Understanding Chinese Medicine's Metal Metaphor of Fall: What It Means for Your Skin, Your Emotions

As you are probably aware, the complete line of skincare and signature treatments we offer at Beyond Body is called PHYTO5. It’s 100% made in Switzerland and is for mulated in alignment with the Five Phases (seasons)* and Elements of traditional Chinese medicine. According to this fivefold philosophy, we’ve just entered the Fall energetic season whose corresponding element is Metal—the mineral structure of the planet.

The air is cooler with a fresh quality. Natural scents are more subdued and herbaceous. The excitement of Summer is dialing down to a calmer quieter state.

The light is changing—especially twilight’s light. Darkness comes more quickly and seems to blanket the evening more fully than before.

Contrary to the former season of Summer associated with joy and excitement, Fall tends to feel a little melancholy. The trees and vines are letting go of their precious produce which has morphed into wrinkling leaves and decaying fruit. They fall to the earth yet nourish the soil with their decay of organic matter.

The bright spot is they will become recycled and find new value in eventual new creations!

These actions—the actions of letting go and of finding value—are core to the attributes of Metal and the Fall season in Chinese medicine where Autumn is the time of letting the old and unneeded drop away to make way for new creations that are seeded now. Whether we are a “Metal type” or not, this is the most perfect time of year for all of us to let go of what doesn’t serve us and appreciate the value that exists right here now.

The emotion of melancholy or sadness, too, is core to Metal, but finding balance in Metal gives us the courage to face what’s ahead.

When it comes to skin, the Metal line of PHYTO5 skincare works in a similar way to the metaphor of Fall.

Like the leaves and fruit that enrich the soil, the Metal line enriches skin with minerals. The new fresher air of Fall can be equated with the oxygenation action of the Metal line. Skin now becomes decongested making way for plumper brighter skin. The Metal line, too, works to bring balance to skin that’s showing first signs of aging: surface dryness and fine lines.

Traditional Chinese medicine tells us Metal’s organs are the colon and the lung. The lung energy or lung chi controls the surface of the body—the skin—helping to protect us against infections and other environmental insults.

Lung chi enormously impacts the health of the skin. When lung chi is out of balance, eczema, dry skin, psoriasis, a dull cast to the skin and many other chronic dermatological problems result.

Bring balance to lung energy by focusing more on slower deeper breathing especially during energetic Fall.

If your skin is showing signs of surface dryness, fine lines and congestion, bring balance back to your skin with the Metal line of skincare by PHYTO5 available at Beyond Body.

If your skin is already in balance considering what is normal for your age and even if yours isn’t dry, dull or showing lines, now, during energetic Fall, is the time to enjoy PHYTO5’s Metal line.

One of the most unique features of all the five element lines of PHYTO5 skincare is that they are quantum energetic. This means they work to bring balance on three levels all of which are requisites to comprehensive natural beauty:

• skin (face, body, scalp);

• your unseen vital energy;

• emotion.

The way in which these products are formulated helps them to get past the grosser levels of the body like cells, tissues, and organs to arrive at the zero point between mind and matter. This is actually how any healing response is provoked.

Because the Metal line is quantum energetic (as are all the other four lines), all products in the Metal line will help uplift a sad emotional state into one of courage and knowing that all is well.

In addition to using the line as you normally would, take in the fragrance of one or two drops of Metal Phyt’Ether serum in the palm of your hand or shower with Metal Selextreme Swiss mountain exfoliating salts for a more balanced emotional state.

*a fivefold conceptual scheme that many traditional Chinese fields used to explain a wide array of phenomena from cosmic cycles to the interaction between internal organs; the five phases are Wood/Spring, Fire/Summer, Earth/four 18-day periods between each of the other four seasons, Metal/Fall and Water/Winter.

Moss, Charles A. Power of the Five Elements: The Chinese Medicine Path to Healthy Aging and Stress Resistance. North Atlantic Books, 2010.