Researchers have proposed that the skin may be the gateway to allergens that irritate and cause reactions under the skin. They say that any dry, cracked, “leaky” areas on the surface of our skin can present the perfect place for a world full of pollutants and irritants to “get under our skin.”   Their solution is a cream that builds a protective barrier every time you use it.

What sets this new cream apart from others is the inclusion of an extract from an extremely rare fruit called jabara. Jabara is a citrus fruit that grows only in one small remote Japanese village. To give you an idea how isolated this village is, just to get to it you need to drive through 20 different mountain tunnels until you arrive in a narrow valley between two steep mountains. This unique and isolated environment is the only one in the world where jabara fruit grows naturally.

The local Kitayama villagers have used the fruit for years to ward off the effects of cedar pollen every spring. In fact, the name jabara means “cleanse evil.” The villagers eat the fruit and drink its juice as part of their New Year’s celebration and continue to eat and drink the fruit through the spring to keep their defenses strong through the height of allergy season. The villagers believe in the properties of the fruit so much that the only part of the fruit they will part with is the peel/ Luckily for the rest of us, the peel has been shown to have the same properties as the rest of the fruit.

A company investigating Asian folklore originally brought the fruit to the attention of researchers who combined the jabara fruit extract with mangosteen (a tropical fruit) and a licorice extract. The result is a cream that not only soothes existing allergy reactions, but also helps skin to build up a defense against future exposure. The cream has been shown to improve the skin’s lipid barrier over time and to support natural healing. Clinical tests showed a 67% improvement in skin barrier strength after two months of use. The cream helped to keep irritants and allergens from penetrating and damaging the skin.

The cream has also been shown to protect against extreme cold. In fact, preliminary studies have shown that the moisture in the cream doesn’t freeze in cold weather. When applied to the skin, the cream actually keeps skin warmer and helps maintains a healthy moisture balance. Manufacturers of the cream recommend its use even on cracked, irritated skin – including skin plagued by eczema or easily bothered by drying wind and extreme cold.

It’s not often that a discovery like jabara comes to light. The combination of this natural allergen blocker with other proven soothing agents can be a dream come true for allergy sufferers. For now, the supply of jabara is owned exclusively by one cosmetic manufacturer. The fact that the villagers are holding fast to the majority of the supply even in the face of what must be very big money might just be the best advertising the manufacturer could buy.

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