. Whereas the focus for facial care products is whether or not they are oil-free, when it comes to body care, you need to see if they offer warmth. Warming products always incorporate oils. As such, you are fine to apply cream or oil to your body on an evening.

Despite this, some people still find that their skin feels drier in the morning if they have used a Body Oil the night before.

Greco: Yes. This shows us that our Body Oils not only care for the skin, but people as a whole. I therefore often apply a Body Oil followed by a Body Cream.

Dr. Hauschka Body Oils care for people as a whole? That sounds very unusual. Can you elaborate?

Greco: The Body Oils are the Dr. Hauschka products that directly address the body’s warmth. In fact, oil is nothing more than concentrated summer warmth, concentrated sunshine. The addition of medicinal plants enables the oil to be tailored to specific needs. I have to start by asking myself what I want to achieve with the oil. The five Dr. Hauschka Body Oils offer me a huge range of diversity. For example, if I want to centre warmth, I opt for Lemon Lemongrass Vitalising Body Oil, whereas Blackthorn Toning Body Oil helps me stimulate the generation of warmth in my body. I now have all of the Dr. Hauschka Body Oils at home and play with them like a keyboard. I sense what kind of oil I’m going to need for the day ahead or require at the end of each day.

That means that everyone has to find their own body care regime. Do you still focus on developing products for certain skin conditions though?

Greco: We tend to focus on the different conceptions of people instead. We’ve looked at the different human constitutions irrespective of body or facial care. How do we treat morning people with warmth and what about night owls? Which skin care rituals can be used to help people who struggle to maintain a healthy thermal rhythm? Warmth is incredibly inspirational for our work.

Is it possible for body and facial care to be separately considered at all when you are talking about people’s different constitutions?

Junge: No, but we unfortunately tend to always juxtapose facial and body care very abstractly or even present them as polar opposites. In fact, they intertwine very well. If I have a good centre and well-regulated warmth, then I also have a radiant appearance.

Greco: I’d even go a step further and really talk about the preservation of people’s health. Body care is the central element for maintaining or developing beauty. If I don’t strengthen my body’s original human destiny, I can do as much as I want to my face but my actions will have no effect. I can promote true beauty by caring for my body on a level that goes beyond simple skin care. This is not about saying whether the skin looks less flaky or has one more area of cellulite. This can be an aesthetic side-effect. It is about something that really makes people special as humans and about caring for this. And ultimately about something that leads to outer beauty via our inner being.

Nowadays, many people spend all day working at a computer and experience the sensation of their head getting ever warmer but their hands and feet ever colder. Can the right body care help with this?

Greco: Moor Lavender Calming Body Oil helps me in the mornings by offering me enveloping protection. In the evening, a foot bath with Moor Lavender Calming Bath Essence helps me digest the many thoughts in my crowded mind. However, body care is no substitute for me consciously focussing on myself. To believe that quickly warming my hands would make everything good would be a mere substitution. I need stimuli to help me independently restore my natural warmth balance. Cold hands are not my basic problem. The basic problem is that I have lost the sense of self-attention that shows me what is and isn’t good for me. When it comes to body care, for me it’s about restoring a sense of self-awareness.

Is the way I treat myself, listen to my body and care for myself part of the Dr. Hauschka cosmetics culture?

Junge: I believe so, yes. People today yearn to return to a skin care culture. But not through the profusion of applications offered by the spa industry. A sense of wellbeing can instead be created through omission, by me consciously enjoying something rather than just subjecting myself to a huge range of applications. The Dr. Hauschka products can help me experience situations with a sense of mindfulness. That is what I regard as this cosmetics culture that preserves good health or something that can help people as a life companion while also being contemporary. For me, it essentially comes down to the desire for mindfulness and to learn to be in touch with my body again. Perhaps it is also a cultural task.

Greco: Culture means nothing more than designing things. And I don’t have to paint pictures or make stone sculptures to do this. It’s also about shaping my own biography, my own everyday life. This is what I regard as culture. And when the manner in which I use skin care products can act as a stimulus for paying myself some attention and taking on a truly active design role, this is what I regard as cosmetics culture. But it’s also about my awareness towards the environment. For me, Dr. Hauschka cosmetics culture includes a sense of responsibility to nature, for processes and for applications. As well as taking responsibility for myself again and radiating senses of warmth, sociability and enthusiasm. After all, the way I treat myself can also impact my encounters with other people.