"Babushka's Beauty Secrets" - New Book, Natural Beauty Tips & Giveaway Contest

Babushka's Beauty Secrets, Old World Tips for a Glamorous New You by Raisa Ruder and Susan Campos is a charming book! I read it recently and loved it - it's riveting from beginning to end. Reading it reminded me of dishing with a gorgeous girlfriend who is finally spilling her beauty secrets. If you love organic and natural beauty, don't want to spend a fortune on it, and love tips for looking fabulous, you will love this book too! I'm going to tell you about it and then tell you how you can enter this week's giveaway contest to win a copy.

Esthetician to the stars, Raisa Ruder, learned her time-tested natural beauty techniques from her Ukrainian grandmother (or babushka, as they say in the old country). Now everyone can discover her all-natural, better-than-botox secrets that celebrities use to shine on the red carpet! Ruder reveals her sought-after beauty recipes to fight wrinkles, plump lips, eliminate crow's feet and acne, and more - using inexpensive, everyday grocery items like eggs, honey, vegetable oil, grapes, and strawberries (and a splash of vodka for freshness!).

At last, by popular demand, Raisa Ruder has opened up her grandmother's secret pantry and shared her amazing and effective beauty advice. She provides explanations and recipes for making your home your spa.

• Skin-saving soufflés - whipped up wonders that shrink pores, brighten skin, and diminish lines
• Hot hair - a cayenne pepper blend that leaves locks silky, soft, and full
• Pedi pure - a soothing, smoothing foot scrub made with milk and mint
• Lustrous lashes - a simple castor oil serum that thickens and lengthens lashes for a tiny fraction of the cost of the latest lash boosters
• Perfect pucker - a mix of salt, green tea, and fruit that plumps lips naturally
• And much much more

This book will leave you wondering why you've never read these secrets before. Sure, we've all read tips for de-puffing eyes (teabags, cucumbers) or conditioning hair (avocado), but Ruder goes way beyond the well-known tips into a world I hadn't imagined. Who would have thought that potatoes, abundant in Ukraine, could be used to reduce puffiness? I didn't stop to think that I could make my own antioxidant-rich and vitamin C-laden remedies.

Rewinding the story...As word spread that her beauty treatments worked - and worked really well - Ruder's grandmother ran a salon, of sorts, from her home. The local women, up to 50 a week, would even trek through the snow to get there. Naturally, Ruder and her mother were enlisted to help, and she learned the recipes her grandmother tirelessly prepared. After she moved to Los Angeles, Ruder worked as an esthetician. One day, she used one of her grandmother's ingredients on a client, and the client was awestruck. Word spread quickly through Hollywood, and the rest is history.

If you don't want to spend a fortune to look flawless, you need this book! It will be at bookstores next week. The publisher has generously offered Best Things in Beauty readers the opportunity to win one! I have three copies to give away.

Want a chance to be one of the three lucky readers? Just leave a comment here once. After you comment, feel free to e-mail bestthingsinbeautycontests@gmail.com and identify your comment. You can never be too careful about sharing your e-mail address on a blog, so I would follow this second step if I were you (an alternative is to code your e-mail, e.g., myname at gmail dot com, in your comment).

The contest is open to residents of the United States and Canada (and if you win, you must be able to provide a mailing address that's not a post office box). The deadline for entries will be Saturday, June 12, at midnight. I will use a random number generator (random.org) to select the winner. The publisher will send the three winners their copies as soon as the book is released (scheduled for next week).

I will post this contest at Free!Grechen, my favorite giveaway site on the Web. If you like giveaway contests, you will love Free!Grechen.

Good Luck!

Photo courtesy of Hachette Book Group, Camden New Journal, and The Daily Green