When we first met Tammie Umbel, she’d just delivered a baby lamb at her family farm in Virginia. While we complained about the New York City weather, she was positively glowing—even after a hectic day of travel. Her skin, at 40, was nearly line-free and without a stitch of makeup. She thanks her own line, Shea Terra Organics, for that. The potent, precious oils, herbs, and flowers in her line are fairly traded with the African villages and towns from where they’re sourced, and because Umbel is all about changing the world while providing safe, organic anti-aging beauty products, she also employs the women who farm her botanicals. When she’s not busy making her products, homeschooling her children, traveling to Africa, or caring for her farm, we wanted to know…What makes her feel beautiful? Here, her answers: My smile is my most valuable beauty possession. A woman can’t stay young forever but a smiling face can bring out the beauty in anyone. I love to smile. I do it out of habit, and sometimes I do it simply because I want my way. My smile makes me feel good and makes others feel good about me. Even when I don’t feel like it, I turn on my smile and watch it play up its charm. Seeing my children’s accomplishments makes me feel like a beautiful woman. A mother of thirteen and founder/creator of my own skin care line, I have to work really hard to accomplish what I do. Homeschooling my children and catering to their needs for a successful future of their own gives me a beauty that far surpasses anything that injections or plastic surgery could possibly do for me. I taught my children their ABC’s, their arithmetic, so to watch them graduate from college, master horsemanship or read for the first time makes me radiate. Staying happy keeps me youthfully beautiful. Staying happy doesn’t come naturally. People aren’t born happy. Happiness is something that one pursues. I make my daily and long term choices so that I can be the happiest I can possibly be. Worry wrinkles are so unattractive. But glowing skin, toned by laughter and smiles keeps me looking years younger than my age. Helping others makes me feel beautiful inside. The warm feeling that I get when I know I have touched someone, made their load lighter, or given them a good dose of laughter makes me feel beautiful. That beautiful feeling can often be seen radiating on my face. I turned 40 a few weeks ago and I think I have finally found the magic ingredient for anti-aging: laughter. Even though I often run into the bathroom to slather on my products to get rid of the wrinkles, I have observed myself and observed others and often find women my age have far more wrinkles than I. But those wrinkles are stress wrinkles and worry wrinkles. I found that my laughter and my happiness, the joy that my family brings, being surrounded by nature, feeling good about my accomplishments—these things are what keep me looking and feeling beautiful.
