Lauren Hutton's Diary of Brazil
The style icon’s latest project is all about going green - and giving back.
By Abigail Pesta
Just for kicks, Lauren Hutton likes to play with boa constrictors, wrestle alligators, and go diving with sharks. Yup, the pioneering model and style icon has done all that — and more — in her travels across the globe. In her latest adventure, she jetted off to the Amazon jungle in Brazil, home to the natural ingredients found in a new addition to her line of beauty products. Her "Passport to Brazil" makeup palette (on the next page), which launches this month, is made up of exotic goodies ranging from passion fruit to guava to Brazil nuts — all known for their moisturizing properties.
Hutton, who "flew, trucked, ferried, and canoed" to meet with the villagers who grow the plants, says journeys like this give her ideas: "Over the years, I've spent time with nine different indigenous tribes around the world — in Botswana, Uganda, Somalia — and I saw how they make use of every single leaf, vine, and berry," she says. "It's like going to a gigantic A&P."
>After her excursion, Hutton left a parting gift: a donation of nearly $10,000 to the Luz Foundation, which educates and empowers local girls. "My main pleasure is giving — being able to leave something everywhere we go," Hutton says. Below, she shares her diary and slideshow.
Click here to see Hutton's Passport to Brazil Palette and other eco-friendly beauty items.
Lauren Hutton\'s Brazil Diary
Lauren Hutton, eco friendly beauty, green, brazil, rain forest, jungle
lauren hutton travels to brazil for eco friendly beauty
MADE IT!I arrive in the middle of the night in the port city of Manaus, after a 10- hour flight from Miami. Love these ferry towns, full of rough-and-tumble Paul Bunyan types. After a rest, I take a boat down the Amazon, the wildest river in the world, to see the kinds of plants I\'m using in my makeup palette. I spot orchids, zillions of palm trees, lily pads. Black vultures soar overhead, and pink river dolphins play in the water below. Raindrops as big as tablespoons start falling.
Lauren Hutton\'s Brazil Diary
Lauren Hutton, eco friendly beauty, green, brazil, rain forest, jungle
lauren hutton travels to brazil for eco friendly beauty
WILD THINGSI meet all kinds of critters, like a marvelous poisonous spider. (I stay behind her when taking pictures because I\'ve heard that spiders can\'t jump backward!) I also hang out with a monkey who is missing a leg. The ranger says it\'s because he lost a fight with an alligator. Doesn\'t slow him down one bit. The wildlife here is under threat from deforestation - the massive chopping down of trees - and conservationists are fighting to preserve the land.
Lauren Hutton\'s Brazil Diary
Lauren Hutton, eco friendly beauty, green, brazil, rain forest, jungle
lauren hutton travels to brazil for eco friendly beauty
NUTTY TREESI decide to get up close and personal with the Brazil-nut trees, which have giant pods - the size of soccer balls - that hold a bunch of hard-shell seeds we know as Brazil nuts. One falling pod can crush your head! The trees grow across South America, and their nuts are chock-full of oils that protect and enhance your skin.
Lauren Hutton\'s Brazil Diary
Lauren Hutton, eco friendly beauty, green, brazil, rain forest, jungle
lauren hutton travels to brazil for eco friendly beauty
YES, I\'M A JUNGLE-HEADI take the ferry from one mythical jungle town to another, visiting beautiful little guava farms and passion-fruit vineyards. The whole farming process is very basic and eco-friendly, and the farmers here are real gents. I had an incredible time. It\'s always fun in the jungle: You\'re young there - you\'re 5 years old again.
