What Your Skin Wants
If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t put it on your skin.
Written by Allison Mädl | March 13, 2019
Lunch Hour Lesson #19: Nourish your skin from within to get the best results.
Many of us use multiple personal care products on our skin, everything from sunscreen to makeup. This concerns me, for a few reasons. Conventional cosmetics and personal care products are relatively unregulated for safety (unlike food). Some are made of ingredients that research has shown to be carcinogenic. They damage our skin’s microbiome, are bad for the environment, and are designed for appearance and feel, without concern for health effects.
If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t put it on your skin. Why not? The skin is our body’s largest organ, and is very permeable. Unlike substances entering the digestive tract, everything we put on or inject into our skin gets directly absorbed into the bloodstream.
The digestive tract is designed to kill bacteria and sequester the “bad stuff” from what we ingest so it can be eliminated. But our skin doesn’t have this ability.
Before the advent of “skin care products”, our skin only came in contact with natural substances: dirt, air, water, animal fats. That is what our body is prepared for.
Another reason to focus on feeding your skin the right food is that external beauty is only achieved through internal health. Using lotions and creams to chase an ideal of beauty doesn’t produce the results that proper nourishment on the inside can achieve.
Steps to Improve Skin Health:
- Check out the Skin Deep database from the Environmental Working Group for safer personal care products.
- Get quality sleep (Prioritizing Sleep and Optimize Your Sleep)
- Include 1-2 scoops collagen peptides in food or beverage each day – I like Vital Proteins brand
- Use emu oil externally on your face and consume it internally. It reduces wrinkles by mobilizing calcium out of the skin – I like Walkabout Health Products brand (Make the Most out of Your Calcium)
- Eat more naturally occurring saturated fats in butter, coconut oil, lard, etc.
- Make homemade deodorant (Homemade Deodorant)
- Avoid all sunscreens – build sun tolerance naturally and raise Vitamin D status by tanning slowly and avoiding burning. For longer periods, cover up with a wide hat and protective SPF clothing or rash guard while swimming.
- Try going without makeup as often as possible – you are beautiful and unique! When you choose to wear makeup, try one that uses minerals as the color base.
- Avoid products that contain SPF or titanium dioxide because these will disrupt hormone balance.
- Don’t wash your extremities every day with soap. Plain water is best for the skin, especially on your face. Soap strips your natural oils and necessitates more products to moisturize.
- When using soap, use a bar soap with a coconut oil, olive oil, or palm oil base.
Weekend Tip
Nourish your skin from within to get the best results:
- go without makeup
- expose your skin to the sun without sunscreen for 15 minutes
- do not wash your arms and legs with soap, just underarms, groin, and feet
- look up some natural “skin food” – emu oil or collagen peptides