1. Go for concentrated nutrition
Add more nutrient-dense foods to your daily diet. Greens, fruits and veggies, and juices and green smoothies in particular, are true beauty enhancers. They are the most water-rich and nutrient-dense of all foods. Because of everything they contain (water, enzymes, chlorophyll and more), they are very cleansing. By increasing the amount of fresh produce you’ll automatically reduce the amount of the more clogging foods, like meat, diary and processed stuff.
2. Detox Daily
This may very well be the most important one, as continuous detoxing (not ‘doing a detox’) is probably the most important factor in tons of aspects concerning health (and thus, looks). Other steps you can take for this is dialing down the booze, coffee, black tea, drugs (recreational and medicinal) and cigarette consumption.
3. Up the (lemon) water
Lemons are one of the most alkalizing foods and drinking lemon water is a very simple, affordable and efficient way to cleanse and thus improve your skin (among other things).
4. Slather on less make-up
Make-up is bad for your skin in two ways. One, it clogs your pores. Two, all commercial (eg. big beauty brand) make-up is stuffed with synthetic chemicals, these will leach into your skin. Now, does this sound like it will improve your skin in any way? I didn’t think so, no. More money goes into marketing than actually creating a good quality product. A good product doesn’t need much, it needs to be close to nature but it certainly doesn’t need 18 chemicals and a slogan promising you smaller pores and a new hot boyfriend. Use organic skin care and organic makeup!
The more you work on improving your skin from the inside out, the less make-up and products you’ll need. It’s a marvelous cycle!
5. Choose organic and natural products
Using less is always the first step I recommend, being it consuming meat and dairy or, in this case, make-up. Once you’ve dialed it down a bit, you should work on the quality. In this case, opting for organic and natural products! Yes that’s a hint: organic and natural are not synonyms, people. From the handful organic products I use consistently (shampoo, conditioner, facial scrub, face cream, shower gel) 3 are all natural, two are definitely not.
Organic is nice, it’s good, it ensures you don’t put any pesticides in your bod. But it doesn’t mean all the ingredients were naturally derived. Things such as ‘pure aloe vera’, ‘almond oil’ and ‘flower extract’ are natural. Thins such as sodium lauroyl sarcosinate and behenyl alcohol are not, and you don’t have to be Einstein to spot the difference! I strive to have switched to all natural products asap, just like I did with switching to all organics.
6. Break up a sweat
Working up a sweat is super beneficial for your skin, even if you’re not particularly fond of looking like a hot mess. It opens up your pores to the max, and the sweat carries out loads of toxins. Double win. Now of course I could insert my usual Bikram crazy fan talk here (can you imagine what 90 minutes of pure sweating does to your skin, can you?!) but actually, running also always did the trick for me. After every run, my skin would look glorious, pink, shine, smooth. And a little sunshine never hurt either! Which brings me to….
7. Go out in to the sun
I hate that the sun has gotten such a bad rep the last decades. Yes, it can cause (skin) cancer but hello, so can just about everything else we people do! And the sun is vital for all life on Earth, I don’t think car emissions or cigarette smoke or booze can claim the same. A little bit of sunshine everyday is good for tons of things. It literally uplifts our moods and gives us energy without additional food or rest. It provides us with essential vitamin D. And I believe the sun can also do wonder for our skin. Dry out some impurities, give us a nice healthy glow and the heat, again, sweats out some toxins. Of course, tanning doesn’t fall into this category! For health, 15-30 minutes of direct sunlight a day is ideal, and outside of the peak hours of 12-4PM.
I’m not implying you can change your facial structure through your diet, but you can truly change the way your skin looks,! Lines, under-eye circles, zits and spots, dry patches, all these do not belong on a truly healthy, nourished skin. Our skin is our largest organ and it really does reflect our overall health.
Personally, I clean my face with a scrub/exfoliator every morning and night (this is not a make-up remover as I hardly use any on my skin anymore). It contains activated charcoal, an ingredient that draws toxins (it’s actually also used for intestinal cleaning!) so sometimes I simply leave it on my face for an hour while I rummage through the house. I apply Vitamin C serum and the Super Peptide with Fast Action Brightening serum on my face every morning and evening. And an eye serum and an eye cream. Everything organic of course! I love the super peptide eye serum and the Retinol 2.5 cream.
Please realize healthy, calm and radiant skin doesn’t happen overnight! Also, it won’t be a constant or a given, at least not at first. Stress, hormones, pollution, these can all still cause some imbalances in our skin, even if we do all the right things. I am not quite there yet myself either! But I can assure you: you’ll notice the progress!
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