Taking care of your skin: The inside-out and outside-in approach
We know that a healthy gut microbiome may reward you with youthful, radiant skin but it is just as important to consider what we are doing to take care of the equally important skin microbiome that consists of around 1000 species of good bacteria.
Healthy, radiant and resilient skin depends on an inside out and an outside in approach.
From the inside out:
There’s no surprise that the same things that are good for your overall health, like eating wholefoods especially those with lots of healthy fats (yay for avocados), drinking plenty of water, keeping fit and practicing healthy sleep habits, are also good for your skin. Unfortunately for me, these days it only takes one late night out followed by one not-so-healthy morning in, for the dark undereye circles and splotchy dehydrated skin to appear. There’s no doubt a healthy diet is one of the key components of healthy, beautiful and radiant skin.
From the outside in:
In today’s world it is hard to protect our skin from being bombarded from toxins. We have little control over air pollution and the quality of the water we use. We are encouraged to use products to help protect our skin from these potential toxins, yet as a consequence we are often contributing further to the toxic burden on our skin.
Based on research conducted in the US, the average woman uses cosmetic and makeup products containing 168 ingredients on a daily basis. Many of these ingredients are artificial chemicals with a long list of short- and long-term side effects for skin and overall health. We would never want to eat food containing such large numbers of toxins and yet that is exactly what we are doing when we apply creams, serums, makeup and other cosmetics. In fact, feeding your skin problematic toxins can be worse than when you ingest them as the small molecules can be easily absorbed through the skin and work their way into the bloodstream. In the long term not only are you wreaking havoc on your overall health but you are also degrading your skin’s microbiome. A compromised skin microbiome means you have jeopardised the first-line of defence for your immune system and you are left further exposed to toxins.
There is so much confusion around what we should be doing or not doing to our skin that it can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, the Green Beauty trend has inadvertently contributed to this state of confusion and we now see the issue of Greenwashing (think Green and Brainwashing) as another marketing trend to get us to buy more!
So, what can we do? These three steps will help you keep it simple:
1. Check labels.
If you see the following ingredients on a product label, avoid:
- parabens
- fragrance
- phthalates
- triclosan
- sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)
If there is no ingredients list, run.
2. Choose organic
Better for your skin, better for your health and better for the planet. Short- and long-term success right there.
3. Simplify routines.
We have been led to believe that we need the latest fad in beauty because of its unique ability to treat a particular aspect of our skin. In reality, the less we use the better. Many people are using too many products, layering high potency ingredients that were never intended to be used together and are actually stripping their skin’s natural barrier and causing imbalances in the microbiome. On the other hand, we can be using many products with ineffectual quantities of quality ingredients. Kon Marie your skin and beauty regime and look for multi-purpose products containing a small list of high-quality ingredients, without all the fillers and extras like thickeners and fragrances. Leave the hour-long routines to those with nothing better to do and embrace skinimalism as your forever beauty habit.