sensatia botanicals | March - April 2007 Newsletter

March - April 2007 Newsletter \| Sensatia Botanicals Inc.
Welcome to the March - April 2007 edition of Sensatia Botanicals Bi-monthly Newsletter. In this issue you will find a short bio with Creator, Michael R. Lorenti Jr. and how all the forks in the road eventually lead him to Bali. Then in, day in the life, we will briefly explain Bali's historical naming method with a fun twist to keep it real... Bali-style. Be sure look in botanical files for an in depth view of annatto seed, one of our local, raw		materials used for its high levels of beta-carotene, vitamin C and it’s brilliant bright orange color. Then have a look in fresh produce to see why our products are better than the rest. But please start by having a read through whats HOT to find out exactly what Sensatia has been up to lately. And last but not least please remember to have fun, its natural!!! We hope you enjoy and look forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you.

whats HOT | Sensatia Botanicals was recently accepted into GPA.

Bottom line is there is so much garbage out there flooding the market these days, that it is difficult to differentiate yourself (a truly natural product) from those who just claim to be. And unfortunately these "other" companies can do so because of legal loopholes and a lacking government infrastructure.

So, as a result, it's time us true, natural producers took matters into our own hands. Larry Plesent, of Vermont Soap, did just that by creating The Green Products Alliance.

GPA is a group of over 200 dedicated companies that hold their belief of a fair & honest, healthy, eco-friendly method of doing business above all. We are the solution, not the problem.

In order to be considered for inclusion in the Green Products Alliance one must undergo a strict review of ones companies website including a review of ones choice of product ingredients. Upon acceptance, you must pledge to follow the Green Products Alliance Code of Ethics as follows:

We Pledge to conduct our business with the goals of Sustainability in mind. Sustainable business, sustainable ecology, sustainable society. And further:

1. Not to use hazardous chemicals in our formulas.
2. Not to use petrochemical derived ingredients.
3. To use organic and natural raw materials wherever possible.
4. To avoid FD&C and Lake Colors, artificial fragrances, Triclosan and EDTA.
5. To work toward developing and implementing safer preservation systems.
6. Not to test our products or ingredient precursors on animals.
7. Not to use animal products or by products that required harm or death to the animal in it's manufacture.
8. To practice Fair Trade, as it is generally understood today.
9. To practice Fair Business Practices including fair treatment of employees.
10. To use recycled or reusable materials for packaging.
11. To practice energy efficiency and to work at minimizing energy consumption.
12. To minimize waste in our production processes and in our end product.
13. Give back to our communities & be an example of Capitalism with a Conscience.

We are proud to be a member of the Green Products Alliance.

Sensatia Botanicals signs The Compact for Safe Cosmetics.

Recently, Sensatia Botanicals signed & was accepted by The Compact for Safe Cosmetics. We are very proud to support this organization & feel it is a very worthwhile project to fight for.

"The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is a coalition working to protect your health by calling for the elimination of chemicals used in the cosmetics industry linked to cancer, birth defects and other health problems."

We highly recommend frequently visiting www.safecosmetics.org in order to keep abreast of the latest news from the "good guys" and the "bad guys" of the cosmetics industry. We further recommend other producers sign the compact. Thank you.

Sensatia registers 108 product titles with the FDA's VCRP.

Last but not least, we have also recently submitted Sensatia's product compositions to the U.S. Food & Drug Administrations office of Cosmetics & colors. Via the FDA's Voluntary Cosmetic Registration Program (VCRP) we have already successfully submitted (& have already active) 92 Sensatia product compositions, and have a remaining 16 products pending VCRP review.

Most likely these 16 remaining products are not going to be a problem, but rather, are pending because they may contain some "Bali local" ingredients. While, albeit, organic in nature & have been used as traditional medicine for hundreds of years are not necessarily known to the FDA and were not included in their known ingredient lists. So we will have to wait their research into these truly special equatorial botanicals.

Having "bitten the bullet" so to speak, by registering our products online via the FDA's VCRP, I am proud to say that all of Sensatia's products are perfectly within the FDA's percentage recommendations. Furthermore, we applaud the FDA for offering us smaller producers this free service with the best interest of consumer safety in mind.

I would also like to thank Mr. Donald C. Havery from the VCRP for his quick & friendly responses to my perhaps daunting e-mails. Thank you Sir for a job well done!

fresh produce | Why is it better to use Sensatia's handmade soap?

Sensatia's handmade soaps are pure, simple, & natural, that's what we're all about. Our soaps are made from the finest, food-grade ingredients; carefully mixed, cured, cut & wrapped by hand for your pleasure. They're sure to remind you of a bygone era when things were still done the old-fashioned way; by hand. Below you will find some of the finer points of why our soaps are different than those bright, shiny, highly processed chemical bars.

First and foremost, our handmade soap just feels good. A rich, creamy,

handmade bar with real essential oils and a huge voluminous lather is promised to just make you feel good. Using commercial, mass produced soap is like eating fast food when you could be eating at your favorite gourmet restaurant. Commercially produced soaps usually use synthetic ingredients that are readily available, stable and economical, so they are often used in place of richer natural ones. When industrial manufacturers do incorporate organic nutrients, the percentages are often insignificant; eye-catching on the label but inconspicuous in the soap. A quick glance at the label reveals the highly synthetic nature of most body care products. Many people react negatively to one synthetic ingredient or another and are left to find the culprit responsible for a rash, an irritation, or dry skin. Our goal is to create a mild soap that cleans and moisturizes without using anything you wouldn't want your children to use. Our Sensatia range of handmade soaps are always made with wholesome, quality ingredients. We use all natural extra virgin coconut oil and palm oil in a cold process recipe. In cold process soap making, no heat is added to the mixture so the oils retain their healing properties.
		Furthermore, we utilize a process known as superfatting. Soapmakers use this method to ensure a softer, smoother, creamier, emollient-rich bar of soap. Superfatting leaves some of the oils un-SOAP-afied, resulting in a creamy moisturizing bar. The natural glycerin is left in the soap, which helps maintain moisture balance of the skin. The "big guys" sift off the glycerin & sell it to other "big guys", to make those fancy clear bars, even then they add so many chemicals & stabilizers, little of why you purchased the soap in the first place has any health-enhancing effect.
Our skin works as hard as the rest of our organs, continually ridding the body of impurities while absorbing light and moisture. Skin readily accepts a variety of water and oil-soluble materials through the pores. Since both the good and the bad can enter, we must consider carefully which products to use. We need natural, plant-based products that help the skin to balance its loss and absorption of moisture, while nourishing the body with vitamins. Such products create a breathable barrier for the skin, attracting and allowing in a fresh supply of moisture while preventing the evaporation of internal moisture.

Tallow and lard (which are the main ingredients in most commercial soaps) can clog up the skin’s breathing system. In contrast, a coconut oil based soap will keep internal moisture from evaporating too quickly, at the same time allowing the skin to release waste and absorb a fresh supply of external moisture.

In conclusion, you are not only helping your skin and body by insisting on naturally made skin care products, but you are also helping local communities by providing employment, and helping the environment by “treading lightly.”

click here to buy Sensatia's 100% natural soap NOW!

botanical files | Annatto (Bixa orellana) - They did WHAT with it?

If you have been to bali you have seen these small, decorative trees lining the streets from the busiest tourist town to the quietest village back-alleyway.

Annatto is native to tropical America & was introduced to the Philippines by the Spanish. It has spread to other parts of Southeast Asia where it is used as a decorative shrub rather than for its traditional medicinal uses.

Before the advent of convenience the entire annatto plant was used by traditional cultures & can been traced back to the ancient Mayan Indians, who used it in foods, for body paint & as coloring for arts, crafts & murals.

Although mostly only the seed paste or seed oil is used commercially today, the rainforest tribes have used the entire plant as medicine for centuries. A tea made with the young shoots is used as an aphrodisiac & astringent, and to treat skin problems, fevers, dysentery & hepatitis. The plant has also been considered good for the digestive system. An infusion of the flowers can be used to stimulate the bowels and aid in elimination. Traditional healers in Colombia have also used annatto as an anti venom for snakebites. The seeds are believed to be an expectorant, while the roots are thought to be a digestive aid and cough suppressant.

Today in Brazilian herbal medicine, a leaf decoction of annatto is used to treat heartburn and stomach distress caused by spicy foods, and as a mild diuretic and mild laxative. It is also used for fevers and malaria, and, topically, to treat burns.

Annatto is a common remedy in Peruvian herbal medicine today. Eight to ten dried leaves are boiled for 10 minutes in 1 liter of water. One cup is drunk warm or cold 3 times daily after meals to treat prostate disorders and internal inflammation, arterial hypertension, high cholesterol, cystitis, obesity, renal insufficiency & to eliminate uric acid. This decoction is also recommended as a vaginal antiseptic and wound healer, as a wash for skin infections, and for liver and stomach disorders.

Our Annatto oil is made by picking fresh annatto seed pods, taking the bright red seeds out of the furry pods, drying the seeds, then grinding into a fine powder to be infused into coconut oil. This creates a deep reddish-orange oil. The main source of the pigment is called bixin & is classified as a carotene. Bixin has been shown to protect against UV rays and to have antioxidant & liver protective properties in clinical research. It is also anti-aging (because of its antioxidant & ultraviolet ray protective effect).

Our Annatto seed oil is emollient, and its high carotene content provides beneficial antioxidant benefits while adding a rich, sunny color to our creams, lotions & soaps. It also provides a temporary hair dye to the little kids that also seem to like to include themselves when its time to clean the furry pods of the bright red seeds.

For a daily supply of this amazing, beta-carotene rich botanical have a look at some of these wonderful, always 100% natural Sensatia products:

Balinese Herbal Lulur Blend Soap
Wild Ginger, Carrot & Vetiver Soap
Tea Tree & Lemon Myrtle Soap
Wild Ginger, Carrot & Vetiver BIG Soap

Shea Butter SB30 Island Spice Soap
Shea Butter SB30 Seaside Citrus Soap
After-Sun Dream Cream
Blossom Facial Dream Cream

day in the life | Is your Mom's name Michael Romeo Lorenti too?

This year I will have lived in Bali for 10 years. One would think I would have seen & experienced everything by now... Not even close, everyday is a new journey.

The thing that keeps life in Bali so easy to endure is the light-hearted, non-stop joking & playing with one another. No matter what age a Balinese person is, the most important elements to their eternal youthful-ness is their ability to take things in stride, never getting angry & always with a big happy smile on their face.

This even seems true when it comes to their names. To give you a brief introduction to the naming system in Bali one would need to understand that there is still a caste system in place left over from when Bali was ruled by a Majapahit King. This caste system and naming convention was brought to Bali from Java in 1343 but originates from the Hindu writings the Rig Veda. The Rig Veda is the world's oldest liturgical text, originally from India, and dates back more than 4,000 years ago.

To even attempt to give you a minute grasp of this complex 4000 year old caste system in a few paragraphs would be abhorrent, but I will paint a picture of what is true for about 93% of Bali's Sudra population. The Sudra caste, is for lack of better words, the common or labourer caste and make up most of Bali's inhabitants.

The full name of a Balinese person not only indicates his or her caste but also the order in which they were born & their gender. All the men's names begin with an "I" pronounced "eee" and all the woman's names begin with a "Ni" pronounced "nee." The I or Ni is then followed by one of four names given depending on which order they were born. For example, the first born is called "Wayan"(pronounced why-on), then Nyoman (pronounced nyo-m'on) or Nengah (pronounced neng-aah), then Made' (ma-day) and last would be Ketut (pronounced ke-toot). So what if you have 5 children you might ask? Well your back to Wayan of course. Then, each child is given a name of his/ her own. So the name of our Bali based production Director, I Nengah Riadi, means he is the 2nd born male to his father Dudi. In this case the boys of Dudi's family carry the last 2 letters of their fathers last name. Dudi, Riadi, Wardi.

So why am I explaining this to you? Well, just to let you know how easy it would be to get confused even if your Balinese. My above example has also many variations and situations that could and do send a somewhat predictable naming convention totally out of whack from time to time.

So when this above pictured little Balinese surfing rat nick-named Piot (named after a chinese cartoon character) asked me about my full name I was anything but shocked by his response.

I explained to him that in the west we have a first name, usually a middle name and a family name. He asked my full name, I told him Michael Romeo Lorenti Jr., He repeated it back as if he had a mouth full of marbles and peanut butter (i.e. Mako Rollio Lolenti jooneeor.) I told him that my dad's name is also Michael Romeo Lorenti but his is followed by Sr. Then he looked me dead in the eyes with the honesty and virtue of an angel, and asked me with stone-faced seriousness: "Then your mom's name must be Michael Romeo Lorenti too, right???

My mother (not named Michael Romeo Lorenti) still gets a chuckle from this story from time to time. Thanks also to Piot, for in an instant unknowingly provided us with a bit of humor that will last a lifetime.

the crew | Who is the man behind the curtain? (it's not the wizard?)

Since my intention with this section, the crew, was to go down the pecking order introducing our staff, I will start with alpha-dog.

I grew up in a small western New York town, 20 minutes down-stream from where the great Niagara Falls puts on her amazing, tireless show. Near this incredible river is where I was raised by a loving & supporting pack of wolves, not really, just wanted to see if you were still paying attention ;-)

Growing up, my father instilled creativity & ingenuity, passion & determination, while my mother instilled sensitivity & unconditional love & respect for all things, with extra compassion for those less fortunate than us. Both of my parents always emphasized fairness in every situation, a readiness to fight for what's right, and to always, without question, adore & respect nature. In fact now that I think about it, there was no line between my parents and nature. For them it was like one did not exist without the other (I think it's the same way they feel about each other, even after 35 years of marriage.)

I tried living out of nature's element when I went to school at The Art Institute of Chicago. My stay ended rather abruptly one dreary, cold & windy Chicago night when I realized I needed to leave and get some real life experience. (But certainly not before I spent a good year thawing out on an island in the Caribbean.)

After a year and a severe case of island fever I needed to jump off that little rock and head back to the mainland. But where to go? I knew the almanac would have the answer, so I looked up the city in America with the most days of sun. Tucson Arizona proudly boasts 360 days of sun per year, and I was as good as there.

While in Arizona I bought a VW camper bus which was to be my movable home base. In order to escape the summer Arizona heat I pointed the VW north and headed to Colorado to enjoy some summer rock climbing in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Absolutely incredible, but with winter starting early in the mountains it was time to head back to the desert to avoid any unnecessary exposure to snow! Yuk!

Well, old Nelly only made it as far south as Boulder Colorado, about 45 minutes down canyon from the park (not as far south as I expected.) Anticipating a quick-fix of the bus I hung out in Boulder for a little while. That little while turned into 5 good years.

Boulder is where I met my mentor Nathaniel Lieberman. What a fireball! Thorney was I.M. Pei's principal architectural photographer for years while he lived in New York City. I learned more about photography (and life) in one day working with Thorney than a whole semester in school. Working with Thorney and as photo editor for the Rock Climbing magazine, Rock & Ice I was getting the life experience I craved. But as all things seem to eventually get monotonous Boulder also served it's purpose and it was time to point the VW (this time a little black sports model) to California.

I ended up across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, in Sausalito living on a friend's boat. This boat was hilarious, even popeye would have thought it was funny. My friend Jason (an eccentric Cornell graduate turned eco-friendly skateboard producer) knew of this old Italian fishing boat sitting on the bottom of the San Francisco bay since the 1940's. So he does what any Cornell graduate would do... He dives deep into the bay, finds the wreck amidst the cold, murky, sharky waters of Northern California, ties a rope to it & has his friend, a tug boat driver hull it up. He then built a gawky cabin on it and called it home for quite some time.

It was living with Jason (& various other vagrants) where I grew addicted to surfing. Freezing cold 6am dawn-patrol surf checks at Cronkite beach always sparked my imagination for what surfing in the tropics would be like. But not before a very interesting to say the least, warehouse stay in downtown SF with a crew of surfers, artists & skate rats. Warhol may of even been shocked.

Cities seem to have a way of driving me to my wits end, but the silver lining is that it always forces me to flight. This last flight will have brought me half way around the world (via a one-way air ticket) to find my garden of eden hidden in Bali Indonesia. Jasri, Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia to be exact. A delicious little no-frills, black sand beach, fishing village with a group of folks that have turned into the brothers I never had. This is where Sensatia was born.

With an unexplainable captivation of the hearts of the local Bali crew I put photography on hold in order to pursue something that could benefit a greater number of people. My new found friends needed a guardian angel, and I was up to bat.

To this day my heart drops when I think of some of the situations and stories I had to pry out of some of the peoples mouths. The Balinese are a very proud group of people; they have history and to offer up a sad story is not their style. But I can tell you I have shed many a tear from stories of the lack of simple, basic human needs. Things you and I don't

even think about and often take for granted, the simplest things we need to survive like food, water & shelter are often unattainable for some folks.

This is what brought me to start Sensatia Botanicals as a profit sharing company. A means by which we can siphon a small bit of the worlds affluence into this well-needed little village the world has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew about.

Life is quite a bit different here in this small Balinese village atmosphere than most other places on Earth. By that I mean there is still a very, very strong communal bond. What's mine is yours and yours is mine. I remember asking one of the boys’ how he spent his monthly wage, I think it was the biggest profit share for them at that point. He said to me as a matter of normal procedure he gave it to his mom to take care of. So you can physically see money being dispersed in every direction to friends and family come payday. It’s beautiful! So if you were to actually count how many people make a living through Sensatia it would be quite a few. Not to mention our outside-of-Sensatia suppliers, like coconut oil makers, loofah sponge growers, seaweed harvesters, carrot, ginger, tomato growers, etc., etc.

This is what keeps me going. Somehow we created a situation where never does anything we do feel like work, I am driven by a higher source & it feels really good.

We will continue to strive to provide the best, purest product, the best service & support, & always via the best method that is fair for everyone; profit-sharing.

We also have a great future plan for a wonderful "spin-off" program called Sensatia for Life. In this program we will use a percentage of our online sales to donate to local projects that don't seem to be getting the government aid they so need and deserve.

Sensatia for Life priorities will lie in being able to provide those children that really want to go to school the opportunity to do so. With yet another focus on projects that promote physical activity. I am a firm believer in the fact that a healthy body is the basis of a healthy mind. Jungle gyms and trekking outings might be a good start.

So, please stay tuned for the implementation of these new programs and please have a look at Mr. David Booth's excellent, life-changing efforts for some of the more isolated communities in east bali. www.eastbalipovertyproject.org Keep up the great work David, we applaud your tireless efforts.

I hope you enjoyed this brief mini-bio (writing about one's self is no easy task.) In the next issue of our bi-monthly newsletter we will begin with the Balinese crew, production house director I Nengah Riadi of CV.Pak Bina's Minyak Kelapa.

Thank you for your continued interest and support of Sensatia Botanicals and once again please feel free to contact us anytime with any questions or concerns you may have. From all of us at Sensatia, we wish you the very best.

Sincerely,
Michael R. Lorenti Jr.