Swedish Skincare System

Lately I’ve been thinking about Cleopatra, last Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, renowned for her beauty. One of her beauty secrets is said to have been her milk baths. Something that sounds luxurious, decadent and perhaps a bit smelly. At those days there were no fridges around so how could they keep the milk fresh and nice?

Photo from Flickr by Sebastià Giralt, 

Cleopatra VII, Graeco-Roman Museum, Alexandria, Egypt

Pasteurized milk

Today the milk you buy is pasteurized, that is, heated in order to kill off bacteria and other pathogens. However, raw unpasteurized milk has a natural means of preservation due to its lactic acid content. Whereas pasteurized milk rot in room temperature, the content of lactic acid bacteria in the raw milk increases making the milk sour, in exactly the same kind of process as when you make yoghurt or kefir. The increase of lactic acid will lower the pH value of the milk which is beneficial for the skin and it will also have a slight peeling effect.

Probiotics

In the raw milk there will thus be a proliferation of beneficial probiotic bacteria. Probiotics are not only good for your intestines. As a recent article in Happi Magazine presents, it is also one of the new trends in skincare. Cleopatra was certainly ahead of her times!

Homogenization

Nowadays milk is not only pasteurized but also homogenized. Homogenization split the fatty acids in tiny parts, making the milk a homogeneous liquid where the fat will not separate and float up on top of the water. In this process the fatty acids are thus denatured, loosing some of their valuable nutritional qualities. One of those is the antimicrobial property of the lauric acid. So with the use of raw milk, we can be certain Cleopatra didn’t get sick by her baths, rather the opposite.

On the Bovine Blog I found this really good article on the interesting qualities of raw milk.

Photo from Flickr by mharrsch

Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra VII, Photographed at the Wax Museum At Fishermen’s Wharf  in San Francisco, California

So, with her milk baths, that were not smelly, Cleopatra probably had great skin.

Would I want to have a raw milk bath? Unfortunately I can’t, I’m allergic to all kinds of dairy products; I don’t think I should have them neither inside nor outside my body. I prefer really cool Swedish waters; it’s the elixir of life. But that’s another story.