Captured by the Allure of Natural, Organic Skin Care!

Believe it or not, I have been drawn to Natural/ Organic Skin Care products for over 30 years now! Back in my 20's, I was really drawn to natural body care and skin care products- I loved learning about about all the different herbs, plants and flowers that went into making healing, natural products that are so good for your skin. I actually became a part-time distributor of natural, healing skin & body care products for a well-known, world-wide Swiss company, back in the early 1990's!

As the years went by, my attention was taken away from this love by having to keep a good job in the corporate world to support myself. Needless to say, over 20 years of that life was enough for me! So, in 2011, I again turned my interest to developing a business where I could distribute organic & natural skin & beauty products that were actually good for people. I started my own distribution website- some of you may have seen it- www.getwholesomebeauty.com, as it is still online, and we now use it as a subsidiary division of Cosmetiques LaudunTM. 

While running this business, I was constantly on the look-out for GREAT products- an in particular, those made with 80% or more Organic plant ingredients. Believe me, they are not easy to find! One day, I came in contact with a company through my Twitter account that looked really good- I checked their website, www.TheLaudun.com, and I was amazed to see so many lovely, gorgeously-packaged products that touted they were made with "organic & natural plant ingredients, straight from the earth." I was intrigued, and even more so, when I read their tagline: "Organic Elegance for Your Skin." YES!

So, I contacted Anna Laudun Beaubouef, Founder/CEO, and she actually agreed to allow me to distribute her products via my website- I was so happy! I started writing many blog posts about all the different lovely plant ingredients used in Cosmetiques LaudunTM products, and loving distributing and selling all the lovely products- not to mention using them myself! I remember when I got my first whiff of "Rose Milk Frost," Ultra Hydrating Body Lotion, I almost fell over, because the scent of the Damask Rose in it was so delicious! I felt the same about the intoxicating Jasmine scent of "Sweet Feet," and the "Sea Goddess," Natural Seaweed Extract body soap. Wow!

In the process of learning about all the beautiful Cosmetiques LaudunTM products and how they were created, Anna and I got to know each other very well, and today I think of her as my very close sister/friend. Anna has bestowed much of her knowledge upon me about how her dear, "Mama Jeanne," her Grandmother, would gather all the ingredients necessary from her garden, every morning, so later she could make her "beauty creme, foot creme, scrub and soaps." Needless to say the pictures evoked in my mind of Anna's story of going out into the garden with her Grandma each morning to "freshly pick different flowers, herbs and plants that later she would show me how to use to make her different beauty cremes, soaps and concoctions," left a very strong, beautiful impression on my mind. I felt that I already knew Mama Jeanne well, even though I did not ever have the pleasure of meeting her.

Today, I am so proud, honored and happy to be a part of this beautiful company, Cosmetiques LaudunTM! Anna asked me to join the company in 2013, and in 2015 my role changed a bit to encompass more responsibility, as Director of Marketing and Sales.  I work hard to bring Grandma Jeanne's legacy of her healing, vintage garden skin care formulations to all of you, and it makes me very happy to do it. Today happens to be "Mama Jeanne's" birthday, March 31st, and so it is no surprise that she is on my mind a great deal, and lead me to write this for all of you!


May you always enjoy the best of health, the best of everything that Nature has to offer!

- Nancy S. Bechtol
Director, Sales & Marketing
COSMETIQUES LAUDUN TM

Beauty Secrets I Learned in the Garden with my Grandmother

As many of our friends & family know, we are celebrating Grandma Jeanne Laudun's Legacy to Cosmetiques LaudunTM this entire month, in an ongoing tribute to her, as her birthday happens to fall in March. We are pleased to give you this short "Memoire," from our Founder/CEO, Anna Laudun Beauboeuf, about her lovely days spent in the garden learning all about different plants & flowers, with her dearest, "Mama Jeanne."

"My grandmother was a lovely lady, always so elegant and
beautiful, and she loved us, my sister, Mitsy, and I. She sewed many clothes for us, beautiful embroidered dresses, skirts of vibrant colors, she took care of and styled our hair, and taught us how to make little gifts- she was a grandmother of your dreams!

My best memories are of the days I spent with her in her huge garden- filled with flowers, plants, a beautiful vine LOADED with big black and green grapes, giant mangos & avocados. My sister & I loved to climb all the trees ... it was truly a paradise.

Very early on Saturday mornings, I would accompany my Mama Jeanne, my little wicker basket in hand, to "la ceuillette," or picking & gathering of plants that later she would use to create creams for the care of our skin, or shampoos for our hair, and body lotions richly perfumed with herbals. 

 

Throughout our plant-gathering time, she educated me about all of these plants, their medicinal values & qualities, and had me touch, feel, smell and even taste them. My grandmother was, how the French say, a very"coquettish," or elegant & beautiful woman, and taking good care of her skin was a very important part of her daily beauty routine.

.

In her room, there was a small, carved table, high enough to keep prying children's hands from reaching the bottles kept inside, with a cabinet door in the front and a glass top. This table contained a precious range or collection of small jars of essential plant oils of all types, scented with herbs, or containing a few pieces of ginger, sandalwood, clove etc. 

After our morning "ceuillette," my Grandmother would have me sit on a straw chair near

her, and would teach me how to make her make her natural

beauty mixtures in a large blue porcelain bowl.

 

-"A few drops of ginger oil for the face cream, a few drops of aloe juice, lemon to hydrate the face," etc. -she showed me how all these plants and more were utilized. At the end of the day, we were allowed a small pot of body cream, freshly made, deliciously perfumed with jasmine flowers & citrus, or rose water- a small jar of creme that lasted just a few hours."

 

*****

 

We will feature more in future posts, about the history (or "Herstory") of our delightful Founder/CEO, Anna Laudun Beauboeuf, and her beautiful grandmother, "Mama Jeanne."

 

How Do My Grandmother's Organic Skin Care Recipes Stack Up Against Olay "Regenerist" & Other Popular Brands?

In today's popular skin care products, the market is flooded with lots of brands of "anti-aging creams, eye creams, anti-wrinkle serums," etc. that all make very huge promises, like "Reduce fine lines & wrinkles in just 2 weeks!" Many of us can find a pile of these products discarded in our drawers, because they haven't worked that fast, or at all in many cases, to reduce the signs of aging in our skin that we are concerned about.

My grandmother, "Mama Jeanne," made her own organic beauty "recipes" that she used and gave to our family to use. She composed her creams and scrubs from plants, herbals & flowers that she and I would hand-pick every morning in her garden at the hillside suburban town of Petion Ville. 

I spent many days under her instruction, as she showed me how to create her famous "beauty cream," soaps & body scrub with ingredients that came straight from her garden!  Her recipes were very healing to the skin & effectively address a variety of skin ailments, like acne, eczema, dry skin, dark spots, wrinkles & even psoriasis. Mama Jeanne never used ANY synthetics, dyes or chemicals of any kind in her beauty recipes.

Here are some of the ingredients she loved to use: Aloe & aloe juice, coconut, laurel & other plant & nut oils, plaintain major leaf, cucumber, marigold, jasmine & evening primrose flowers, damask rose water, roses & comfrey, all very simple and very effective, yet not harmful to the environment. 

These are the ingredients -kept intact from her original "Beauty Cream" recipe- in our "Mitsy," USDA Certifed Bio-Organic Anti-aging Skin Cream that we continue to make today, (that is truly effective in reducing wrinkles, fine lines, dark spots & firming skin & you will see a big difference in just 2 weeks): 100% Pure, Organic Grape Seed Oil infused with Organic Evening Primrose Flower & Calendula oils & extracts, Organic Aloe Vera Juice, Cornstarch (non modified-GMO), Cucumber extract for fragrance. - Paraben-Free, NO Chemicals or Preservatives, Dye-Free. 

Now, so you can do a side-by-side comparison, here are the listed ingredients in Olay's "Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream," - Water, Glycerin, Isohexadecane, Niacinamide, Isopropyl Isostearate, Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate, Nylon-12, Dimethicone, Panthenol, Tocopheryl Acetate, Sodium Hyaluronate, Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Allantoin, Stearyl Alcohol, Polyethylene, Cetyl Alcohol, Sodium Acrylates Copolymer, Behenyl Alcohol, Benzyl Alcohol, Acrylamide/Sodium Acryloyldimethyltaurate Copolymer, Dimethiconol, Sodium Peg-7 Olive Oil Carboxylate, Peucedanum Graveolens (Dill) Extract, Peg-100 Stearate, Stearic Acid, Disodium Edta, Cetearyl Glucoside, Cetearyl Alcohol, Citric Acid, C12-13 Pareth-3, Laureth-7, C13-14 Isoparaffin, Sodium Hydroxide, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Ethylparaben, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Titanium Dioxide, Mica. Vitamin B3, Pro-Vitamin B5, Vitamin E, Amino-Peptide, Green Tea, Aloe Vera.

Just to be fair, here is another popular anti-aging product from Garnier, the ingredients listed in their "Ultra-Lift Anti-Wrinkle Firming Night Cream," - Aqua/Water, Dimethicone, Glycerin, Stearic Acid, Palmitic Acid, PEG-100 Stearate, Glyceryl Stearate, Isohexadecane, Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Argania Spinosa/Argania Spinosa Kernel Extract (Argan Extract), Butyrospermum Parkii Butter/Shea Butter, C13-14 Isoparaffin, Caffeine, Capryloyl Salicylic Acid, Carbomer, Cera Alba/Beeswax, Cera Carnauba/Carnauba Wax, Cetyl Alcohol, Citral, Disodium EDTA, Hydrolyzed Rice Protein (Rice Protein), Laureth-7, Octyldodecanol, PEG-20 Stearate, Phenoxyethanol, Polyacrylamide, Retinyl Linoleate/Retinyl Linoleate (Pro-Retinol), Shorea Robusta Butter/Shorea Robusta Seed Butter, Sodium Benzoate, Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate, Sodium Hydroxide, Tocopherol, Zingiber Officinale Root Extract/Ginger Root Extract. 

So, which product would you rather put on your skin, knowing that all ingredients are absorbed directly into the skin & bloodstream?

"My Grandmother, Jeanne Laudun, was a staunch believer in using strictly organic, pure and simple ingredients in her "beauty creams," shave creams, body scrubs & soaps. Thankfully, she taught me to hold the same strict standards. Today, I continue her traditional, vintage organic recipes in our natural & organic line of skin & body care products, Cosmetiques Laudun™. 

Our products continue to be quite beautifully simple, utilizing my Grandmother's vintage family recipes made from plants, herbs & botanicals, that have proven to be effective & healing for nearly a century.  It is my great pleasure to continue to bring her legacy & organically elegant products to you!"

- Anna Laudun Beauboeuf, Founder/CEO

 COSMETIQUES LAUDUN™

Organic Elegance for your Skin