Relearning Skin Care

By Danny Neifert

This essential book delivers best practices for clean beauty and skincare, developed by the field-tested aesthetician, Danny Neifert.  She shares her discovery of a better and natural way to address skin health—rather than the current outdated toxic and trauma-based industry standard.  Learn the four fundamental principles to skin happiness and discover how you might be sabotaging your skin and also wasting money in the process. Danny's insights will provide clarity and confidence in a natural skincare regimen amid the noisy sea of skincare offerings and misleading claims. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Danny Neifert
• Release date: May 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393999355

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

This book is a confession, an apology, a promise, and a love letter to skin everywhere — mine and yours. Over the past twenty years as a professional licensed aesthetician, mother, and beauty consumer, I’ve gathered invaluable experience and knowledge that I want to share with you.

Please note that I am not a physician or medical professional, and any information that I provide does not replace immediate medical care or attention.

The goal of this book is to share what I’ve learned the long hard way regarding how to care for something very important and close: our skin. I purposefully want to share these words to be unlike a dry technical document, and more like a window into my personal direct experience. I have tried my dangest to write to a wide audience: savvy-skin-beauty-nerds, their clueless partners, and field-tested skin professionals.

I’ve assisted thousands of clients over the years. In the beginning of my career, I will admit that I wasn’t always equipped to help everyone. Eventually, as my professional experience deepened, patterns began to appear. I started to solve problems by stepping out of the boxes and limitations which are considered industry standards by revered skin care companies and educational institutions.

My opinions have been formed over time with great patience, scrutiny, and persistence which is a result of careful observation and listening. Did I just say listening?

Does our skin speak?

You can imagine how I was quite taken aback in the beginning of my journey with skin as I began to learn its language.

If our skin speaks then what the heck is it saying?

I will share this in the coming chapters. In the meantime, before we begin, a little about my background. At the age of six, I secretly stumbled into the discovery of my mother’s creams, oils, and bath salts. I was instantly mesmerized by the smells, textures, and colorful labels. As time went on my obsession with this niche- realm of beauty grew.

When I unexpectedly became a young mother some years later (that’s a story for a different book), I’ll never forget giving my newborn daughter her first bath. The miracle of this experience propelled me full force into the world of aromatherapy and home-made skin products.

During those years I also became a fairly decent gardener. I learned how to make every beauty and self-care product in my little kitchen using ingredients from my garden. All of this was made possible by following aromatherapy and old homesteading recipes.

To expand my knowledge and understanding, I took every local workshop in my area and attended a remote aromatherapy study-by-mail course. I read countless books on skincare and natural ingredients. I read every beauty product advertisement, any small print labels on bottles, and all the packaging I could get a hold of. As my children got older, they pleaded with me to purchase soap and lotion at the grocery store the way normal mothers do. Still, my obsession persisted.

My early aromatherapy product line was named Earth’s Soul & Song, which I shared with friends, family, at local art shows, and with neighbors — while occasionally vending in front of the local health food store. I explored myriads of other occupations during this time until finally deciding to focus solely on skincare. I also began professional aesthetic training in my late twenties.

My inextinguishable interest, wonder, and curiosity for skin has been the torch for my journey, having lit my path at every dark turn and through every difficulty and