Your skin is your armour. It protects you, shields you and also informs you on your surroundings. However, we don’t always take care of it like we should and that can affect it in the long run. What better time than this summer to begin to show your skin you care and instill a routine that is beneficial and healthy?
Your skin is your largest organ. In adults, it covers on average 22 square feet of your body and weights around 8 pounds. Its thickness can vary depending on the part of the body we are examining. Around your eyes is where it’s the thinnest and, on your hands and feet, is where it’s the thickest. Its properties are fascinating as it protects you from any foreign bodies, helps regulate your temperature, and consists of many nerve endings.
Just like all other organs in the body, it can become more fragile and worn out with age. The production of collagen begins to decrease, and the elasticity of your skin diminishes. This is what leads to those frustrating and pesky fine lines and wrinkles. Even though we can’t turn back the hands of time, we can slow them down if we know how to care for the skin from the inside out. Healthy skin begins with a 3-step motto: protect, hydrate and circulate.
- Protect the skin you’re in
Seeing that the skin is the first contact we have with the external environment, it can be affected by many triggers and external catalysts, which lead to the production of free radicals. It’s therefore important that you protect your skin. An abundance of free radicals can have a long-term effect on your health if you don’t take daily action. Applying a UV protecting sun blocker and eating antioxidant rich fruits and veggies can be helping factors to protect the skin against those harmful radicals. Foods rich in antioxidants, such as pomegranates, citrus fruit, grapes, etc., are ideally included in your diet.
- Don’t wait, hydrate!
The skin confines around 20% of the body’s total water content. Hydration is therefore key in keeping a youthful glow to your face. Paradoxically, your skin’s hydration does not solely rely on your water intake. It has to also do with the protective barrier that binds together the cells of the most superficial layer of the epidermis. This barrier, made from fat cells, helps confine the water in the body. It has been shown that certain ceramides (fats) from wheat can help maintain your skin’s hydration with age.
- Let things circulate…
The best mode of transport for all those vital ingredients you need for your skin’s health is the blood. The network of small capillaries that lay underneath the layers of the skin, allow for these nutrients to reach the cells that need them the most. It is therefore crucial that circulation is promoted and fully functioning. Ingredients, like pomegranates, are full of Vitamin C, an ingredient that plays a major role in connective tissue formation, thereby helping to maintain strong and healthy skin.
Therefore, a blend of the right nutrients for the skin can help it on several fronts. It’s not only what you put on it that can help, but what you supply it with. As we age, the building blocks that make up the skin become more fragile. A supplement, like Skin Care-Collagen, can nourish your skin from the inside out to support a healthy, ageless look, for the summer and the years ahead.
By Jennifer Soueida., B.Sc.
