Skin health

It’s one of our favourite seasons… yes, Spring it has bloomed into our lives (pardon the pun) and we couldn’t be happier!

To celebrate the change of season our Naturopath, Emma Watson sat down with our friends at We are feel Good Inc. to create our Top 6 tips to keep your skin looking fresh & hydrated this Spring.

 “To achieve optimum skin health, we need to look a little deeper than the surface and view the skin as a reflection of our underlying state of health. We need to take a holistic approach and look at our health as a whole, rather than separate organs and systems.” Emma Watson

1. Stay Hydrated (2-3L per day).

This one is super simple, drinking a sufficient amount of water on a daily basis will help your skin maintain elasticity and retain its moisture levels, it also aids in flushing out toxins and increases blood flow to your skin, resulting in healthy glowing skin.

2. Don’t throw the kitchen sink at your skin. Keep it simple! Spring weather often means cold, crisp mornings and dry days.

Unless you’ve applied something to your skin that needs to be washed off, avoid using a cleanser in the morning, a simple cold water rinse will suffice. Use a gentle, soap-free cleanser at night and use warm water (not hot water).

Moisturise at least twice a day and look for a moisturiser that contains Vitamin B3 (Niacinamide) and antioxidants. Niacinamide is a wonder vitamin when it comes to skin health, it;

-Helps maintain your skins lipid barrier (the barrier that sits between you and environmental pollutants).
-Helps the skin retain moisture.
-Helps to reduce pore size and assists in the reduction of acne and breakouts.
-Helps to reduce the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles and pigmentation.

Make sure your morning moisturiser contains an SPF rating of at least 30+ or apply sunscreen underneath your moisturiser.  A good moisturiser should help protect your skin against UV damage and environmental pollution.

Avoid harsh chemicals

3. Healthy skin comes from within so make sure you’re putting the good stuff in.

We have access to an amazing range of fresh fruits and vegetables in Australia and we need to ensure we bring a variety and a great diversity of these foods into our diet, to support our gut health, and in turn our mood, our immune system and our skin health.

So make that plate of yours as colourful as possible. The more vegetables you can eat the better, greens are great and vegetables that are purple in colour are particularly great for skin health.

We also recommend adding some omega 3’s and fatty acid-rich food, like avocado, salmon or flaxseed to help protect your skin cells against inflammation. Then snack on some seeds and nuts to get a natural dose of silica and essential minerals.

We can also improve the health of our skin by including a range of foods which can support the natural clearance of toxins from the body. Cruciferous vegetables such as kale, broccoli and cabbage contain powerful compounds called glucosinolates, which help support detoxification.

4. Look after your gut health.

If we are going to put the time and effort into ensuring we have a healthy diet, then it makes sense to support our digestive function and healthy gut microbiome, to enable optimum utilisation of nutrients.

An imbalance in the microbiome of the gut, commonly known as gut flora, poor digestion and malabsorption, can all affect your body. When the digestive function is compromised, the flow-on effects can be extensive and can affect the nervous system, including mood, brain function and skin health.

Fibrous foods such as lentils, legumes and whole grains will help support healthy gut flora, as well as fermented foods such as kimchi, miso, sauerkraut, tempeh and kombucha.

We also need to avoid or limit sugars, refined flours, alcohol and high stress, which all have a negative effect on gut flora.

5. Exercise & sleep.

Exercising and getting enough sleep will also contribute to healthy, clear skin. The process of sweating allows toxins to be filtered from the skin. Drinking enough fresh water each day is essential to ensure your body can detoxify impurities from the body.

6. And finally, herbs!

We can also focus on bringing more herbs into our diet, which offer support for our skin, either by adding them to our meals or by drinking herbal teas.

Herbal tea offers an accessible and enjoyable way to incorporate nutritive herbs into our diet, such as our Skin glow tea. This blend contains herbs such as calendula, red clover, echinacea and burdock root. The naturopath at Love Tea has carefully selected this combination of botanicals, as they have traditionally been used to help reduce inflammation, support the clearing of toxins and filter impurities from the skin and blood. You can read more about this beautiful tea here.