Some 5,580 miles across the Pacific Ocean from our little beachside town sits Japan’s Ago Bay, home to the ama, or the “women of the sea.” Also known as the mermaids of Japan, ama are deep-sea free divers, famous for collecting everything from pearls to seaweed and for their profound bond with their natural environment. Ama provided the inspiration for Antoinette Marquez’s store Ama SeaBeauty, which she recently opened on Santa Barbara’s State Street.
Like these Japanese divers, Marquez plunges beneath the waves in search of nutrient-rich seaweed and other marine ingredients, which she then uses to create the assortment of all-natural beauty potions offered as part of her thalassotherapy skin treatment (thalassotherapy being any cosmetic and health treatment that uses seawater).
Marquez’s thalassotherapy treatment is designed to keep the skin looking youthful and radiant by optimizing cellular function and maintaining skin tissues, she said. Marquez explained that over time, skin loses layers of cells, its collagen corrodes, and its elastin loses its structure. These three factors ultimately make skin more sensitive to UV radiation and more susceptible to damage and speed up the appearance of aging. The cure, for Marquez, is found in the ocean.