Healthy Skin Care

Taking proper care of your skin is important for your overall wellness and can affect how your skin ages. Your skin is your largest eliminative organ and is a crucial part of your immune system. You have probably heard of the gut microbiome and the importance of keeping it healthy by eating a clean nutrient rich diet and feeding the good bacteria. Your skin has a microbiome too and it's important to keep it balanced as well. Here are a few highly effective ingredients and tips about healthy skin care.

What To Avoid

What you put on your skin will find it's way into your body. So avoiding chemicals in skin care products is important. As Ben Greenfield says: "You want to avoid putting anything on your skin that would cause you a slow agonizing death if you ingested it." As the population has become more aware of the chemicals to avoid, products are being "green washed". This means the packaging and labeling is designed to make you think it's good for you. But you have to read the ingredient labels closely to make sure it's doesn't contain any toxic ingredients. The most common ingredients to avoid are paraben, fragrance, phthalates, sodium laurel sulfate, triclosan and microban. You can check on the toxicity of the skin care products you use on the Environmental Working Group's (EWG) website.

Choose Organic

Choosing organic skin care is a good first step towards making sure you aren't exposed to any harmful ingredients. It's important to know though that some plants and herbs can be grown without chemicals, so the supplier may not go through the expensive certification process. Again, the EWG website is a good place to research any questionable ingredients.

Aloe Vera

Aloe Vera is a vitamin and enzyme rich gel that comes from the inside of the leaf of the Aloe Vera plant. It is known for it's ability to soothe skin and for it's anti-inflammatory properties. It is also healthy to drink because it has the same affects on the inside of your body. You can look for it in skin care products or use it by itself as an addition to your skin care routine.

Rose

Rose oil is known for its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. It also contains a variety of vitamins and minerals. Rosehip seed oil is also highly beneficial for the skin along with rosewater. Rose is used frequently in skin care products because of it's anti-aging and skin calming properties. Rose oil is steam distilled from fresh rose petals. The highest quality rose products are expensive because it takes a lot of high quality and pristine rose petals to make a very small amount of rose oil.

Frankincense

Frankincense oil has been used for skin care since at least Egyptian times. It's commonly referred to as liquid gold. Like many skin care ingredients, the price varies based on the purity, quality and processing practices used to produce it. It is a natural astringent and has cell renewing properties. It's also known for it's ability to calm and restore the skin which makes it useful for reducing fine lines and wrinkles.

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