5 of the Best Vitamins for Healthier Skin

There are countless skin products lining the shelves of supermarkets, pharmacies and cosmetic counters that all claim to offer anti-ageing properties and an improved appearance of the skin. However, the best way to keep your skin looking fresh and healthy is to start from the inside. Nothing beats naturally healthy and beautiful skin and the best way to achieve that is by living a healthy and active lifestyle, eating the right foods and ensuring that your body gets the right amount of vitamins on a daily basis.

Taking daily vitamin supplements will ensure that you are getting the right amount of vitamins every day and popular health food stores, such as Evergreen, have a wide range of vitamins for healthier skin and much more.

However, here we look at the top 5 vitamins to help you on your way to perfectly radiant skin.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is well known for its immune-boosting and anti-oxidant properties, and can improve skin texture and appearance by applying anti-oxidant properties to detoxify your skin, helping to rid it of any impurities. Vitamin C is often found in many anti-ageing skin creams, as it stimulates collagen production, which makes your skin suppler and helps to fight the signs of aging. Vitamin C also helps to protect your skin from sun damage by decreasing cell damage and helping the healing process of damaged skin.

Vitamin E

For optimum skin health, one of the best vitamins you can take is vitamin E. This vitamin is an anti-oxidant that effectively kills free radicals, which accelerate the aging process and are yours and your skin’s biggest enemy. Vitamin E helps to get rid of free radicals to promote younger looking skin, helps to protect the skin from the sun’s UV rays, moisturises the skin, and can be used to treat some skin inflammations.

Vitamin B

Vitamin B complexes provide a wide range of benefits to help promote healthy and glowing skin. For example, vitamin B1 gives the skin a healthier glow as it boosts the blood circulation throughout the body, whereas vitamin B3 helps reduce acne by maintaining a high level of oxygen in the blood. A vitamin B complex often contains a nutrient called biotin, which is very important in the development of healthy hair, nails and skin.

Vitamin K

Vitamin K works very well in the body to reduce the appearance of skin discolorations, such as dark circles under the eyes and hyperpigmentation, whilst also helping to reduce the appearance of acne scars. Vitamin K is essential in aiding the body’s process of blood clotting and can help to heal, lighten and reduce areas of bruising. In addition to this, it can also help to reduce the appearance of wrinkles, scars, stretch marks and spider veins.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A is vital for the repair and maintenance of our skin, but can help to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles caused by aging and sun exposure as well. Additionally, it can also help prevent dry, flaky skin and acne.

Getting good skin through a healthy diet, drinking plenty of water along with taking some extra vitamins doesn’t have to take a long time, and some users notice a difference within a few days.

Thanks so much to Suzanne Elly for writing this post!

Image via Flickr: tommerton2010

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Coconut Oil: The one beauty product you need in your life

Photo via Flickr: Phu Thinh Co

Someone once told me that the only beauty products you need are coconut oil and water. Drinking plenty of water will flush toxins out of your system, keeping you hydrated. There are so many benefits of proper hydration that I could write about them all day. But instead I’m going to talk about the benefits of coconut oil as a beauty product.

Hair Care:

Coconut oil is highly moisturising and, like the highly popular Argan Oil, gives your hair an excellent shine. It can be used in numerous ways as a hair treatment.

1. Soaking your hair in coconut oil will give you a deep condition, leaving your hair silky soft and beautifully shiny. Simply treat the oil like any other hair mask. Leave it on for an hour or more (I once left it all night, with my hair wrapped up until morning), then shampoo it out.
2. Coconut oil is perfect for fighting frizz. It comes as a solid, so you should simply take a small amount and rub it in your hands until it warms up. Then smooth your hands over frizz and fly-aways to give your hair the perfect finish.
3. You can even make your own shampoo using coconut oil, milk, olive oil, liquid castile soap and your favourite essential oil. Shampoo recipes can be found online. Furthermore, it’s great for soothing the scalp to fight irritation or flaking of the skin.

For your Face:

I believe you shouldn’t put anything on your skin unless you would be willing to eat that product; if you wouldn’t put it in your body, don’t put it on your body. Coconut oil is edible. It’s antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and moisturising, so it’s a perfect natural ingredient to put on your face and can be used in so many different ways, combined with other ingredients, which are also edible.

1. Mixed with olive oil, coconut oil can be used as a deep cleansing, deep moisturising, 100% natural facial wash. Mix it with baking soda for a gentle exfoliating scrub.
2. Coconut oil mixed with honey makes the perfect antibacterial mask. Just apply a generous amount, leave for 15 minutes, and rinse off. Again, it’s completely natural and will only do good to your skin.
3. Another amazing way to use coconut oil is as a makeup remover. Simply rub the oil over the makeup and wash away with warm water.
4. My favourite use for coconut oil is as a moisturiser. It feeds the skin and heals any scars left over from blemishes. To apply, gently rub a small amount into your skin each night after cleansing, and allow the goodness to soak in.
5. Keeping with the moisturising properties, coconut oil is a very handy lip balm. Just scoop some into a small tin and use it on dry lips. It’s a whole ingredient lip balm – meaning there’s nothing in it except 100% coconut oil.

So to summarise, you can wash your hair, condition your hair, smooth away frizz, soothe your scalp, remove makeup, cleanse, exfoliate and moisturise your skin, apply a face mask and moisturise your lips, all with variations of this one simple ingredient.

The list of uses for coconut oil goes on and on. Mix it with brown sugar to make your own homemade (and again, 100% natural and edible) body scrub. Mix it with water to make a shaving cream. Use it as a cuticle cream or to soothe cuts, or to moisturise dry skin on your feet or anywhere else on your body.

Best of all, you can get a jar of raw coconut oil for only €6, or a big jar for just a tenner. Why would you waste your money buying expensive, paraben-loaded products, when one small food can keep you looking more beautiful and fresh for less than a fraction of the price?

You do the math.

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I’ve raved about coconut oil before:

Coconut Oil as a Natural Beauty Product

The Benefits of Coconut Oil

Coconut Oil as a Natural Beauty Product

I’ve posted an infographic about the benefits of Coconut Oil before. That infographic can be found here. But I’ve just stumbled across a new infographic which describes the beauty uses for coconut oil.

IdealHomeGarden.com posted this infographic back in December 2012, but I stumbled across it on one of my favourite website, MindBodyGreen.com and felt it really tied in with the subject matter of my blog.

I’m a regular user of coconut oil as a deep conditioner and a moisturiser, but this infographic has shown me several other uses for this amazing oil.

 

It’s amazing how one little food can do so much for natural beauty. I’ve often heard natural beauty enthusiasts say that if you can’t eat it, you shouldn’t put it on your skin.

If that’s true, then coconut oil will continue to be one of my go-to beauty products.

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