Eight oddest health and beauty tips

How far would you go in the pursuit of physical perfection?

Would you wash your hair in animal semen, eat placenta, or scrub your face with bird poo - just to make yourself look a little better?

No!? Well, even if you wouldn’t, there are plenty of people who would. In fact, there is a whole industry dedicated to such odd treatments.

And, when you have millionaire celebrities with big purses and an even bigger desire to prolong their fading careers and get one over their slightly younger rivals - all bets are off.

There’s nothing beautiful about it. In fact, it’s chemical warfare

No animal is sacred. No treatment too squeamish. No ingredient too disgusting?

Dietpixie takes a look at some of the oddest.

1. Let leeches suck your blood
This has to be the oddest thing I have ever heard. First, you shave your body, you then bathe in turpentine and then allow leeches to feast on your blood.

I don’t know about you, but it sounds like some kind of medieval torture.
However, Demi Moore insists it’s what keeps her looking young.

Nothing to do with the plastic surgery, you understand, it’s all about the bloodsuckers (which is probably the plastic surgeons themselves).

Speaking on the David Letterman Show, Demi Moore said: “I feel like I’ve always been someone looking for the cutting edge of things that optimise your health and healing.

“I was in Austria doing a cleanse and part of the treatment was leech therapy. These aren’t just swamp leeches though - we are talking about highly-trained medical leeches.

“These are not some low-level scavengers - we’re talking high-level bloodsuckers.”
Of course, the use of leeches is not a new thing in medicine. It supposedly ‘detoxifies the blood’ and is even used today to help blood circulation.

Demi Moore continued: “They have a little enzyme that when they are biting down in you it gets released in your blood and generally you bleed for quite a bit - and your health is optimised.

“It detoxifies your blood - I’m feeling very detoxified right now.”

The things we do to keep hold of a younger man. Maybe Melanie Griffith should have tried it.

2. Use Bull semen for hair conditioner

Want beautiful, shiny hair? Well, take the bull by the horns. Or, in this case, take a horny bull by, well, another part of its anatomy.

No bull!! You can have the treatment done at a salon in Kensington, London, who charge you £55 for the pleasure.

The semen is put in a fridge and then combined with the root of protein-rich plant called katera to produce a formula which gives your hair a real shine.

3. Have eyelashes made from furry creatures
Minks, squirrels and foxes…it seems no furry creature is safe from the clutches of actresses looking to get an edge in the old eyelash department.

It sounds like something out of the Dark Ages, for God’s sake.

J-Lo started the trend when she glued red fox fur to her lashes at a recent Oscars night - and everyone since has been trying to ‘outfox’ her since. Get it? All right, forget it!!

At this year’s Oscars ceremony, make-up artist Valerie Sarnelle turned up the heat by creating thick and furry false eyelashes made from mink and squirrel.

They came in blacks, browns and blondes. We have no idea where she got a blonde squirrel, by the way.

Anyway, Sarnelle was certainly bigging up her ‘creation’ before the event.
She said: “They look like butterflies, but they’re not overdone. It’s the ultimate accessory.”

Madonna recently wore lashes made of mink fur and diamonds. They cost £5,000 and you can use them five times.

Of course, the squirrels would have at least died happy in the knowledge that their sacrifice was worth it if it meant a Hollywood A-lister’s eyes looked nice at the after-party bash.

It makes you wonder what’s next. I wonder, would badger balls make great breast implants? Actually, I should not even plant the idea in their heads.

4. Scrub your face in diamonds
All right! Not exactly a method you can use if you on a budget, but Madonna, Drew Barrymore and Gwyneth Paltrow apparently swear by it.

The £1,000 facial by specialist Sonya Dakar is one of the most popular pre-Oscar rituals among Hollywood’s elite for ensuring your skin looks radiant and acne-free.

It includes a diamond scrub to exfoliate the skin, a green tea mask and red-and-blue UV light therapy.

I think it’s a fair bet that the majority of the fee doesn’t go on the tea.

5. Wash your hair in fish eggs
If the bull semen treatment is not to your tastes, you can always pay about £150 more to have a fish eggs slathered over your locks at the same salon.

Catherine Zeta-Jones swears by it. She has her hair washed in Iranian Beluga roe and truffle oil on a regular basis and says it gives her hair incredible shine.

Sound a bit fishy? Well, apparently, it’s the omega-3 fatty acids, which produce collagen and keratin, that’s behind its success.

6. Smear nightingale poo on your face
It may sound like a load of old crap, but New Yorkers are flocking to a Japanese salon to have their faces smeared in nightingale poo.

It’s apparently just the thing to get rid of those nasty blackheads and troublesome acne. It’s an ancient Japanese method of getting rid of heavy make-up.

So what about the smell? Well, according to salon manager Shizuka Bernstein, the crap, which arrives in powdered form from Japan, smells like ‘hay’ or ‘the outside’.

And does it work? Well, speaking to the New York Post, Andrea Nieto was certainly one satisfied customer.

She said: “You wouldn’t even know it was nightingale droppings. And after, my skin was softer than it had been in a really long time. And it looked clearer to me, too.”

And why does it have to nightingale’s poop? No idea!!

7. Use snake venom as a face cream
Want to get rid of your nasty wrinkles? Well, have you thought of using snake venom?

Didn’t think so. Well, apparently, it’s just the thing to stop you developing age lines and shave off those years.

Gwyneth Paltrow is a big fan and regularly buys the cream at £87.50 for a 1oz bottle from the Sonya Dakar Spa in Beverly Hills.

Speaking to the Daily Mail newspaper, salon owner Sonya said: “She bought loads of the Ultra Lux 9 products, including a cream which contains the spit of a snake.

“It’s not Botox - just a cream that has the venom in it. We use it as part of the facials here.

“If someone gets bitten by a snake and gets paralysed, it has a similar effect, but more gentle effect, on the skin.”

Some thin-lipped stars like Keira Knightley also use lip gloss with snake venom in it. The idea is to ‘sting’ the lips and make them fuller. Ouch!

8. Feasting on sheep placenta
Eating sheep placenta is not a new thing – in fact, the British Royal Family have apparently been enjoying its various health benefits for centuries. Now, if ever there was a reason to stop reading…

Anyway, it may sound disgusting, but at least we now have the option of taking it in tablet form.
So what does it do? Well, quite a lot, allegedly.

In fact, recent scientific research has shown placenta contains rich growth factors, hormones and antibodies, and other concentrated nutrients that can rejuvenate organic tissue.

Sources:

Daily Mail - Demi Moore admits to bizarre beauty secret: ‘I let leeches suck my blood’

Daily Mail - Mink eyelashes, cleavage buffing, underarm Botox - how the stars are preparing for the Oscars

MSN - Bizarre beauty treatments are all the rage. We check out some of the weirdest.

Daily Mail - Gwyneth Paltrow’s latest beauty tip - snake venom face cream

Pictures: Morguefile