What a lovely couple of products from Kahina Giving Beauty the Brightening Serum and Facial Cleanser are!
Brightening Serum: My Thoughts
I’ll start with the Brightening Serum as that’s where it all began. This serum was a dream; lightweight, easily absorbed and effective.
Apparently, Kahina Giving Beauty Brightening Serum evens skin tone, protects against free radical damage, inhibits melanin production and helps support the skin’s own natural defence system.
Not only this, Kahina Giving Beauty Brightening Serum is proven to reduce skin discolouration, age and acne spots, and hyperpigmentation in four to six weeks!
The formula is certified organic by Ecocert with 100% natural ingredients and 73.8% of ingredients coming from organic farming including aloe vera leaf juice, argan oil, rice seed extract, spirulina extract, shea nut butter, rose flower oil, geranium flower and leaf oil, lavender oil and sunflower seed oil. There’s also sandalwood and frankincense, along with rare white lily and Japanese wakame seaweed.
Facial Cleanser: My Thoughts
Next up, Kahina Facial Cleanser, which was a lovely creamy cleanser scented with neroli essential oil and rich in vitamin E and EFAs thanks to its argan oil content. The formula also contains organic willow bark extract to clarify and tone the skin, and papaya extract to gently exfoliate and brighten. Aloe vera leaf juice is the base and this helps to replace any moisture loss in the skin.
I’ve been going through a bit of a phase with cream cleansers recently, and although it was some time ago that I tried Kahina Giving Beauty Facial Cleanser, I believe this might have been the turning point product that got me back into cream cleansers!
Both products are packaged in high-quality recyclable violet glass, which acts as a powerful preservative by blocking out damaging light rays. The outer packaging is created from 100% post-consumer waste
Like the Brightening Serum, the Facial Cleanser from Kahina Giving Beauty is certified organic by Ecocert, with 78.8% organic ingredients and 100% natural ingredients.
What’s even more impressive however is Katharine L’Heureux’s commitment to the quality of the products, and in turn, to improving the quality of life of the indigenous Berber women in Morocco.
The Berbers have used argan oil in their beauty regimens for centuries to help protect their skin from the harsh conditions in the desert; not only the sun but wind also!
Argan oil is naturally high in vitamin E and EFAs, which are both essential for healthy skin. There are varying qualities of argan oil available on the market, and Katharine ensures she selects only the finest quality. The argan nuts are cracked by hand and cold-pressed in order to preserve the oil’s integrity.
But the most important factor in determining argan oil quality is the “goat factor”. For high-quality argan oil to be extracted from the nut it must still have its pulp exterior intact. If there is no pulp, it means the nut has been eaten by a goat and passed through it, which imparts a foul smell on the oil. This kind of argan oil will be deodorised, destroying many essential nutrients in the oil.
This cheap oil is undercutting the Berber women who work hard to produce a high-quality oil. In order for the traditions of argan oil production to survive, as well as for the Berber women to survive, they must be paid a fair wage.
Katharine regularly visits, and in person, every cooperative that supplies argan oil to Kahina Giving Beauty. This ensures top quality oil from top quality nuts and also the fair treatment and compensation of the Berber female workers. Through Kahina Giving Beauty, Katharine has also donated to several charitable movements, and helped them achieve success stories as follows –
- funded the organic certification of a women’s cooperative to allow them to more successfully participate in the international argan trade. The cooperative was previously unprofitable but now provides steady wages for 46 members.
- donated to Education for All in Morocco (EFA). This organisation provides safe boarding homes for girls so that they can continue their education beyond elementary school.
the purchase of a sheep for each woman in the Idzouane Mountains. This means they can provide milk for their children and have a supply of wool for weaving rugs to further their economic independence.
- Donations to the High Atlas Foundation to support their one billion tree campaign.
- Donations to the High Atlas Foundation to deliver clean drinking water to a girls school in the High Atlas Mountains.