The holidays are coming up, and i’m sure i’m not the only one looking forward to the Turkey, gingerbread cookies, and cranberry sauce! Oh and of course the being-surrounded-by-family-and-friends part is fun too.

One dish that comes as a side to this season is always a serving of sweet potatoes. They come in pie form, melted among marshmallows, crispy wedges or condensed into soup form.  Whether you like sweet-potatoes or not, there’s no stopping these shape-shifting vegetables from entering your home on Thanksgiving. In light of the sweet potato’s inevitable upcoming appearance on your plate, I’ve decided to  write an article entirely about its skin enhancing benefits. I’m sure there are other ways to make your brown skin glow this season, but I can’t think of a better way to do that right now than eating a big heaping of sweet potato fries.

I first learned about the sweet potato’s skin enhancing benefits from an article on Everyday Health about ten foods that are actually good for your skin. Sweet Potatoes was one of them. When added to a healthy diet, sweet potatoes give you a boost of vitamin A. According to WebMD, people commonly take vitamin A as “treatments for acne and other skin conditions, including wrinkles” (1). After looking into this further, I found  Jenné Claiborne of Sweet Potato Soul, an online vegan workshop that provides you with diet plans and so many delicious recipes, many of which are based on sweet potatoes. Jenné Claiborne has been featured in Reader’s Digest,  Vegetarian Times, Shape, and many other publications. She is a beautiful dark skinned woman who works in New York City as a professional chef. She creates recipes, videos, and spreads her passion for a healthy lifestyle. She is a certified holistic health counselor having earned her title from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in 2012.

Jenné says if you want beautiful skin – who doesn’t – it all must begin at your plate. She says you do not have to eat exotic “super-foods” to feel the beautification. In fact she reccomends sweet potatoes, broccoli, almonds, and avocados. She developed her love of sweet potatoes when she was growing up in Atlanta, Georgia. She considers them her soul food. On her website, she has numerous recipes dedicated to sweet potatos, some of which are listed below.

Maybe you can incorporate one of these into your Thanksgiving meal this year:
1. Sweet Potato Burgers with Green Tahini - feeling all-american? try this twist on the traditional beef burger.

2. Sweet Potato Hummus with Fennel Seeds and Smoked Salt - maybe you want to add some mediterranean into your Thanksgiving, just make sure to bring the drinks to match, Opa!

3. Creamy Sweet Potato Portabella Pasta – Nothing says Thanksgiving like a big Italian family. Maybe you can squeeze in room at your table for a sweet potato, or a few.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! Remember to stay radiant and be thankful for your gorgeous brown skin!

(As a reminder, we are not doctors here at Cinnamon Spirit. Therefore we do NOT recommend starting any treatment without consulting an appropriate medical professional first. )

Maybe it’s the clear skin, distinctive eyes, the eye and face makeup, the jewelry or just the color of her skin! It just works.

In particular I like the way her makeup is done.  Slight blush to accentuate her cheek bones and the dark outline of lipstick that keeps things natural. She has served as my poster child on several occasions  to help my glamour effort….simply because our skin tone is almost the same.

The story of Cinnamon Spirit, one can say started last week… or is as old as I am or older.

It’s no lie that media and society has fallen short of giving the beautiful dark skinned people of the world their proper representation. This is an effort to rectify that problem.

We want to showcase the beauty of being brown. We want to talk about fashion, health, technology and social demeanor that suits brown skinned people. We want to turn the spotlight on dark skin tones.

Our intent is to have the following sections

• Fashion
• Lifestyle
• Health
• Technology
• Real People