Beauty recipes
The best known Asian beauty recipes include ingredients such as shiitake, soy, tea, bamboo, rice and silk. In Asia, beauty recipes fit perfectly into the current holistic current. Women in Japan, China and Korea, have very beautiful skin, of course because of the climate, but also because of the food and care they give themselves. Beauty recipes involve, above all, treatments for purification and use of scrub products, gels, balms or masks sold at the entrance of the bathrooms.
The most important beauty product seems to be soap. It is enriched with numerous compounds that have recognized beneficent properties: sludge and salt, tassels, yellow clay, charcoal, bamboo, bamboo and salt, aloe, red ginseng (most expensive) and the most precious soap with gold sequins and trace elements.
In Beauty Institutes and Clinics, clients receive excellent quality treatments such as anti-ageing care techniques and mechanical peeling. The star treatment is that of rounding the eyes according to the Western model. Next comes the injection of botox and dermabrasion.
Mud massage
Boryeong sludge is collected from a depth of 15-20 meters from three production sites: Su-won, Kim-Chon and Dae-Jeon. The composition of the sludge is remarkable: sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, potassium, calcium, titanium, iron, oxygen, sulfur, salt. In Boryeong is a small factory where since 1996 began distributing a complete range of soap , shampoo, makeup lotion, cream and foam, mask and a line of solar products including oils and creams from natural products.
In honor of this precious sludge that has gathered in it all the blessings of nature, a spectacular festival has been taking place in the city since 1998, attended by delighted tourists from the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other inhabitants of Asian countries. Mineral-rich sludge massage contains germanium which cleanses the skin in depth and prevents its aging.
The ritual of treatment is always the same, the client is installed in a heated cabin where the expert hands of the aesthetician carefully cleans her face and gives her a vigorous facial massage. She will then apply a warm towel to the client’s face and, after removing it, proceed to “wrapping” the sludge starting with the face and ending with the rest of the body. The sludge is left to dry for 20 minutes, after which the client will wash under the shower. The skin becomes extraordinarily smooth and the client gets a wonderful feeling of well-being. The operation ends with the application on the face of a sludge-based cream.
Recipes with ginseng, the herb of immortality
In Korea there are countless markets with medicinal herbs, some of them even very old. The best known, Gyyongdong, is located in Seoul and brings together more than 1000 producers and distributors of such plants. Traditional oriental pharmacopoeia comprises roots, barks, flowers, leaves, various seeds and the endless tassels of immortality: ganoderm and shiitake.
There are also many animal products, such as antlers. But Korea’s star plant is ginseng, the fantastic “root-man” that even has its own capital: Geumsan, the city of ginseng.
Ginseng, it’s a strange root. Red ginseng is also called the fountain of youth because, through its action, it decreases the number of free radicals and activates the oxygen molecules in the body, which results in slowing down the aging process. Ginseng is rich in minerals (copper, iron, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, silicon, salt, manganese, potassium and sulfur), enzymes and vitamins.
Ginseng also grows in China,Japan and North America, but the plant grown in Korea is the most appreciated. The basic element of The Korean pharmacy is Panax ginseng, popularly called the herb of immortality. It is sold at a fabulous price, justified by the 6 years it takes to grow it before it can be harvested. In addition, the soil in which the ginseng grew should be left unworked for at least 10 years after cultivation.
The ginseng plant can be consumed in all forms. For the stomach and liver, boil and drink the resulting liquid which has the effect of lowering blood pressure. It should always be prepared in a clay or earth dish because in contact with iron it produces a chemical reaction. Ginseng is preserved for a long time, the elements contained in its root developing continuously. So the old roots are more effective, but also much more expensive.
Ginseng revitalizes, combats pain, regulates blood circulation, is effective in heart and nervous system diseases, calms, removes mental stress, rebalances body fluids. It is excellent for the lung and digestive system, facilitates the elimination of toxins, improves the immune system in general.
Ginseng can be consumed as a tonic (it tastes bitter) or as a medicine (it must be boiled with ginger and curmals). Hundreds of Korean peasants come from their villages to sell their crops in the covered market of Geumsan and the streets around it. Herbs of all kinds, mushrooms, exotic bark, antlers are marketed.
The most spectacular is the enormous space reserved for medicinal plants, crammed with climbs filled with mushrooms, plums,apricots, branches, pine buds and cones and all kinds of ginseng roots. This is where you truly understand that the whole city is placed under the sign of ginseng. Endless ginseng plantations are taking place in the surrounding villages and in the mountains.
September is the month of the Ginseng Festival. In everyday life, ginseng is present everywhere, as a pharmaceutical, food, but also cosmetic product, in the form of creams or beauty masks. At Geumsan you have the opportunity to experience the wonderful experience of bathing in warm and salty water, scented by the characteristic aroma of ginseng. In the “Ginseng” sauna you can reinvigorate your body in the clear, cold and warm water pools.