It is a little known fact about Beauty's SPOT that we used to live in Indonesia. (Betul, dahulu aku mahasiswa di IKIP Malang...AREMANIA deh.) So back in May when I received
Juara's Rice Facial Scrub in my swag bag at the Total Beauty Summit in LA I noticed the "Juara" name, but naively assumed the Indonesian word, meaning champion, was an odd coincidence. No where in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that someone had already created my beauty ideal - a high-end natural skincare brand based on the Indonesian medicinal principles of Jamu, a kind of herbal beauty remedy. In fact my dream is a reality and the woman who started the brand,
Meta Murdaya, hails from San Francisco and Indonesia.
Juara's ingredient list, from candlenut to turmeric, could just as easily be a grocery list for an Indonesian dinner party.
The Juara philosophy is a breath of fresh air in the beauty world.
Indonesian women, perhaps even more than French women, have long-standing deep cultural traditions around skincare and beauty.
Juara highlights these rituals and offers them up to you, on their website. To think I sluethed my way around Javanese night markets attempting to pry
ancient secrets out of the oldest Ibu's when I could have simply visited
Juara's website. So. Silly. But when you see a 90 year old woman with 30 year old skin, it begs the questions - what is in her Jamu?
Juara is bringing the secrets of Indonesian Jamu to the world in a sustainable, natural product. The Rice Facial Scrub emits wafts of tropical sweet sticky rice and fresh young coconut. In fact I was tempted to slather it on some mangoes and ingest. Instead, I simply paused mid-shower and thanked God for the flood of memories that came back to me. Hot springs in Batu, motorcycle riding to the alun-alun, my penchant for Bakso bakar, a Malang specialty. My skin after only a few weeks of using Juara's Rice Facial Scrub, is noticeably healed, brighter, and healthier. I've gotten several compliments since I have been using the rice scrub and I just smile. I've got Juara in my Jamu ;)
