Sharing The Excitement of Nutritional Aesthetics

Welcome to The Nutritional Aesthetics Alliance! We, the founders, of The NAA are thrilled to share our collective enthusiasm for the rapidly advancing new field of nutritional aesthetics. We each came to The NAA for different reasons and with different, though like-minded perspectives–and we’re pretty sure that’s the case for you too! So we invite you to learn what excites us most about nutritional aesthetics and The NAA and then share with us in the comments what excites YOU the most about this movement!

Jolene Hart:

While we continue to learn so much powerful evidence about the skin-health link, it still feels like it’s beauty’s best kept secret. Collectively, we’re coming to acknowledge that skin and beauty are linked, but the specifics seem to elude the vast majority of women, who still turn to products and treatments to address their beauty concerns 99% of the time.  I am certain this is going to change soon!

I’m so excited that the NAA will be a platform to get the word out about the power of beauty nutrition on a massive scale, and will galvanize this movement by boosting the number of practitioners who truly have an in depth understanding of the skin-health link. By bringing together the niche areas that various coaches and aestheticians are working in now, we will have incredibly powerful collective knowledge at our fingertips. The future also excites me—even more knowledge is sure to develop in the years ahead, and I hope we can drive that research, and that conversation, to bring nutritional aesthetics to the forefront of beauty!

Rachael Pontillo:

I see it all the time. Teenage girls who walk around with their heads down, afraid to let people see their faces because they have acne. Grown women trying to climb the corporate ladder, yet lacking the confidence to go for big clients and ask for promotions because they’re afraid they’ll have a rosacea flare-up right in the middle of the meeting. The acne-surviving moms with daughters embarking on their teenage years, fearing that they won’t be able to protect their girls from being teased or even bullied because of acne. Fearing that their girls will grow up feeling ugly, undeserving, less than, and defeated–feeling the same way they felt, themselves, as young women at the beginning of their lives. It happens too much–and what I learned both from my personal experience with acne and issues with low self-image is that simply treating the skin from the outside with products and treatments, or from the inside with diet alone are not enough for long-term, sustainable results. It’s the combination of both approaches with loving support that heals not just the skin, but also the soul. The Nutritional Aesthetics Alliance combines all of these approaches for a truly integrative experience that will not only help people look and feel better, but that focuses on giving people the tools and skills they need as their skin, bodies, and environments grow and change. What excites me the most is the fact that delivering our mission is a concrete way to make sure that fewer and fewer people with skin conditions have to suffer. The more our organization grows to include more nutritional aesthetics practicing members, the more people can reclaim their skin, health, and true selves.

Sandra Emmanouilides:

While skincare has long been associated with an industry obsessed with perfection, old paradigms are being challenged as a new ideal emerges. It seems like everywhere you turn, conversations about achieving healthy skin are incorporating disciplines and philosophies that celebrate a mind, body, spirit approach to wellness, and the NAA is an integral part of that dialogue.  We are witnessing an evolution in the way beauty is defined, and I’m so excited to be part of that shifting mindset that blends wellness and beauty together!  The pursuit for external beauty is perpetual, but what is gaining momentum is this desire for an ‘inner’ glow as well, and that is achieved by boosting skin health through nourishing whole foods and clean living.  As an Aesthetician, what gives me the greatest joy in the treatment room, is my clients’ eagerness to learn about the nutritional impact on their skin health, and that they love to be engaged in the process. My relationship with my clients is symbiotic, so working together as a team is very fulfilling and yields the greatest success for both of us!  To me, this is how the NAA can be of service because it adds another dimension to the relationship between you and your client and your status as an educator and a healer.  We are in the midst of a ‘beauty revolution’ that bears a striking resemblance to the food revolution we’ve seen unfold over the last decade.  It is encouraging to witness men and women take responsibility for their health and challenge an industry often more concerned with creating lifelong consumers than healthy citizens.

Practitioners and the general public deserve full disclosure to a philosophy rooted in wise traditions and cutting edge science that interprets the benefits of a holistic lifestyle – and the NAA does this beautifully by highlighting the overlap where the nutrition and skincare fields work together in perfect harmony.  The NAA is positioned to take the lead, and I am so proud to be a part of this shifting paradigm that celebrates beauty using a natural-based approach, supported by the intelligence of the whole body system.

What an exciting time to be talking about skin health!

Tisha Jill Palmer:

To a certain extent, I’m a product of nutritional aesthetics. When I was morbidly obese and suffering, all I held on to was people saying “she has such a pretty face.” When rosacea and eczema threatened to take that away from me, I surrendered and was willing to make changes that previously seemed unfathomable. Those changes came with unexpected gifts.

I, like so many women, was motivated by vanity instead of by the idea of health. The avoidance of pain or embarrassment, or maybe even to feel better or differently, yes–but “health” is grown up, elusive stuff that I felt unprepared for. Skincare, however, is sexier. While I wasn’t willing to make the effort to make changes in the name of better health, I found that I was willing to do more if I thought my actions would improve my skin. What happened then, was that as I took action, I began to think I was worth the rewards.

The skin-health link is the ultimate portal for behavior change. Self-love is hard work, and many people aren’t ready for it. Your skin is visual and palpable–it’s often what you’re willing to address now. That immediate change has beautiful consequences of generating an in-road to self-love. Change begets change.

Starting anywhere is better than staying stuck. We as professionals in our respective disciplines spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to find the “best” approach to all aspects of health and wellness. We also exert large amounts of energy on being “right.” In the end, I suggest that we be willing to be curious learners rather than focus so much on breaking down what is “best” or “right.” Whatever motivates the person in front of you to change now is what is best and right.

What excites me most about The Nutritional Aesthetics Alliance is that it’s so simple! We all want immediate gratification–we want to know that the hard work we’re doing is making a difference.  The skin is so wonderfully cooperative in this ideal. We think we’re helping people change their appearances, but they’re really changing so much more.

Again, we all want to warmly welcome you to The NAA!

Please click around the site to learn our mission, take a look at some case studies that illustrate the practice of nutritional aesthetics in action, and read about how you can get involved too. While you’re here, be sure to sign up to receive your Integrative Guide to Healthy Skin and our weekly digest via email–and of course, invite your colleagues to see what we’re about too!