INTRIGUING MUSIC Copyright Able 2015. I'm embarking on a journey around the world to discover the secrets of lasting beauty,... There's snail secretion in this. ...great health... This is your pharmacy. Yeah, yeah. '...and extraordinary long life.' Better skin than I've got! (LAUGHS) Look at him! I'm Rachel Hunter. I grew up in the fashion world. Now I wanna see what beauty means to other people. And, really, is it a sense of well-being or achieving perfection? From different parts of the world, I wanna find the secrets. This time I'm in the city that grew out of the desert, Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. It's the most extravagant, the most opulent city around. This is just incredible. It's a hugely attractive, modern city with a very individual sense of beauty. And I'm here to get to the heart of Emirati health and beauty secrets. Can I get a camelcino? God is beautiful, and he loves beauty. I've earned my living off modelling, exposing my body, exposing everything. It's amazing how vulnerable you feel with just your face showing and not the rest of your body. Copyright Able 2015 PEACEFUL MUSIC Only 50 years ago, most of Dubai looked like this, an ocean of sand. This is amazing. Here the Bedouin people survived and thrived in some of the harshest conditions on Earth. What's her name? Chilla. Chilla. Hi. Tonight I'm overnighting at a desert camp to discover the secrets of the Bedouin diet and lifestyle, and already I'm excited. How could you not have an incredible sense of well-being here? Wow, what amazing animals you are. (GRUNTS) That was pretty graceful, right? (GRUNTS) I'm here to meet Uncle Hammo. Hello. Hello. How are you? He's lived here all his life and says he owes his longevity and health to the Bedouin diet. TRANSLATOR: In the old days, yes, we have very little resources in terms of meat and vegetables, but they did not have all the diseases that exist these days. This is why my parents and my grandfathers and many generations lived in the desert for years and years, and they never suffered from any diseases, never fall sick. The mainstay of this healthy diet was just two things. (SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE) TRANSLATOR: Camel milk. They used to drink a lot every morning because it's very healthy ` full of energy. The doctor actually says how healthy is the camel milk, and even the camel meat ` much healthier than any other meat. And dates? TRANSLATOR: Don't even ask. Date is with breakfast, with lunch, with dinner. It's our main resource to survive. The Bedouins believe the goodness of dates and curative properties of camel milk keep them healthy all year round. My first date. It's a true superfood, rich in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and it's a bit sugary. In times of plenty, the Bedouins would supplement date and camel's milk with basic but highly nutritious meals. So, can you tell me about what goes on here? Bassam still celebrates the Bedouin lifestyle of centuries ago, and he's invited me to share the traditional feast. The gentleman here is doing the bread, which we call the rgag bread, which means 'the thin', which we will serve it with the soup. Please try it. Wow, it's` it's, like, crepe-y. I hope you like the bread, which you're gonna have now with the soup. This is lentil soup. The lentil soup has this incredible flavour ` not thick and jammed with creams and all these other things in there. It's just really light. Bread and lentil soup and lemon. The perfect meal in the desert. So, it's been super interesting to me over the last few places I've been. The story that I'm seeing is that we really need to eat like our ancestors. I think this is how generations and generations and for thousands of years our grandparents could survive in the middle of the desert. They ate less but healthy. You know, it's not about just the` how much we eat but what we eat. Now we're going to serve you camel-meat dish, so I hope you're ready to try that. Oh. Really nice, really really tasty. > I just rode a camel; I don't want to eat a camel. It's not the same camel, I promise. What part of the camel is actually eaten? Usually, we take the legs, the back, the neck but not the hump usually. Normally, I'm up for anything, but... hmm. Have you tried the camel meat yet? No. (LAUGHS) I'm going to, though. OK. Just cos I looked at their eyes today. I mean, how can you...? Anyway, I'll think about that` won't think about that. Also tastes great. It does. It does. > Really nice meat, very lean. It is red meat but not very strong. No. So then you like the, um, main course? I do. Well, I'm glad that you liked it. But the evening doesn't end there. Another Bedouin tradition I'm invited to try by Medina is a dance that mimics the movement of a camel. In your back? Not` Not there. But` Yeah, the head goes back like a camel move, you know? Oh, the camel. < Yeah, yeah. It's a new dance. Not sure there are too many health benefits in this, though. It's a lot of coordination with this. Show me the Emirates one, the head one. That is the eight one, see. UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS (LAUGHS) OK, let's have some... (LAUGHS) You try it. OK. Yeah, see. I will` Can I`? Can I do it for you? See, from here to here like this. Yeah, eight. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my God. See, from here. BOTH: Thank you. That was beautiful. You want to dance more? Oh, no. (LAUGHS) What an incredible experience this is here to wake up this morning and see this huge orange-red ball that just came up amongst the sand dunes. It was absolutely brilliant. Now I'm heading across the desert to a farm to discover what's so special about camel's milk. Oh! Yep, that is what we call part of the show. Now, the secret to Dubai is a sand blast. (LAUGHS) The nutritional value of camel's milk benefited the Bedouins for centuries. Very majestic animals. They're very very gentle and very sweet. Camel's milk fanatic Hanan Ahmed Saad is keen to share her knowledge with me. In the desert, people ` they have only camels and they have date. Nothing else, like no water, no other food. But in the milk, there is a lot of benefit. Very high vitamin C, minerals and, of course, water, and they find everything they need for their body, and they eat the date, and then they have everything. And get this ` there are no known allergies associated with camel's milk, so it's a great alternative to cow's milk, and it's low in fat as well. This is the camel's milk? This is the camel milk. I can taste it? You can taste it. (LAUGHS) What do you think? It's soft. It's very very delicate. Salty. Salty. This has 10 times the amount of iron than cow's milk. The properties in this are just endless. Why aren't we drinking this? It turns out Dubai has found a way we all can. Can I get a camelcino? Yes, ma'am. And what other superfoods does this region provide? Camel tea. Just shove it in, no problem. The cure to everything except death. . 1 The city of Dubai has had an extreme makeover in the last 50 years, but there's an ancient tradition we all can now share. Here I am at this incredible mosque. Now, right next to it is a cafe, and the only milk that they use is camel's. So, can I get a camelcino? Thank you. (WHISPERS) This is gonna be interesting. Camel milk... chocolate. So, here is the camel cappuccino. UPBEAT MUSIC Tastes really good. I mean, you can't really taste a huge difference, but it's so good. It just doesn't feel greasy in your mouth or sour or bitter. It's, um` It's so pleasant to drink. Actually, with a date, that would be a complete meal. Well, a couple of dates. But there's one more camel's milk product I just have to try. Just when I thought it was over, camel ice cream. Can't beat it. Now I'm off to the local markets or, as they call them, souks, where apparently there are even more delights to discover. I'm here in the Deira Spice Souk, which has been trading for thousands of years, and there's just this incredible fragrance. There's all sorts of strange leaves and colours. What are these for? Indigo. Indigo. Indigo for jeans colour. Jeans. So they dye jeans? That colour. Yeah. Wow. I mean, there's all shapes, sizes, textures, smells. I mean, it's just layers and layers of just fragrance. I wanna put my head in it and, like, roll around in it. Look at the teas. Rose tea, lemon tea, mint tea, mint-and-green tea. Camel tea! C` Oh no, I needed my glasses. It's caramel tea. (LAUGHS) I've got camels on my brain ` camels and dates. Sure have, and all that desert adventure has given me a sore throat and dry skin. I wonder what's in here that can help me. Is this more of a medicinal shop, this one? It's a combination of medicinal and cooking, but since we're in the back alleys, it's one of those secret shops that the serious buyers come here. I've got a bit of a sore throat. OK. If you look closely, these ones are the cocoons of beetles. You don't eat the beetle. You don't eat the beetle; you just` what you have to do is you have to take the cocoon. Can I try it? Yeah, absolutely. Take off a chunk of it and just` Yeah, it's very papery. It's very sweet. Yeah, but don't` but don't bite it. Just suck on it, like a lozenge. It has a sweetness to it, but it's not overly sweet. Um,... it's not awful at all. Yeah. Wow, that was a surprise. Whatever next? But what is the most potent ingredient in here for dry skin? (SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE) He essentially gave us the one ingredient which the prophet Muhammad recommended as the cure to everything except death. What's that? > This nigella seed. I know nigella seeds as black cumin seeds or kalonji, used as a spice in cooking. So these are the black seeds that the prophet Muhammad believes is basically the seed of life? Absolutely. I mean, they say it's very high in antioxidants. They also say that it helps in terms of respiratory disorder. The most interesting thing they say is it actually helps your immune system. He said mix it with honey and then have it, which is how my mum has it in the morning. Wow. Good thing a man with some of the best honey around is nearby. Yemeni's considered the best honey in the world. People hands down will say Yemeni honey is the best honey, absolutely. Every Arab household really has dates, camel milk, and it has honey. Turns out Riath Hamed might have helped me to discover yet another superfood from this region. I got into the honey business simply because I blinkin' love honey. It's amazing. What we do we actually kinda fuse some of these honeys. Uh, so we fuse, like I said, with black seeds. It's amazing. Prophet Muhammad's favourite seed. Yeah, peace be upon him. This possibly could be a cure for everything except death. You can't cure death. No, you can't. Can't, can you, love? > We all end up in the same place. But the benefits of raw honey, which is what we're selling ` raw honey ` it's unfiltered, unpasteurised, unadulterated, again, all those multivitamins. There's 5000 different types of natural enzymes in there. It's got amazing kind of, like, antioxidants ` very high ` so it's a gem. Unbelievable for the system. Just shove it in, no problem. Amazing. Bob's your uncle, and Fatima is your auntie. That's sweet, like as in... Very floral. Yeah, like a delicate perfume. It's gotta be incredible for the skin. Absolutely. I mean, I've actually put raw honey on my face. It's amazing, isn't it? 'So I think I've found the solution to my sore throat and dry skin in one.' You can use it in different ways. You can use it for your hair. You can use it exactly` See, he's a perfect example. Look at these lips, people. You're very beautiful. Yemeni honey is one of the most expensive in the world, but that isn't deterring buyers. He's just tried it, and he absolutely loves it. At around US$500 a kilo. I can be your assistant at any point cos you made a good sale today. Any time because of you. See what I mean? You know, I was lucky. Thanks very much. (LAUGHS) Thank you so much. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. Shukran. Shukran. The Dubai souks are a melting pot of the Emirati world. Out of respect to their culture, when I go out, I cover my knees and shoulders, but most people here dress modestly. It's a strong reminder of their religion and the traditions of this region. Dahlia's a local Emirati studying at university here. She's immensely proud of her background and religion. Because of certain media, there's sometimes misrepresentations associated with maybe oppression. Um, people a lot of times think that, um, it's not a woman's choice to choose to dress like this. And we're taught, like, that your body is sacred > and this is not something for you to go show off to everybody else. Like even my mother, she taught me from when I was young. Um, she was like, 'Even in front of other women, you should be modest.' Dahlia mixes a respect for tradition with an interest in the latest beauty products. There's a saying in our religion that God is beautiful and he loves beauty. And that we try to always take care of what God blessed us with, so you'll find that women ` they're always doing, like, maybe oil treatments for their hair and they're always doing, you know, natural remedies for their skin and things like the eyeliner is known to be very good for your eyes, as well as your eyelashes. And the decoration of the eyes and eyebrows is just impeccable. It takes practice. I was gonna say. Well, now all I do is watch YouTube tutorials about how to put on make-up and things like that, but in Emirati culture, women take care of themselves a lot. If you ask 10 different women why they dress the way that they dress, they'll give you 10 different answers,... Right. because no one person dresses the same way for the same reason. Um, even within my own house, my older sister doesn't wear any of this. I wear this, and I show some of my hair. My younger sister doesn't show any of her hair. It really just is personal choice, self-expression. Like I get so many people who say that, 'Oh, if a woman covers her face in our country, we find this offensive.' I'm always like, 'No, you should talk to her. Why does she cover her face?' Absolutely. It's amazing how vulnerable you feel with just your face showing and not the rest of your body. And can a $7000 facial perform miracles? 1 UPBEAT MUSIC On my tour of beauty in Dubai, uni student Dahlia is about to help me dress like a local. What we'll start with is the abaya, so if you wanna just put that on. It's just like a coat. This is basically the traditional dress. It looks very plain like this. It's just all black. So then I have jeans underneath. Look, jeans. I love this. This is the shayla, and the shayla basically is the headscarf. This is called a burka, and basically this is like the old beauty product of the old days. It was made from leather, and it was to protect their skin from the weather elements, from the sun, the sand, um, and like my grandmother says, it prevents wrinkles. And then we have this one, which is, of course, most famous, so this is where your eyes go. So can you see? Yeah. I would put this on when I, like, just don't want to talk to people. So then you take this and flip it all the way back... until your eyes show. Yep, see? Oh wow. A lot of times people think that, 'Oh, the husband, um,...' '...made her wear it out.' Made her wear it, yeah. I always say, 'If a man ever attempts to tell you what to wear, 'I've never heard of man who's done that before.' We're choosing to dress like this. We're very proud of who we are and where we come from. Dahlia's given me a close-up view of Emirati culture. It was one, I must confess, I knew little about. You know, it's different. It's not something that I have grown up with or I've been used to. I've seen it on the news. I've seen it as I've walked around` you know, walked around in the streets. Have I ever judged it? No. Um, have I heard about what media has said about it? Yes. It's amazing how vulnerable you feel with just your face showing and not the rest of your body. I felt extremely exposed in a really beautiful, beautiful way, which is kind of bizarre. They hold as a nation that your eyes are... sacred and important and beauty lies within the eyes, and I guess so does the soul of the person, and that's what's so important to them. I've kind of earned my living off, you know, modelling, exposing my body, exposing my face, exposing my hair, exposing everything. To have that all that matters is your eyes is probably one of the most precious things I'll probably take away with me from here. But like everything else, fashion is changing in Dubai, and a woman wanting to shake things up a bit is designer Zahra Karmostaji. You have these incredible abayas. We make it a little bit modern so everyone can wear it. Even the young generation, the youth people, the foreigner, they like it. Her aim is to turn the abaya into high-concept fashion around the world. I start in 2000. I used to do abaya for myself before I starting this, you know. When I go to any tailor, I'm just giving my own design to them to do something that I can wear. You know, I don't want to buy the things that's available at the market. I want to wear something fashionable. Yeah, absolutely. I would love to see some. This one. This is one of our daily abaya. Look at the workmanship on the bottom of this. Wow. This is the things that we wear during Ramadan. It's traditional things. Sometimes you don't feel like you wear always black, black, black, so you want to change a little bit. I would wear these. I mean, they're stunning. It's modern and traditional. I cannot say that it's traditional traditional. Where's this one for? Wow. This is also for, you know, some of the bride, they wear this kind of thing for henna night. One of Zahra's abayas was recently showcased by Paris Hilton during Miami Fashion Week. Welcome to my home. (LAUGHS) This is just stunning. And do you know what it feels` like, you feel pretty wearing something like this. Oh, and now for the accessories. This is good if you've got an old neck too. For older brides, right, for me? That headdress actually has pearls in between each, and it's love hearts. It just goes on the head. It's making me nervous, thinking about getting married. BOTH LAUGH TECHNO MUSIC These abayas that you're making are truly sensational. This is just incredible. Thank you. I'm stunned. It's beautiful. So I'm going to go and try and find someone to get married to, because clearly I'm all completely set up. Mwah. And for my last stop, another chance to be covered in gold. So, I've just walked into the spa, and it's the most incredible space I've ever seen. Oh my God. If this isn't a stairway to heaven, I don't know what is. It's like going down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland and going, 'Which way do I go?' because every way there's, like, a doorway to some extravagant beauty. It's so opulent here, and it's so fitting that this place has a 24-carat-gold facial. It's part of a treatment package priced at US$7000, so I'm expecting something special. Almost done. I'm like a little excited puppy. OK. First the creams. I love it because it's very very, um, creamy. Now for the fun part. Miss Rachel, we're going to apply the 24-carat-gold mask now. Is it electric currents that go through this? Yes. WHISPERS: I have gold teeth, so I'm scared I'm gonna be electrocuted. (LAUGHS) You will have a sensation of metal in your mouth. The ions of the gold's gonna penetrate your skin, and it will stimulate your cellular growth. Either that or I could turn into a character from Silence of the Lambs or 'Halloween'. We are doing the sensitive-skin programme for the moment ` for 10 minutes ` then we will switch to a firming programme. CURRENT CRACKLES SOFTLY I can't feel a thing yet. Everybody has a different sensation. CURRENT CRACKLES SOFTLY Oh. My teeth. (CHUCKLES) How does it feel? I don't know, but gums and my teeth are feeling great, like tingly. It's been an electrifying experience, but will the feel of my skin match the cost of the treatment? So, yeah, between the moisture that you get from all the ingredients and that incredible mask, I could totally understand... (WHISPERS) why it's 7000 US. Dubai has been a` a revelation to me. I've been surprised and enlightened by some of the culture and traditions here. The women I've met here, their individuality, their creativity, their conviction has just been inspiring. It's really opened my eyes to` to look at things differently. Spending time in the desert was just incredible, and if only camel's milk was sold at my local store, I would definitely be drinking that instead of cow's milk. I've had lots of dates, not the dates I would probably want, but they were rather tasty. And, God, those camels, they're just gorgeous. In fact, I became quite a fan of the native animals here. I'm trying to blend in. Are these deers or goats? OK, we're gonna reverse in, because there's no intimidation factor by no eye contact. (GRUNTS) LAUGHTER Copyright Able 2015.