Transcript: #149 Herbal Skin Detox with Ora Assayag

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Transcript

• 00:41 About Ora Assayag
• 05:40 Developing Ora’s Skin Care Line
• 17:29 What’s Important in Developing a Skin Care Line
• 19:46 Challenges in Developing Natural Skin Care Products
• 24:30 Toxins in Personal Care Products
• 27:35 Perfumes and Proprietary Blends
• 29:44 Absorbing Toxins through the Skin
• 31:44 Protecting Children from Toxins
• 40:25 Ora’s Special Offer to Live to 110 Listeners
• 41:57 Where to Find Ora Assayag

Wendy Myers: Hello, my name is Wendy Myers. Welcome to the Live to 110 Podcast. You can find me at myersdetox.com, and learn about my healing and detox program at MineralPower.com. You can also find me on social media, Facebook and Twitter at iWillLiveto110, and on Pinterest and Instagram at Liveto110.

Wendy Myers: Our guest today is Ora Assayag. She is a nutritionist trained at Bastyr University. She has a fantastic line of skin care products called OrasAmazingHerbal.com. I absolutely love her products. She sent me some products prior to the show.

I was really blown away. I’ve used a lot of natural skin care products before, but there’s something special about her products. She infuses herbs into the oils, and uses lots of essential oils. And I really noticed a change in my skin after I’ve started using them.

I was really impressed with her knowledge level and thought she would be a fantastic guest on the show. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Wendy Myers: I love to talk about detoxification and how to detox every single area of your life. And I think a lot of people are living a healthy lifestyle, eating good, exercising, and taking supplements, but they’re still using extremely toxic skin care products.

So I want to educate you today on the show about the do’s and don’ts of skin care.

Wendy Myers: Please keep in mind that this program is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or health condition, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. The Live to 110 Podcast is solely informational in nature, and for entertainment purposes.

So please consult your health care practitioner before engaging in any treatment or diet that we suggest today on the show.

Wendy Myers: Our guest, Ora Assayag, has a master’s degree in nutrition from Bastyr University. She’s the owner of Ora’s Amazing Herbal Skin Care. She’s also the mother of the most fantastic children ever existed, and seeks to bring health and healing to the world and its habitants through her everyday choices.

She runs her business and her home with this goal in mind, and is getting better at it every day.
It’s probably one of the more interesting bios that I have read from a guest.
Ora, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Ora Assayag: Thank you. Thanks for having me. This is so much fun.

Wendy Myers: Well, I understand your educational background is in biology and nutrition, so how did you end up in skin care?

Ora Assayag: Well, it was basically my daughter developed eczema, and they wanted to put her on medications, antibiotics and steroids. And just having the background I already have, I knew that that was not going to be my first course of action. It was more of a last resort.

So that’s pretty much how it happened. It started with that first product, and then we went from there because I started making salve for her, and it was really effective. But also, it was just fun. I had a lot of fun making it.

So I started making more for teachers as gifts and things like that. I was homeschooling all of my kids at the time, so I was able to do crafts and stuff for them.

So I started giving it out as gifts, and when people started asking for more, I was like, “You know, I can make more,” but at that point, my kids were getting older, and I was looking to figure out what I was going to do outside of my family life also. So it just developed into a business that way, and we’ve been expanding our line ever since. It’s been a lot of fun.

Wendy Myers: It’s an amazing line. You’re so generous. You sent me a package of the products. I loved them so much, I ordered more because I used up all of the Nightly Skin Repair Serum. You sent me a little vial of it. I really felt the difference in my skin, and I love products with herbs and essential oils in them and whatnot because they really nourish your skin.

And I live in California. It’s really, really dry. And I really need that deep, deep, deep moisture.
I love the products. I really do.

Ora Assayag: I’m so glad. That’s the thing about skin care is I find it to be very similar to nutrition because basically, your skin is like your digestive tract, but just on the outside. And then also, it deals with the external environment.

So you have dry skin, but then you have also just an opportunity to nourish your skin, why miss that opportunity by just smearing on something that’s not really providing any nutrients?

Wendy Myers: Exactly. Because a lot of moisturizers, that’s it. They’re just moisturizers. They’ll seal in the moisture on your skin. That’s great. But I really want to nourish my skin. I want to put vitamins on it. Essential oils will block sunlight and filter toxins. Your skin needs antioxidants just like your body does.

Ora Assayag: Absolutely.

Wendy Myers: And I’m a skin care freak, so I know a lot about it. That’s why I do a lot of shows on skin care.

Wendy Myers: Why don’t you tell us how you developed your natural skin care products.

Ora Assayag: Basically, it started with just the salve, and then we were like, “Wait. Salve and lip balm are basically the same thing, just lip balm has more thickener.” It’s basically as salve but just thicker. So that was our next thing, which was like, “Okay well, let’s see what kind of fun flavors we can come up with.”

We came up with minty cocoa and chai, just fun, different things.

One of the challenges with lip balm is that we only use essential oils. We don’t use any synthetic ingredients. We don’t use even organic flavors or blends, and we don’t use any formulas that we buy. We only use single ingredients that we can list on our ingredient panel.

For example, people will keep asking for mango lip balm and strawberry lip balm, but there’s no such thing as strawberry essential oil. There’s strawberry flavor, but really what is that, it’s not strawberry. There’s strawberry seed oil, but that doesn’t smell like strawberry.

So just as an example, those are one of the challenges that we encounter. People, they want to use natural stuff, but they’re not really understanding what that means. So a lot of what we do is just educating people about the effects of what they put on their skin, and what they actually are, and their sources, and that sort of thing.

After lip balm, what did we do next? After lip balm, we moved to powders, partly, because people were starting to ask about natural deodorant, which is a very big challenge, natural deodorant. And so I mostly use just a powder. And also, people are asking for baby powders because our salves, people use it a lot on babies. So people are like, “What about a powder?”

And I was looking at the powders that are out there, and most of them have some kind of ingredient that would feed yeast like cornstarch, rice powder, or any of these starchy grain powders that really shouldn’t go on skin that’s going to be holding moisture, especially on a baby.

So it was fun for me to play with ingredients, and find the balance there. And then I made my Blissful Earth powder, which is addictive. It really has a strong following because it just smells so delicious. I’ve had emergency phone calls for overnighting it, especially if that’s all you’re using as a deodorant, and you don’t want to go without it.

And I also use it on my son’s sneakers, and it works. We managed to extend the life of his sneakers until he outgrows them using that powder.

So we have that, we did the powders, and then after the powders (that came out in the summer), and then it was the serums.

One of the things about face lotions that a lot of times people put on lotions, but either they’re parabens, they’re paraben-based, so they absorb very, very quickly. You’re basically pouring toxins into your toxin. That’s not ideal. Or they have a lot of thing like alcohol in them.

A serum really is just an oil, a lotion that actually is actually delivering something else like a nutrient or whatever. So any kind of botanical oil you’re putting on your skin really is a serum because it’s going to have phytonutrients in there regardless.

I can’t think of a botanical oil that doesn’t have any nutrients in it unless it’s been highly refined.
That’s the thing about serums and oils, and the difference between them. So the serums, we came up with two serums. Also, I noticed that as I soon as I turned 40, I always thought, “Age is just a number. It’s really nothing. It’s just a number.”

But the truth is literally it felt like the week I turned 40, all of a sudden, my skin changed and it just wanted more. It’s very strange. So I formulated the nightly repair for that, and I found that it just really makes my skin a lot happier. The tamanu, especially in there, it’s got such a nice, rich feel. I really feel more – it does the job. It’s not gone. It absorbs quickly, but my skin feels good for the day.

Wendy Myers: Yes, I noticed that too. I live in California, and it’s so, so dry that I put a lotion and now or later, my skin feels tight and dry again. I don’t have that with the Nightly Skin Repair, or with the day serum as well.

Wendy Myers: Can you talk about that ingredient you just mentioned, the tamanu. What was it?

Ora Assayag: Tamanu. It’s actually a nut oil from Morocco, which is appropriate because my husband is from Morocco, which is fun. It’s a fun little cultural dip. It’s just very rich, and it helps promote cell regeneration in the skin. So that’s why we call it nightly, also, because you do most of your healing at night when you’re sleeping.

So that’s why a lot of people like to use it at night because it’s a good opportunity. And it provides all those nutrients.

A lot of times when people ask me, “Well, what’s in that that does that?”

I could list the nutrients that are in there, but the truth is, a lot of times, I don’t think we’ve discovered everything that there is to know about foods, and about just ingredients. So the truth is, to me what’s important is the property that it displays.

The property of the tamanu, yes, it has polyunsaturated and it has all the different nutrients, but mainly, it promotes cell regeneration, which is what you want on the skin. So that’s what tamanu is about. But it also has very herbaceous smell.

So some people are surprised by that. And so I always tell [inaudible 00:12:14], “You’re going to smell it, and it smells amazing. But it’s not actually a scented oil. It’s just tamanu.”

Wendy Myers: Yes, I didn’t think it really had a strong smell at all. I’m pretty sensitive to smells, and I thought this smell was pretty benign, the Nightly Skin Repair.

Ora Assayag: I don’t need to smell like fragrance that makes you want to sneeze. It doesn’t smell just like safflower oil, or something like that. I think it’s beautiful. I love it. And it’s [inaudible 00:12:51] sensitive who can use it. It’s not a scent set.

Wendy Myers: I have very sensitive skin too, and I don’t have any problems with it at all. My skin feels very comforted and nourished. And so what are some of the other ingredients in the Nightly Skin Repair? That’s my favorite one.

Ora Assayag: It’s my favorite one also. And I’m actually going to look dumb here at my label, because I always forget something.

Our whole product line, all of our oil-based product start with our base oil. And that’s my pride and joy, is our base oil, because basically, when I first developed the salve, I started doing research. I did my nutrition degree at a school of naturopathic medicine. And I didn’t study naturopathic medicine. I studied nutrition. But since I was having babies at the same time, I was there for five years doing a two-year program.

So my community there was just so tremendous of just herbalists and midwives and naturopaths and acupuncturists. And so when I did have an issue, I always had such a wonderful resource of people I could consult with, very learned wise healers that science-based medicine using herbs, which some people don’t understand that there’s a lot of science behind it. And that the experts know that science.

Wendy Myers: That’s why medicine, again, is in herbs and plants, not synthetic chemicals.

Ora Assayag: Yes, so that’s the whole source. So I basically tapped into that community and I developed my base oil based on that.

So what we do is we put in calendula, comfrey, plantains, Saint John’s Wort thyme, burdock and chickweed. And we infuse that in glass containers for a minimum of six weeks in cold, dark conditions.

So it’s not in plastic leeching, and it’s not in heat breaking down. It’s protected from light. So all of those herbs, the extraction goes into non-GMO grape seed oil. And then we take that base, and all of our oil-based products are based out of that.

So they’re all actively healing for a variety of just inflammation in general, and all the different angles coming in to help heal your skin and your body through your skin.

Our Nightly Repair starts with that. And then it also has a tamanu that we talked about. It has apricot kernel oil. It has meadowfoam oil. You’re seeing it more and more, meadowfoam oil. It’s a nice, light, simple oil, and it absorbs very quickly. So it’s wonderful, just when you’re playing with the formula, and you’re like, “Okay, that’s rich. I need to balance it.”

Meadowfoams are really nice oil to balance it with.

Let’s see. What else do I have in here? Rosehip seed oil and pomegranate oil. A pomegranate oil is just full of antioxidants and all kinds of nutrients, vitamin C, of course.

And then we also have some carrot seed essential oil in there, which basically promotes anti-aging because it’s high in antioxidants. And also aromatherapists use it for more mature skin, especially for women, as a hormone balancer. I don’t know what part of the carrot seed essential oil has that action. Like I said, sometimes we just know it works.

That’s pretty much the Nightly Repair.

Wendy Myers: I really like it because I bought a lot of natural products and some of the serums will use olive oil as a base, and it’s just too thick. I feel like I’m putting salad dressing on my face. I like that your serum is a lot lighter with the herbal blend, with the grape seed oil. It’s a lot nicer.

Ora Assayag: It is, and the meadowfoam also. We do use a tiny bit of the olive oil in the Daily because it does have wonderful nutrients to deliver when you’re looking for a lighter serum. But we don’t use all that much of it.

Wendy Myers: Yes, so it doesn’t make it heavy. It’s more of a light serum that just absorbs. Some of the olive oil ones, you just have this grease on your face for hours, and that’s not what I want either.

Ora Assayag: It doesn’t absorb. It sits forever, and it smells like a salad, a delicious salad, but a salad no less.

Wendy Myers: I could just mix some salad dressing and put it on my face.

Ora Assayag: Which I have been known to do when I’m making my salad, and I [inaudible 00:17:27]. So, that’s okay.

Wendy Myers: As a natural skin care business owner, what is really most important to you?

Ora Assayag: What’s most important to me is that my products work. I have guidelines that I am uncompromising on, which for example, is the purity of my ingredients and that sort of thing, and that they’re non-toxic, that we have complete transparency with our ingredients. And we try and be socially and environmentally responsible also, as much as we can.

But if it doesn’t work, there’s no point. So that’s number one, really. That’s number one.

And then also, the truth is, production, we need things to be easy to produce because it becomes expensive and high energy to produce. That also is an environmental factor. If it requires five hours of high speed mixing in order to get it to come to the right texture, then that’s not necessarily going to be a sustainable product in our line of thinking.

Really, the environmental factor for me, if this is what I’m going to do with my life other than being a mother, this is pretty much what I’m doing right now, it’s important to me that it’s at least doing no harm in the world and even more so that it’s doing some healing in the world.

For example, our body butter, I found 100% post-consumer recycled plastic. We needed to use a plastic jar for that which sometimes is an evil you have to go with. But at least we found a jar that’s 100% post-consumer.

So we feel really good about not pouring plastic back into the waste stream.

So that’s one example.

And as much as we can, our packaging is low impact, and we try and have people in the community that have difficulty finding employment to do box-stamping and things like that. We try and contribute to the community with that sort of thing.

We just try and feel good about what we’re doing.

Wendy Myers: What are some of the challenges you meet when developing products?

Ora Assayag: Well, making products that work, there has definitely been times where I’ll make something, and I’ll be like, “These are great ingredients, and this is a great whatever,” and then I try it, and it just doesn’t work.

Or I’ll mix up some essential oils, and I’ll just be like, “Yes, no.”

It’s so light or it’s too strong, or it doesn’t whatever. And in theory, when I’m researching and all the properties come together, and it seems like it should be great but if it doesn’t smell good, or it doesn’t feel good, then you know.

One challenge we have also is, for example, our scrubs. Our scrubs are dry powders. When I was growing up, we were all using that cream apricot scrub that came in the tub, and you scooped it and you scrubbed it, and it was fantastic, but it’s paraben-based, and it’s choke-full of preservatives because it’s based in liquid.

You can’t add water to something and expect it not to go bad unless you preserve it.

All of our products have no water. We don’t make any products with water because then you have to preserve them. So that even includes aloe vera gel. When you read the label, it says aloe vera gel. There’s water in there. So if they don’t list any preservatives, then the preservatives are in the aloe vera gel when they purchased it. There’s no way to make aloe vera gel without it going bad.

So that’s an example of a challenge for us. It’s finding a base, and finding a texture that’s going to work without any water and without any preservatives. So for the scrubs, we mix up this powder, but then if you want to be able to just get in the shower, scrub your face, close it up, and go on your way without it being a high maintenance issue, how do you do that without it going bad? It’s going to get wet in the shower. You don’t want a tub of stuff, and then you have to scoop it into a dish and then prepare before you get in the shower.

I don’t know. I’m too busy for that.

So we finally found a bottle with a flip top lid that you just get in the shower, you flip it open. I should have grabbed one so I could show. But you just flip it open, you pour a little bit in your wet hand, and then you just do like that and scrub, do like that and scrub. But it’s already closed and away on the shelf out of the stream of water.

But that was actually very hard for us to find, the right packaging for that. There’s a lot of powder scrubs out there, but finding it in the right kind of packaging, and just in an easy to use container, packaging is actually a surprising challenge.

Wendy Myers: I can imagine. There’s some amazing packaging out there.

Ora Assayag: There is.

Wendy Myers: But it’s very expensive, I’m sure.

Ora Assayag: It’s very expensive, and very small. So we’re not buying huge containers of packaging, so we’re not doing custom-made. We would love to have all of our everything be 100% recycled everything. And when we get big enough one day that we can actually do that, custom-order our packaging, it will feel so good to be able to really not contribute at all to the waste stream and even contribute to the solution.

That’s what we’re excited for.

But in the meantime, it’s a matter of just finding what’s available and making it work. And I think we’ve been doing a pretty good job of it. I feel really good about our packaging.

Wendy Myers: It’s really beautiful. It’s really, really nice. I like it. I really like the products like the serums in glass bottles. I think that’s really, really important to preserve it and whatnot. Sometimes you have to put some in plastic sometimes, I know.

Ora Assayag: Also, there are different factors when you think about the leeching of plastic into oil. But one of the factors that I don’t see talked about much, basically, the more the molecules move around, the more it’s going to pick stuff up.

So for example, our serums are in glass. Our body butters are in plastic, but it’s a solid. Once we make it, we don’t make it in plastic. We don’t cook it in plastic. But once we pour, it’s cold. So that helps that it’s not leeching. And then also, it’s not a liquid that’s moving around and the molecules are going around constantly picking up and leeching, and leeching, and leeching.

So it’s not that it’s not an issue at all, but it’s a much more minimal than it would be if it was a liquid. And so that was one of the reasons I was willing to use it.

Wendy Myers: Well, that’s a really good distinction that you made.

Wendy Myers: Let’s talk a little bit about toxins in personal care products. Pretty much all the products on the market today, anything you buy at a department store or a grocery store or what have you, or a drugstore, has toxins in them. That’s why I do this show on natural care products because I think it’s so important to avoid putting chemicals on our skin and absorbing them into our bodies without any filtration from our digestive system.

So the EU, in Europe, they have 1300 chemicals that are banned in personal care products and makeup. And in the United States, there are eight. And so this makes it even more important to be aware of the ingredients on the ingredient list in your personal care products.

So can you tell us the top ingredients that we should be looking to avoid when we’re reading labels on our beauty and personal care products?

Ora Assayag: Sure. It’s interesting. I went into the grocery store the other day, the regular, local one that I don’t normally shop at. I was out of whatever it was. I walked through the beauty aisle just to see what they had.

First of all, I couldn’t breathe in there. I just couldn’t breathe walking through that aisle. And second of all, I picked up a couple of things to look up the ingredients. I make skin care products, and I didn’t know what most of those ingredients were.

And even as a nutritionist, when I counsel people in nutrition, if you don’t know what it is, it’s like jumping into a swimming pool without checking if there’s water. You wouldn’t do that. You look first. And if the water doesn’t look good, you don’t jump in.

So it’s the same thing. You read the ingredients, and if you recognize all the ingredients, it’s a go. And if you don’t, then do some research. Look it up. And if it’s too scientific of a name to pronounce or research, then chances are, you don’t want it on your skin pretty much 100% of the time.

So for example, my ingredient label, we do use scientific names for all plants, and most people don’t know the scientific names for all the plants. We always put the common names, and that’s pretty much standard. But it’s just a rule of thumb. If you don’t know what it is, don’t use it.

I don’t bother to spend my time learning about what I don’t use because I already know I don’t want to use if it was made in a lab.

Wendy Myers: Yes, if it sounds like a chemical name, guess what? It’s a chemical.

Ora Assayag: Pretty much.

Wendy Myers: Yes, and I think a big one to look for is parabens. Anything that says butylparaben, propylparaben, isopropylparaben, those are preservatives. They’re petroleum-based, they’re estrogenic chemicals, and they need to be avoided.

Wendy Myers: Can you talk a little bit about perfumes?

Ora Assayag: Well, if I see the word fragrance, I put it down. If I see the word flavoring, I put it down. If I see the word proprietary, I put it down because why is it proprietary? Why can’t you tell me what’s in it? Why? And why should I put it on my skin, or in my body if you can’t tell me what’s in it?

Organic flavor. I don’t know what that is. I don’t want that on my skin or in my body, which to me, on my skin and in my body are the same thing.

If I wouldn’t eat it, pretty much that’s that.

Wendy Myers: Yes, the proprietary blends, proprietary fragrance, that’s where manufacturers can deceptively hide a hundred different chemicals. There are going to be a hundred chemicals in that umbrella, and it’s used to protect the maker from other people copying their product. But I think it’s really just used to disguise chemicals.

Ora Assayag: That’s an interesting point that you bring up. People have said to me, “Why don’t you patent your formulas?”

I made my specific formulas, but it’s all based on ancient wisdom. I cannot own it. There is no way that I can own calendula, comfrey, plantain, Saint John’s Wort thyme. If someone else wants to make it, they can. But the reason people buy my stuff from me is because they know who I am, they trust me as a person, they see how I run my business, they see how I communicate, and they don’t want to make it themselves because they don’t have the time, or the equipment, or the know-how, or whatever it is.

But really, none of it is rocket science. It’s just more like a fun thing to do, and we’ve gotten good at it because we’ve been doing it for a while. But I don’t feel like it’s something that should be secret.
Like if you go and get a salad at a restaurant, and they tell you, “Oh, we have a proprietary salad dressing,” surprise salad dressing, secret whatever, no, thank you. It’s the same thing.

Wendy Myers: Let’s talk about how we absorb toxins through our skin because I read that when you apply something on your skin, you can absorb 10 times more than if you eat it because your digestive tract filters things, your liver filters things. But put it on your skin, and you’re getting a much more of a greater impact than if you ate a food, for instance.

Ora Assayag: You have the pores of your skin that are meant to exchange with the environment. And so anything you put on your skin just basically goes right in, and then you have you fat layer under that, which we know is where toxins are stored in the fat cells.

So it’s very susceptible to just get stuck there for a while until it gets released directly into your bloodstream.

That’s basically it. I don’t really make much of a distinction between my skin and my digestive tract. I don’t really consider my digestive tract to be that much of a filter either, the truth is. I don’t know. I think that some of the illness that we’re all dealing with, the increase of chronic illness that we’re seeing is probably because a lot of people aren’t considering the fact that their digestive tract also is a direct entry into their body.

I don’t expect my digestive tract to filter stuff either. Yes, I can depend on my liver a little bit and whatever, but I really try not to.

Wendy Myers: I think that’s why transdermal medications are on the rise because they more effectively deliver that medication than if a medication is taken orally. And you need to think of the same concept with the products that you’re putting on your skin, including your makeup.

A lot of people don’t think about their makeup that they’re putting on, but they contain a lot of metals and whatnot.

Wendy Myers: But as a mother, how do you go about keeping toxins out of your children’s bodies?

Ora Assayag: Well, that’s a very good question, and it can be a challenge. And before I answer, I want to make a distinction between dirt and toxins because I don’t keep dirt out of my children’s bodies. They go out in the garden, and they play, and they get dirty, and they eat half of it. And I don’t even know what they’re getting into, and it’s fine.

That’s part of how their immune systems develop. And so I don’t worry about them getting dirt in their bodies.

But toxins, I absolutely worry about.

One of those ways is, it’s basically just food and you do the best you can. It’s very interesting. My philosophy is that in my home, I try and feed my children as carefully as I can. But sometimes they go to a friend’s house, sometimes they’re at school and there’s a birthday party, and I don’t want to be the mom who won’t let them. You can have a backlash if you’re too strict about these things.

So I try to mainly educate my children as much as possible, and to teach them a certain taste, so that what they want is healthier, more nourishing, more vibrant food.

We have one hard and fast rule that we never, ever eat, which is any kind of food coloring. That’s the one thing that even when they’re at a birthday party, even when they’re at school. When they were younger, we tell the teachers they’re allergic, even though it’s not actually true allergy, but then they’d actually take it seriously.

Even with that, I’ve had phone calls like, “Well, isn’t it okay if we just put a little bit of food coloring in the cake for the birthday party?” And I’m like, “Well, how much is safe of this chemical that no one’s ever really proven to be safe?”

That’s our only real hard and fast rule. And I started that when my son was two. We saw a behavioral change in him within minutes of him accidentally eating some food coloring, and we were like, “Wow. That’s really significant.”

And he’s 13 now.

So for all that time, we’ve had this rule. And it’s really interesting that we’ve also found that just having that one single rule rules out a lot of other toxins that would otherwise be getting into their diet. When you can’t have the food coloring, there’s an occasional corn syrup that sneaks in, but they’re not eating whatever, all these things that you don’t know what the ingredients are. It just rules it out.
We do as much education as we can, and we do as much just at home, hoping that what you do in the home extends out into the world. We do a lot of food prep with the kids, we do a lot of, “Let’s make our own granola bars. Let’s make our own whatever.” And we do our best.

When they were babies, we didn’t do plastic toys because they’re putting them all in their mouths. That sort of thing.

You do your best.

Wendy Myers: You can’t drive yourself too crazy. There are so many toxins on the planet. You’re breathing them in. You’re in the water.

When I first started learning about toxins, I went a little bit overboard, and I was terrified.

Ora Assayag: My whole journey though holistic living started, as a teenager I was sick with Crohn’s disease, and I was very, very sick. And I went to all the top doctors in the area, the D.C. Metropolitan area at the time.

And I had one look at me when I must have been 17 or 18 by then, and I had been struggling already for some time. I had been in and out of the hospital. I said to him, “I still just don’t feel good. I’m not bleeding internally right now, but I just don’t feel good.”

And he said to me, “You know, you might just have to get used to that.”

And it was like, “I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think I’m going to do that actually.”

And that is how it all began for me. So learning about how to nourish my body, and how to support my system at every opportunity is pretty much how it all started for me. So with food, it basically is medicine. That’s our fuel. It’s our building blocks.

So why would we veer off of that opportunity, and do the opposite of loving ourselves? It just doesn’t make sense.

And I even remember where I started talking.

Wendy Myers: It makes me sad when I hear physicians, because of lack of their own knowledge of natural health, discourage people and tell people they have to be on medications for life, or that there is nothing that can be done, or there is no cure.

Ora Assayag: And [inaudible 00:36:51] to be evil or mean or disregarding. They just don’t know better. And from their experience and from the tools they have, if you go to a surgeon, they’re going to recommend surgery. That’s just what they know. That’s the tools they have.

Also, just as a mother, I already came into it with that perspective of holistic medicine. So it’s all developed over time for me.

I remember now why I started because at first, I had to be very extreme because I was healing from chronic, very intense illness. I was very, very, very sick. So I had to be very diligent and very extreme and very careful. And now, I’ve gotten to the point where I can have once in a while. For a while there, I couldn’t eat any tomatoes. For years, I couldn’t eat tomatoes. It was something that I knew wasn’t good for me.

Not that they’re intrinsically bad for everyone, but it just didn’t work for me to eat tomatoes.
And then now, I can eat tomatoes once in a while, and my body is fine with it. If I were to eat tomatoes every day, I would be sick within a month probably.

It’s just a matter of learning how to listen to your body. And I think your skin talks to you also, just like your digestive tract does. If you eat something that’s not good for your digestive tract or the rest of your body, if you’re listening, you’ll hear it. If you’re not listening, you might not.
So it’s a choice whether or not to tune in.

And I feel like your skin almost does the same thing. You could put stuff on your skin, it doesn’t feel dry and itchy anymore, but it needs more. It’s asking for more. It’s always asking for more nutrients.
For example, we were talking about how with the Nightly Serum, you can put it on once in a day, and your skin is happy. You don’t need to continue to keep re-applying. Your skin should be able to basically hold its own. It needs some help. It needs some protection. It needs some nourishment. But if it’s constantly needing to re-apply, it might be talking to you, similar to your digestive tract.

I think one of the things also as a mother that I learned that the only thing I really have is my intuition. It’s the only thing I really have. I can learn, I can research, but I can go to the doctor and I could say, “What do you think? I think she’s not feeling well.” And the doctor can say, “Well, no. I think she’s fine.”

Well, who am I going to trust? The doctor or myself? I’m not saying the doctor doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying we know what we know, and trusting ourselves is just such a huge part of healing, and it’s such a tool for us, and to abandon that is silly.

So when we read an ingredient label, we don’t know what it is. But that’s us asking ourselves to abandon our own responsibility of taking care of ourselves and our own opportunity to take care of ourselves. That’s just silly.

So as a mother, I think that’s what guides me also.

Wendy Myers: Me too. I always listen to my intuition over and above everything. Anything I read in a book, when I have to go to a doctor, definitely I’m on high guard.

Ora Assayag: Sometimes I don’t, but then I always end up kicking myself for it.

Wendy Myers: Yes, exactly. You always want to listen to your intuition because you just always know that little voice in the back of your head is the wisest one.

Wendy Myers: So you have a special offer for the listeners, anyone who is interested in getting your amazing, natural products. Can you tell them a little bit about that?

Ora Assayag: Well, it’s a coupon code on Amazon Prime. What did we say? It was 110WENDY, right? And so it’s basically for our entire catalog. You can do a search for just Ora’s Amazing Herbal, in their little search bar there, and then just look and see what interests you. We have gift boxes that have a little bit of everything, so you can check things out, or we have a little face kit, so you could try the scrub and the serum.

But whatever you want to try, you can use coupon code 110WENDY.

Wendy Myers: All caps. All capitals.

Ora Assayag: All caps. And that will give you 20% off anything in the cart. But it’s a one-time use. So you can just try whatever you want, and then that’s that.

Wendy Myers: And I was so pleased when I got your box of goodies that had all the products. I was like, “Yes!” And I tried so many of them. I’ve tried a lot of natural products. I really, really love your products, and know that they are really all natural.

There are a lot of so-called natural products out there that are, in fact, not. Many of them can be found at Wholefoods, and other natural food stores. But these are real food. Everything can be…

Ora Assayag: They’re natural and nutritive.

Wendy Myers: Yes.

Ora Assayag: So that’s an added bonus.

Wendy Myers: Why don’t you tell the listeners a little bit more about where they can find you and learn more about your products?

Ora Assayag: Our website, OrasAmazingHerbal.com, we really are trying to provide as much information through our website as possible. So we have a little video library on there. If you go to About Ora, or About Us, I don’t remember now which it is, but you click there and you’ll see there’s a video library. We have cute little videos about us and about each of our products.

We’re always working on another video. So you can just keep checking on it. Also, we do e-mails every so often. We promise not to flood your inbox, but every so often, we send out an e-mail. We’re also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

So whatever’s easiest for you, whatever you like to hang out on there, but that’s pretty much it on our website. And all of our product pages, we always have our full list of ingredients. We always have as much description as we can think of. And if you ever have any questions, you can, of course, contact us from the contact page. And we try and respond pretty quickly to every question.

And that’s pretty much it.

Wendy Myers: Ora, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Ora Assayag: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Wendy Myers: And listeners, I love to do shows like this. You guys know I love to talk about toxins and how to avoid toxins in your environment, and the personal care products you put into your skin is one of the biggest factors in contributing to your body burden of toxins, and to making your body estrogen-dominant, and weight gain as well. The more estrogen you have in the body, the more weight gain you’ll have. Not to mention toxic metals that are in makeup like nickel and aluminum.

So it’s very, very important to really assess every component in your life, and re-evaluate, read labels, and take responsibility for your health.

My mission is to teach everyone out there how to detox their life in every area.

So thank you so much for listening. You can learn more about me at myersdetox.com. You can learn more about my healing and detox program at MineralPower.com.

Thank you so much for listening today. Bye.