Have you ever been asked how many cups of coffee, tea or alcohol you drink daily, or asked yourself why do all those supermodels drink copious amounts of water daily? Have you ever been told by a skin/beauty therapist to increase your water intake?
Water is an absolutely essential ingredient in establishing and maintaining beautiful healthy clear skin.
There is a common misconception that excessive oil in the skin is the cause of blemishes and breakouts and the skin needs to be dried. In a minority of cases this is so but for the vast majority of cases almost the opposite is true.
Most blemishes and breakouts are caused by impaired enzyme activity. So what is impaired enzyme activity? Enzymes can be defined as biological catalysts that speed up chemical reactions in cells.
In our skin water and essential fatty acids (EFA’s) create an enzyme effect which breakdown and dissolve dead skin cells creating a healthy cell turnover.
We all know that cells need good nutrition to keep them healthy, water and (EFA’s) also help the skin cells to transfer nutrients in and out of the cell.
Insufficient water creates oxidative stress, along with inflammation and redness on the complexion. Insufficient essential fatty acids (EFA’s) creates a loss of oil from the cell membrane (lipid peroxidation).
This insufficiency not only affects the cell membrane but also the fluid that surrounds the cells is depleted. When a situation such as this occurs the cell’s functioning is compromised.
Hence cells then retain the toxins inside the hardened cell membrane and nutrient intake is impaired as well as the elimination of waste product.
Essentially what is created is a lack of enzymes to breakdown down dead skin cells which then clump together with cell debris and crystallise to create open and closed blackheads, milia, breakouts and congestion that lay under the skin.
To remedy this problem we do not need to dry out our skin, we need to increase our water and (EFA) intake. Regarding (EFA’s), supplementation with good quality fish oil is the best option as well as nourishing the skin topically with a nutrient dense product.
As stated previously this is not the only cause of skin congestion but it is a major part of the congestion, inflammation, skin redness and the break out story.
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Naomi Nahoum
About Naomi Nahoum, Skin Care Treatment Therapist and Shared Founder of Human Nurture Wellness Centre
This is great advice for fresh, natural looking skin.