This week I will show you how I’m enjoying the Japanese beauty secret called sake kasu lately.
Sake kasu is the lees produced during sake production. It’s white and pasty. Although it’s a by-product, sake kasu is packed with nutrients and the benefits of sake for your health internally and externally without getting drunk. It is used in Japanese cuisine for marinading fish, meat, and vegetables and soups and amazake drink. Sake is made from fermentation so sake kasu also has fermenting enzymes, amino acids and vitamins like B1, B2 and B6. It also has resistant protein that doesn’t get absorbed and in turn helps to eliminate excess fat. Who doesn’t like that? And it’s shown to even lower cholesterol in studies.
The main benefits of sake kasu on your skin are hydration, brightening and anti-aging. I’ve been making a mask by thinning the sake kasu with water and licking the excess off my fingers for a good health. Leave it for few minutes and wash it off with warm water. I sometimes take a bath and I always put something in it depending on what I feel like. Sometimes Epsom salt or one of the packets with different aroma or effects. But lately, I’ve been enjoying a sake kasu bath. I put the pasty sake kasu in a mesh cloth and dissolve it in the water. I put it on my face too to make it a mask. After taking a bath, there is no need to rinse unless you have to. What I’ve noticed is my skin is very smooth after taking a bath and I stay warm longer after taking a bath. The alcohol left in the product helps to improve the circulation.
You can put a real sake in the bath too but it can be very expensive. The good thing about the sake kasu is it’s very affordable. This 3 lbs bag was $4.98 at a local Japanese grocery store.
You can find it in a refrigerated section along with other fermented products like miso at Japanese grocery stores. Or you can get it from a sake brewery. Some has alcohol still left in it so you need to do a patch test before putting it all over your skin to see if you have any reactions.
You may have heard sake makers’ hands are beautiful because they touch the sake ingredients. It is true in part when they are making rice bran called kome nuka, and koji, which is used for fermentation, and when they removing sake kasu. However, sake making process also involves lots of washing. Washing rice, washing bags, and washing tools, etc. So their hands can also be very damaged too. This is straight from my friend who works at sake breweries. She has heard that the sake makers’ hands were beautiful because before they had gauges and tools, they used to depend on their bare hands to check on the conditions of rice and koji during the sake manufacturing process. So they protected their hands very well.
Massage Monday #538 Japanese Beauty Secret – Sake Kasu http://bit.ly/mm-538