Lovely, lovely world: women from other cultures share their secrets to natural beauty.(Innerbeauty: new strategies for vibrant living)

In your quest to find the ultimate in holistic, natural beauty, you'll find that the more you learn about the rituals of non-Western cultures, the more you get a real sense of the unwavering respect that the rest of the world has not only for nature's awe some rejuvenating power and tremendous beauty benefits, but for its innate life force and infinite healing wisdom.

In The Lady, the Chef, and the Courtesan (HarperCollins), the author, Marisol, describes the sensual and "cult-like" reverence for beauty known as la belleza installed and nurtured in South American women from an early age, which she attributes in part to the continent's stunning natural splendor.

A hunger to explore the rejuvenating rituals of exotic cultures is what led 17-year spa consultant and trainer Alison Gibbs to Hong Kong, Thailand and Indonesia. She wanted to work with local healers to find out their traditional techniques.

Perhaps the most decadent rejuvenating beauty ritual she discovered was the "lulur" ritual that princesses in central Java receive for 40 days prior to marriage. It involves a special herbal scrub, massage and exotic flower bath.

Queen of Flowers

"The flower bath inspires the spirit and soothes file eyes," says Gibbs. The botanical ingredients used in the lulur, and their reason for use, says Gibbs, include turmeri (nourishing), rice (exfoliating), fenugreek (lymphatic clearing), gingerroot (circulation), jasmine (uplifting, aphrodisiac), Cempaka (a flower prized and offered up in religious ceremonies) and ylang-ylang-the "queen of flowers" said to stimulate lymph flow, reduce swelling and act as an aphrodisiac.

Prior to the bath, yogurt is massaged on to remove the lulur scrub and "activate" the skin. "Yogurt is nutritions for the skin, adding enzymes and oil and working as a natural moisturizer," says Gibbs. A milk bath (mandi su su) is sometimes substituted for the yogurt. Gibbs adds that warming the body internally during the process with herbal drinks, such as ginger water, is also important.