Skin Care

Diet And Your Skin:

It is vital to follow a healthy diet for having blemish-free healthy skin. A balance of vitamins, minerals and proteins is required. Fad diets, which suggest consumption of only one food, can be damaging in the long run. They deprive our body of essential nutrients. A single diet cannot be responsible for building up or maintaining the skin.

There are so many myths about certain kinds of food being responsible for skin problems. For example, eating chocolates, sweets or rich cakes will give you spots or eating greasy, fried foods will give you a greasy skin or make your hair greasy. There is no guarantee that eating only cucumbers, grapes, carrot juice or lettuce you will give you a beautiful, flawless complexion. There are fake claims, which suggest that salads dramatically change our appearance and for perfect skin vitamin and mineral supplements intake is a must. All this is baloney. Thought it is true a varied and a balanced diet is beneficial, the only factor that determines the beauty of our complexion is heredity. Eating habits play only a very small part in it.

Gross deficiency of certain elements in our diet can lead to skin problems. It does not happen with people taking normal balanced diets, but those for those who are recovering from severe illness, surgery and crash diets problems might occur. The skin becomes dry and dark, sore lips, hair fall, discolored nails with ridges and edematous feet.

Vitamin A is vital for healthy skin and eyes. Cod-liver oil, liver, carrots, spinach, milk and egg-yolk are richest sources of vitamin A. Lack of this vitamin can lead to excessive dryness of the skin, development of pimples and vision at night becoming defective. However overdose of Vitamin A can cause dryness and roughness of the skin, falling of the hair and soreness of lips. Cracking and soreness of lips also happens due to vitamin B deficiencies. Rich sources of this vitamin are liver, meat, milk, greens, pulses, cereals and citrus fruits.

Iron should also be included in your diet. It makes the blood healthy thus gives a healthy pink glow to our skin. It's found in green vegetables, fruits and meats. Zinc is another mineral essential for healthy skin.

Beverages And Skin:
Certain beverages can harm the skin. Alcohol and coffee cause the tiny blood vessels to widen. These vessels are beneath the skin surface and result in us looking flushed and tired. Though this effect is initially temporary, excessive drinking may cause permanent widening of blood vessels. As a result they are apparently visible as thread veins. Other causes of thread veins are heredity, effects of the sun, spicy diet and extremes of temperature. Though heredity can't be modified you can certainly avoid the other factors to check the appearance of thread veins.

Food Allergies And Skin Problems:
Foods causes, at least, two types of skin problems- Hives and eczemas. Atopic eczema is caused due to food allergies. Usually food stuffs like milk, eggs and preserved foods trigger allergies. A person may be allergic to more than one food stuff. It often takes a number of hours for the reaction to occur, which makes it difficult to identify the culprit. Fortunately most people outgrow their food allergies. Thus it is not always necessary to look for the causative agent.

Cleansing Your Skin:

When to clean your face:
Skin must be cleaned depending on its needs. When you clean is not important. Some people clean it the first thing in the morning and the last at night because it is a convenient time. Scientifically sleeping with make-up on won't harm your skin, but it certainly will spoil your bed sheet. Though most beauticians advise cleansing the face before going to bed. In the morning cleansing the skin is very refreshing and if you apply make-up the finish would be better.

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