East is East and West is West and the two meet at Avia

“Here, put this on your face,” I said to my writing partner.
She looked at the ingredients. “You want me to put wasabi on my face?”
“It’s not that kind of wasabi! Just trust me on this one.”

Wasabi—but not the green stuff you put on sushi—is found in some of the Avia skin products and is part of the East/West connection made at Avia spa and in their beauty products. The philosophy of Avia is balance; in this case, it is the balance of East/West. I was inviting my friend to try their 02 Restoring Mask which contains a mixture of botanicals, including wasabi, which is used to purify the skin of toxins. She put this mask on her face and left it on for 10 minutes as the directions stated. As with my own experience, the mask had good results. It freshened and brightened the skin and did not cause either of us to break out—this is something remarkable considering that I have really difficult skin and virtually anything that has a scent in it will make me break out.

So far, I had been using the Avia products for a week, and had seen nothing but great results and not a single blemish! But they were ready if I had encountered a blemish: they also provided me with Avia Skincare Instant Gratification Blemish Remover—just in case. That was my emergency kit. The blemish remover contains cinnamon and benzoyl peroxide.

Avia’s line includes cleansers, toners, moisturizers, masks, and more. The products are available at the Avia spa, located at 350 Chapala Street, Suites 101 and 102 in Santa Barbara, CA 93101 (805) 730-7303. They are also available online at www.Aviaspa.com.

But back to that wasabi… this botanical is used in two of the four products I tried from Avia. It is the “Eastern” ingredient in the product. The “Western” ingredient in the mask is vitamin E. Each product contains a main ingredient from Western cosmetics and skincare and a main ingredient from an Eastern tradition. Avia skillfully blends these ingredients to create new potions that seem to work very, very well even on my difficult skin. My favorite product was the Eternal Eye Complex with soy protein and apple extracts. This very light and silky moisturizer absorbed well and was neither greasy nor waxy. It can be used over the entire face as well and I did so a few times as I liked the feel of it. It ads moisture to the eye area and helped my eyes look less puffy and made those pesky under-eye lines less noticeable.

The moisturizer called Balancing Hydration is the other product I used that contains wasabi. Aloe is its Western contribution. I liked the Balancing Hydration moisturizer a lot—it, too, is neither greasy nor waxy and absorbs well—but I feel the Eternal Eye Complex is really the product I’d want to continue to use most often.

Admittedly, I’m not doing these products justice by only mentioning two of the ingredients in each. Each product contains a carefully researched combination of botanicals, vitamins, enzymes, and minerals. And even with the diverse number of ingredients that these products contain, none of them reacted badly on my oily, sensitive, and rosacea-prone skin. All of the products showed results.

My friend proved helpful in giving the second opinion on the products, for her skin is actually dry but prone to breakouts like my own. Between the two of us we did our own East/West evaluation of the products from Avia spa. We feel that the synergistic blend of ingredients works well and their combinations were, to me at least, unique.

I can’t wait to visit the Avia spa in Santa Barbara, for one of one of the sections of the spa is decorated in Western tradition, and the other in Asian tradition. I’ll be eager to try such treatments as their Salt Stone Aromatic Chocolate Glow skin treatment and their Decadent Chocolate Manicure and Pedicure! Another of their unique treatments is the Acupressure Shirodhara Massage, which combines an acupressure massage with warm oil continuously applied to the “third eye” area of the forehead. Truly unique!

I’m probably the toughest critic on skincare products that anyone has seen here in a while, so if I give the thumbs up to all four of these products, that really means something. The products aren’t cheap but they do last a long time and give good value as a result. Avia products get an A from this professor, especially in their innovative and imaginative approach to skin care.

Note: no writing partners were harmed in the testing of these skin treatments.
O2 Restoring Mask with Wasabi & Vitamin E, $80.
Instant Gratification Blemish Remover with Cinnamon & Royal Jelly, $25.
Eternal Eye Complex with Soy Protein & Apple, $40.
Balancing Hydration with Wasabi & Aloe, $50.