Rules to live by for fit and fresh skin 365 days a year:
Keeping skin youthful and balanced every day is no easy feat. We work hard to take care of our skin, and yet, we still have to battle against things like gravity and exposure to environmental influencers that take a toll on the health of our skin and our bodies. But we can each do our part to help our skin age beautifully, and protect it from the elements. Here are my ‘rules to live by’ in order to keep skin looking fit and fresh 365 days a year.
Cleanse daily.
Cleansing is a holistic practice that should be done daily, and not just part of a ‘detox.’
Diligently washing our face and body to remove dirt, excess oil, makeup and debris twice a day is equally as important as selecting foods that cleanse our bodies internally. Healthy skin on the outside is directly linked to a healthy body on the inside. That means what we use on our bodies, is equally as important as what we put in them.
Use a gentle cleanser morning and night. The more natural, the better (more on that later). To cleanse your skin from within, include a healthy portion of clean, nutrient dense foods in your daily diet. Beauty superfoods include:
● Dark leafy greens like kale, spinach, wheat grass and dandelion greens
● Vibrant coloured fruits and vegetables like broccoli, artichokes, beets and peppers
● Green tea (or any type of herbal tea)
● Lemons
● Ginger
● Water
I find the easiest and most convenient way to get my daily intake of greens, fruits and veg is in a juice or smoothie. You can even prepare them up to 48 hours before consuming them. I also like to carry around a water bottle with a ginger and lemon infusion in the water for flavour and added skin benefits.
Treat your skin twice a week.
This doesn’t mean heading to the spa twice a week. At home DIY treatments can be just as effective as paying a pro to do it. The best part is, many ingredients can be found right in your kitchen. Peruse Pinterest and find treatments to exfoliate, brighten, and nourish your skin using ingredients from your own pantry.
Some of my favorite ingredients for at home DIY facials are turmeric, oats, sugar and honey. A simple mask can be made by grinding the oats (1 tablespoon), and combining with 3 pinches of sugar, a pinch of turmeric and two tablespoons of honey. This mask works beautifully to gently exfoliate and brighten the complexion, and makes enough for two applications.
3 litres of water every day.
It’s sounds like a lot… because it is. But it’s the most powerful beauty food you can use to treat your skin.
The best way I can describe how vital water is to our beauty is to liken our skin to a kitchen sponge. When the sponge is dry, the pores of the sponge are rigid and inflexible. The sponge surface looks shriveled until you re-hydrate the sponge with water. Then, it becomes soft and expands to take in every bit of water that it can.
Coffee, stress, alcohol and a lack of water all cause our skin to dehydrate. Hydration is important for our skin because just like the sponge, it gives our skin the flexibility it needs to absorb nutrients and expel waste. Healthy, hydrated skin allows the other tasks you do for your skin (ie. treatments, cleansing and moisturizing) to be more effective.
Greenify your 5 core skincare products.
Take back control! Choosing green products can be empowering, giving you some control over the level of harmful exposure our skin encounters throughout the day.
What many people don’t realize is that the ingredients in their skincare may actually be more harmful than helpful. Using clean and green beauty products reduces the likelihood of your skin reacting negatively to the product, and delivers more bang for your buck as far as nutrients. Most natural products forgo cheap and unnecessary fillers in their formulas, and in exchange, they use natural oils and botanicals that are much more nutrient dense and serve a greater purpose – to feed and nourish your skin.
8 hours of beauty sleep each night. They don’t call it beauty sleep for nothing.
Sleeping plays a huge role in keeping our skin looking fresh and beautiful. Think back to the last night of terrible sleep you had. Do you remember what you looked like the following morning? Were there bags under your eyes? Was your skin was a little dull? Or maybe someone mentioned that you ‘looked a little tired.’
The effects of diminished sleep are evident with just one sleepless night. Make sleep a priority not just for the health of your body, but for the health of your skin too.
My personal motto is that healthy skin is a daily practice. Start by taking these small steps every day, and watch your skin transform!
If you would like more tips and inspiration on how to care for your body and your beauty holistically, please follow me on instagram @thekunyeway. I share lots of information and tips on living life #thekunyeway which is all about a revolution in self-care and a return back to natural beauty. You can also see sneak peeks from my upcoming bath and body collection KUNYE, launching this summer.
