De-stressing is something we could get better at these days both internally and externally. Many of us if not all are experiencing additional stressors these days and our skin is really feeling the burden. Maintaining healthy skin actually requires a very delicately balanced ecosystem on the skin. We have a collection of cells, microorganism, and bacteria on the skin. And in order for our skin to thrive, this ecosystem has to be in perfect harmony. And a lot of things can throw off this ecosystem. Whether its internal stress like worrying, anxiety, or poor diet or external stress like pollution, sun exposure and even wearing a mask everyday throws off the balance of our skin. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked in the mirror lately and noticed how fatigue and unbalanced my skin looked. This why using probiotics on your skin is such a viable part of a healthy skincare ritual. And why it has become the newest must have skincare ingredients.
Let’s speak a little about self-care. Taking care of yourself is confidence boosting! And self-care is something I think should be a priority. It truly helps you look good and feel good. We are all super busy and pulled in many directions, between work, and for many of us taking care of our kids as well as getting meals on the table and managing the household chores it can be very overwhelming and stressful. There is so much that is out of our control. These stressors cause our skin to become unbalanced. To top it off when we are busy one of the first things to go unfortunately is self-care. What if I told you it was one of the highest leverage things you can do to perform better every day & stay happy and calm. Spoiler alert, IT IS! Self-care has an incredible positive ripple effect on your entire life. The importance of investing in this act is crucial especially during times like these. And not just self-care for the immediate future but self-care going forward.
When your tank is filled & your feeling calm & nourished you’re going to be able to approach your day with positivity as you set the tone of your day. For many people it is the missing link we often feel guilty for when we make time for self-care, like, we could be doing something say more productive.
So when is the last time you did something to refill your tank?
Make sure you get what you need so you can serve, love & live from a place of fulfillment and authenticity, not lack and exhaustion.
So right now invite yourself to let go of that guilt & judgement and embrace self-care, because self-care is actually incredibly productive. It lays the foundation for how you show up in your work and life. Decompressing with self-care acts will create harmony and balance in the mind, body and skin.
Most of us are probably following a daily skincare regimen.
But are we doing it the right way?
What can change your results from products you’re already using?
It’s about adding in that, “special care” that most of us skip or think is just hype. And believe it or not that’s what can make a huge difference in your skin.
Just as any of us invest in our probiotics to help our gut microbiome which helps play a vital role in digestion and benefiting your immune system and many aspects of your health. The microbiome on your skin also needs to preserve the balance of good bacteria on the skin or to restore it.
While dietary probiotics have been found to help certain gut issues, scientific studies support that probiotics can be beneficial for the skin as well.
Probiotic skincare is the NEW immunity boosting trend that our skin needs! With all the heightened hygiene hype in the air lately, everyone is tempted to scrub ourselves down with as many cleaning products as possible! While everyone is dialing up the washing implementing more bacteria into our skincare routines is the way it’s going. Probiotics have skin biome- balancing properties when applied topically. This is needed especially these days with all the hand washing, extra bathing and disinfecting we are doing; the microbiome is really taking a beating. When your mix of bacterial flora is compromised, your skin will take a toll. Unhealthy microbes can trigger a slew of skin troubles, like acne, eczema, rosacea, and inflamed skin.
Many of us may already add in probiotics in our diets with choices of foods and adding in supplements. For skin, probiotics work in a similar way as they do for the digestive system. They help it to remain in a balanced state. Surface-level, this translates to a complexion that’s not too dry or too oily, and skin that can effectively repel the environmental conditions that cause inflammation. In other words, if you want a flawless glow, nurturing your skins flora is the best place to start.
First, they act as a preventive shield by preventing bad microorganisms from provoking an immune reaction. This creates a calmer environment for the skin. Second, they produce natural antibodies called antimicrobial peptides that combat bad bacteria. And lastly, they boost the skin’s functionality in dealing with external damaging factors including free radicals, sun and pollution. All of these benefits help to reduce inflammation. By maintaining a healthy bacterial balance to your skin you will in turn reduce any flare ups and prevent premature aging.
So …let’s Give your stripped skin a boost and keep your microbiome flourishing.
What throws off balance in your skin?
- Seasonal changes, people tend to get dry or flakey skin during the colder months and oily-breakout prone skin in the warmer months.
- You have been too hard on your skin! Most likely you have been scrubbing it too aggressively, using too much hot water, and using harsh cleansers or exfoliating too much. (Yes, you can over exfoliate!)
- Wearing masks daily is a new external stressor on our skin
- Internally- stress can affect your skin from premature wrinkles, acne, uneven skin tone and puffy eyes to dark circles. Stress can lead to or aggravate a large number of beauty problems.
When your mix of bacteria flora is compromised, your skin will take a toll. Unhealthy microbes can trigger a slew of skin troubles, like acne, eczema, rosacea, and inflamed skin.
So one of the first things that happens when skin is becoming unbalanced is that the skin begins to loose it’s moisture and become dehydrated. And once the skin becomes dehydrated it’s in a weakened state that just snowballs into various other concerns. You begin to have fine lines and wrinkles, unevenness, increased irritation, etc.
When the skin is in harmony how does it feel? How does it look?
Skin typically feel comfortable. You can expect your skin will appear healthier overall. It will look and feel adequately moisturized and have a healthy glow. Once balance is restored, your products will work better. If your skin isn’t properly balanced, those powerful ingredients won’t have the opportunity to really penetrate the outer layer of skin, and they even can become irritating due to a broken-down skin barrier. The first step to getting skin back on track is stepping away from harsh ingredients and switching to balanced products, which will heal your skin.
What do topical probiotics do?
Probiotics in skincare optimize the healing benefits of our skin’s good bugs. This includes acting as a protective shield against bad bacteria, dialing down inflammation, preventing premature aging in skin, among other things. For those who have acne-prone skin, using probiotics topically creates an optimal environment for the good bugs, swinging the balance in your favor against zit-causing bacteria.
Naturally derived probiotic extracts called lactobacillus ferment - the most powerful probiotic- and Bifida ferment are the ingredients that are going to feed the good bacteria and help to make sure that all of the microorganisms of your skin are working together in harmony to create a more balanced environment for healthy skin to thrive. They produces antibiotic like molecules that can help with the occasional breakout. It can do anything from dial down inflammation to fend off infections. Also, can prevent sun-induced wrinkles from forming by turning off the enzymes that chew up collagen.
Using products with probiotics you will notice that skin will look more even, visible irritations begin to diminish and the skin becomes more stable overall. You will see healthier looking skin and the most important results are what you don’s see. It will help create a healthy baseline for your skin so that now as you use the rest of your skincare it is working with healthy skin on a healthy and stable environment. Which helps to increase benefits in all your skincare and the skin is now better able to protect itself from all those stressors mentioned earlier.
What skin-types benefit from probiotics in skincare?
The short answer is all skin-types benefit from using probiotic skincare.
Know that probiotics –powered in skincare help reduce the appearance of age spots, fine lines, and other signs of aging by repairing stressed skin and stimulating skin renewal- leaving skin youthful and radiant. Who isn’t looking for that? And as mentioned earlier using probiotics support the efficacy of all your additional skincare products as your skin will be balanced, healthy and stable to fully receive all your treatments.
But let’t dive in and get a little more specific for some stand out skin types that really crave probiotics on the skin so that they can thrive!
A couple of key skin types really benefit from the usage of adding in probiotics into your skincare. Sensitive skin, polluted skin, acne prone skin and anyone fighting the natural aging process. Which I think is why this may put us all in this category.
1. Sensitive Skin
Incorporating probiotics into your skincare regime helps speed up the healing process with sensitive skin or reddened skin as it tends to take a while to repair itself naturally after damage. The skin will be less reactive and less inflammatory. So if stronger, more balanced skin is your goal, it may be worth investing in a probiotic-powered skincare routine.
2. Free radicals such as pollution & anti- aging skincare
Probiotics will act as a shield against environmental aggressors, such as pollution, HEV light such as blue light (hello - cell phone and computer) and free radical damage. The skin is our largest organ, it is also vulnerable to free radicals. Common free radicals include, air pollution, sunlight UV rays, smoking, alcohol, pesticides, poor nutrition and much more. Free radicals exist in our environment and can be generated from substances in the food we eat, medicines we take, air we breathe and water we drink. Basically, free radicals can be anywhere, and you can be exposed to them in a number of ways. Your own body produces them as a byproduct of your metabolism and as part of the natural aging process.
Probiotics can calm the immune response that pollution and stress stimulate, preventing damage to collagen, elastin and healthy cells. They will boost the skin’s natural defense against environmental aggressors and whatever else our skin encounter’s daily.
3. Probiotics for acne
Pimple (zits), blackheads, whiteheads, cystic acne, nodules, and papules are all different types of skin blemishes considered to be acne. Acne can be caused by a variety of events. Everyone knows that hormonal changes can trigger acne. Stress, use of some medications, reaction to some skin care products, certain health issues and what you eat and how well hydrated you are along with your skin hygiene routine can also impact your skin’s health, which can contribute to the frequency and severity of acne breakouts for some people.
There have been scientific studies that show that probiotics could very well be the most promising future treatment for both acne and rosacea.
First, they can act as a protective barrier to keep away undesirable microorganisms such as “bad” bacteria, fungi and toxins. Which will prevent the skin from provoking an immune system response in the form of acne. They also have flat out demonstrated that they can literally attack and kill bad bacteria. This is where the term, “anti-microbal” comes from. The probiotics fight back against harmful microbes, to prevent them from creating skin inflammation that leads to acne.
By combining nourishing probiotic-rich foods, probiotics in supplement form and a topical probiotics in skincare, you can give your body the best chance of healing from acne and preventing future breakouts.
As always beauty starts from within, so I would be remiss if I didn't mention some of the best sources of this gut-friendly nutrient. For foods, this includes a wide variety of fermented foods in which, live, active cultures of, “good bacteria” and other microbes are present. This includes fermented products such as yogurt and kefir, kimchi, kombucha, sauerkraut, raw and naturally fermented pickles, miso, and other foods. The fiber found in certain vegetables acts as a prebiotic. (artichokes, onions and quinoa) That means to help encourage the growth of “good’ bacteria in our gut which may help with certain inflammatory conditions of the skin. Its just what the doctor ordered for glowing skin from within!
Feeling good on the outside will in turn help us feel even better on the inside and self-care if the first step in achieving that. Decompressing and taking the time for ourselves brings back harmony in our mind, body and skin. Take the time to set an action plan to make self–care a priority. Schedule self-care in your calendar & treat it like an important meeting because it is. When taking care of yourself be fully engaged as you want to get the most benefits and return with renewed energy and focus. Also, never under estimate the importance of how you’re lifestyle, drinking water, your diet, getting enough sleep and exercise all have an effect on your skin as well. I hope these tips help your skin shine bright and healthy!