The Truth About Beauty Beverages
Do certain drinks deliver beauty benefits -- or is that wishful thinking? Experts weigh in.
Your Diet Affects Your Skin
Good nutrition, in general, benefits your skin. But just as doing thousands of crunches won't burn fat from your waistline, adding high levels of vitamins to your water won't yield increasing returns.
"You can't load the circuit nutritionally," Schultz says. "If you press on a light switch harder, it doesn't come on any faster or brighter, and the skin is the same way." Drinking nutrients to benefit the skin doesn't mean they will end up there.
"A bottled beauty drink should be in addition to, not instead of, water," Glassman says. She recommends making sure your drink has less than 15 grams of sugar.
How to Quench Your Skin's Thirst
Staying hydrated is key to your overall health, including your skin.
Drink enough water so that you're not thirsty. You can also hydrate your skin and get nutrients by eating more fruits and vegetables.
If you're looking for a simple beauty beverage, you might consider tea. In at least one study, people who drank a minimum of two daily cups of green or black tea were 20% to 30% less likely to get nonmelanoma skin cancer, the most common type of skin cancer. Tea contains polyphenols, plant chemicals that help fight sun damage -- the No. 1 skin ager. Other studies have shown that polyphenols may help sunscreens reduce UV damage. Polyphenols also ease inflammation, another skin foe.
What's on the inside matters to your skin, but it's also important to work on the skin's surface, too.
Products you put on your skin "have a much better chance of making improvements because they have a better chance of getting where you need them," Schultz says.
Fusco agrees. "When applied directly to the skin, ingredients like vitamin C, vitamin A, and peptides show better results and faster," she says.
