What's the best way to get healthy skin?

The key to healthy-looking skin is a healthy body and good skin care. If you drink plenty of water, avoid caffeine, eat whole foods, and exercise, your skin will glow. Add to that regimen the use of skin care products by brands that don’t use unnecessary chemicals and are -

• Organic
• Toxin-free
• Petroleum-free
• Dimethicone- (or any ingredients that end with –cone) free
• Mineral oils-free...

Your skin will glow!

Cosmetics should feed your skin and not smother, congest, or inhibit your skin's natural abilities.

Eat and drink well. Beauty on the outside begins on the inside. I always advise clients that your body is the medium to having good skin - the food you eat makes a magnificent difference, as does drinking plenty of water.

I cannot profess to know the best daily beauty regimen. But I have read and kept myself current throughout the years. The way I see it today, it is all about balance. A beauty regimen for me is a combination of nutrition, hygiene, exercise and lifestyle.

Discipline is key in all areas of life, including a daily beauty regimen.

Healthy skin can be achieved by keeping it clean & hydrated. Diet & plenty of water can reflect through your skin as well as frequent facials.

Basic rules for healthy skin

Skin care is not just about using a quality product range prescribed by a skin care therapist.

Get some early nights: in by 10:30 p.m. Try not to sleep late; get up and take a walk in the fresh air.

Combine this with facial cleansing at the end of the day, a weekly exfoliation, and the application of a good cream or oil before bed. In the morning, you should be able to give the skin a light cleanse with a muslin cloth and apply your daily moisturizer.

Smoking, by the way, is the worst thing for your skin, in my opinion.

Medical treatments for healthy skin

I think medical-grade home skin care products help keep the skin healthy between treatments. With medical-grade products you can help with hyperpigmentation, exfoliation, and cell turnover.

As far as treatments in the office, that depends on the individual. Preventative treatments can help keep skin healthy on many levels.  For example:

• Botox can prevent a patient from getting wrinkles that will one day need more aggressive treatments
• Chemical Peels help exfoliate the skin and increase cell turnover
• Lasers help to stimulate collagen
• For someone with acne, we need to do medical treatments first, then work on maintaining clear skin. Acne treatment with Blue Light and Levulan can significantly change your skin. You can then follow up with medical facials to keep the pores from clogging.

Don’t rely on oil-free skin care products. Truly beautiful, smooth, wrinkle-free, and glowing skin comes from oil and oil-soluble extracts and vitamins.

Have you noticed how people who eat an extremely low-fat diet tend to have sallow, opaque complexions and premature wrinkles? Human skin thrives on nutrition coming from healthy, unrefined, preferably organic plant oils, such as avocado, apricot, almond, olive, coconut, red palm oil, and others.

Oils are absolutely necessary for assimilation of many nutrients, for example vitamins A, D, E, and K. Oils are excellent non-irritating deep cleansers, and they help the skin retain moisture longer.

Oil-free products are generally much less effective in providing lasting hydration and anti-aging care, and many of them outright damage the skin instead of improving it, such as oil-free chemical acne cleansers. Oil-free toners and facial mists make the skin lose moisture faster, thus giving a result opposed to the desired one.

Natural-minded companies use plant oils to extract, dissolve, or disperse various active ingredients in them, and this way, these manufacturers avoid using harsh alcohol or many synthetic additives in their products.

If you are worried about breaking out from skin care products with plant oils, test small amounts first and try to identify which oils you can and can’t tolerate.

• Many people break-out from mineral oil (petroleum derivative).

• Most people find that they don’t break-out from organic, unrefined jojoba oil (which is really a wax), coconut oil, or sesame oil.

And keep in mind that essential oils, despite the word “oil” in the name, are not oils at all but plant extracts obtained through steam distillation. They don’t cause break-outs, and in fact, many of them are anti-acne and anti-bacterial (thyme, tea tree, eucalyptus, sage, basil, etc.).

I also suggest that you stick with gels, cream-gels, and lotions that contain only a little oil, as opposed to face oils, creams, butters, and salves.

Protect your skin from the sun

If you don’t do anything else for your skin always wear a broad spectrum SPF 15 or 30 protector all year round (try Vitage Skin Protector SPF 15 or 30, £14, 0845 555 5050).

Want healthy skin? Drink more water

Drink more water. Water is essential for life, not only internally yet externally. I believe the lack of water in one's daily regime, truly lends itself to speeding up the aging process. Beautiful skin begins with hydration.

Besides cleansing twice a day and using a moisturizer with sunscreen, diet makes a big difference!

• Foods high in vitamin A, which can be found in red/orange fruits and vegetables, helps maintain and repair skin tissue.
• Nuts and dried fruit contain important minerals that help control acne, prevent the skin from drying out, and give your skin a healthy glow.

To keep my skin at its best, I make time to follow my basic skin care routine, drink plenty of water, while limiting my caffeine intake, and take daily vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

Some foods that are conducive to healthy skin include salmon for omega 3, berries, which are rich in antioxidants, and most fruits and vegetables for their high water content and nutritional value.

The right foods will give you healthy skin

Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables for a great complexion and overall good health. Fruits and vegetables like green tea are loaded with antioxidants, but they also contain fiber, vitamins and minerals which our bodies need on a daily basis to function optimally. Fruits add to our daily water intake and the fiber in both fruits and vegetables help us to eliminate metabolic wastes properly.

Simple guidelines for healthy skin

• Drink water to help flush out toxins (toxins lead to a grayish, dull complexion)
• Exercise and sweat (same reason)
• Eat healthy
• When applying moisturizer do a mini face massage to increase circulation to the area
• Don’t smoke
• Do not pick at your pimples and blackheads. I know the temptation is there, but leave extractions to a professional
• Make sure your diet includes a healthy amount of good-for-you fats
• Get regular facials and / or chemical peels
• Use Kantic Mask twice weekly

My top 7 anti-aging skincare tips for healthy skin include:

1. Stay out of the sun! Get your face, neck and chest out of the sun to prevent photo-aging.
2. Perhaps you've heard this before, but are you protecting your skin while driving? The windshield of a car does not provide UV protection. Leave a scarf in your car, and cover your neck and chest when you hit the road.
3. For women in the Pacific Northwest (and other cloudy areas of the world), short doses of sun exposure on your body (not the face!) is good for you. There have been studies showing a link between breast cancer and poor vitamin E conversion due to low sunlight levels in the Pacific NW.
4. Take a potent antioxidant to promote good skin and get overall health benefits. GNC Alpha Lipoic Acid 200, Softgel Capsules is a good choice, since the formulation survives your stomach acids.
5. Drink water and plenty of it
6. Get a proper amount of sleep
7. Last but not least, do NOT smoke. Smoking trashes your skin!

The best creams for healthy skin

Healthy lifestyle, healthy diet, and the use of the right creams. Every person's skin type is unique. To maximize results, an important discussion I have with all of my patients is the creation of an anti-aging plan tailored specifically to your individual skin type.

We formed the Alessi Skincare line to focus on the most important compounds for all skin types and formulated our compounds around scientifically-proven ingredients with verifiable results.

Look for creams that have important gentle peeling agents and anti-oxidants to smooth wrinkles. Our lines also have an additional agent called "hyaluronic acid" to plump out fine lines.

Healthy skin is a choice

• Sun avoidance or using sunscreen with SPF >15 when outside
• Avoid smoking
• If you are considering more invasive methods, then chemical peels, resurfacing lasers, and injectable soft tissue fillers may be considered. You should learn more about these by consulting with a board-certified plastic surgeon or dermatologist.

Hydrate for healthy skin

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! Many toners are loaded with great ingredients. Spray the toner on your face for one minute and you can see your skin plump. Regardless of your age or what type of skin you have, hydration is the bet thing you can do. Find a toner that has hyaluronic acid and spray it on your skin. Enjoy the feeling of the mist. Just spray and let it drip. It will all be absorbed by your skin. 

I take my hydrating spray, a toner, everywhere I go and especially when I travel by car or by plane. I cannot go anywhere without it. The toner brings back the pH balance of the skin, renews the color, and finishes the cleansing process.

The other product I always take with me is mineral-based foundation. Its’ s a sunblock, a foundation, and a powder, all in one. It helps to protect skin and make it look good, too.

Topical antioxidants are the #1 choice for our skin health, whereas oral antioxidants are good for overall health. Revaleskin contains the ingredient Coffeeberry, the most potent antioxidant for your skin and therefore is best for skin health.

Know your skin to make it healthy

• Gently cleanse, tone and moisturize your face twice daily, using the most natural products available to you.
• Also, be aware of your true skin type. Just because you have dry skin at the moment, does not mean you have truly dry skin.
• Check your skin care products. If there are any abrasive detergents in them, they will dry out your skin making you think your skin is naturally dry.
• Know your products, and know your skin. Then treat it accordingly.

Use good products that have been recommended to your by a trusted aesthetician or certified medical practitioner. Good skin care products should be loaded with vitamins—Vitamin E, A and C. You should use a good facial wash and a toner to restore the ph balance.

Always use a good moisturizer. Healthy-looking skin always requires moisture. This is general skin care regimen, I strongly advise you to see your doctor for specific recommendations of what is good for your skin type or the individual properties of your skin.

What I do to keep my skin looking great
For my own skin I do regular microdermabrasion, peels and Omnilux Plus and Omnilux Red. I take antioxidants internally, drink water and get plenty of sleep.

How I help my clients choose the right beauty regimen
A skin analysis and consultation is necessary. Each client is different in their skin type, concerns, budget etc. These need to be discussed to personalise the treatment to the client.

• Sun protection is a must all year round – many daily moisturizers accessible now include SPF so it is easy to find.
• Healthy skin also results from maintaining a healthy diet rich in fiber (fruits, vegetables, whole grains) and low in fat.
• Keeping the body in shape, healthy, and glowing can also come from regular exercise 4-5 days a week for 40 – 45 minutes.

Anti-aging treatments

There are new anti-aging LED treatments and lasers that build collagen and these are just a few of the new ways to transform dull skin into healthy, beautiful skin.

Best of all, many of these procedures can be performed during lunch (they are nicknamed “Lunchtime Lasers”) and leave no visible side effects, so patients can continue as normal with their day following treatment.

Sunblock and a consistent skin care regimen

The most important thing for everyone to do is first to use sunblock every single day (rain or shine!) and secondly to consistently use an effective skin care regimen.

• Sunblock is the best way to prevent aging, plus it is inexpensive and takes about 30 seconds to apply. The formulations now are very sheer and non-oily and can be applied right under make-up.
• Additionally, using an effective (preferably from a plastic surgeon or dermatologist) skin care regimen on a consistent basis will help rejuvenate the skin and help you look your best now.

You should always hydrate/regenerate/maintain from the inside out. Problems on the skin are a reaction to what’s going on inside the body.

• What your mother told you about drinking 8 glasses of water a day is true-nothing eliminates toxins better and more effectively. This alone can have an amazing effect on skin clarity.
• It’s also essential to detox (4X a year at the change of seasons to clean and repair the intestines, liver and kidneys).
• For specific needs I might also advise an internal tincture or supplement.
• A customized daily regimen for your skin type is also recommended.

I wish people would protect themselves from the sun and all that that means. It's kind of been overhyped and over blown to a large degree, but it's still important. Just walking around whether I'm in the mountains or by the sea or at the park, you see that people aren't taking the right steps that they need to take to protect themselves, especially earlier on. So, with children in particular, the earlier they can do it, the better their skin is.

So it seems like we’re all looking for that magical lotion or potion, but it's really if they can start earlier the better and protect ourselves, we'll be ahead of the game. That means, not only sunscreen, but also protecting yourself with hats and clothing. It shouldn't change from the beach of CA to the streets of Seattle. It's all the same. Even though Seattle may be cloudier, even on cloudy days, you can burn. The cumulative effect of the sun leads to wrinkles and blotchy skin, red marks, all those things, and then of course, skin cancer.

Why? Well, it's like a debit card. You keep withdrawing and you're running out of money and time and it becomes harder and harder to reverse that aging process. So you should really start as early as you can with your children. And if it's too late for you, and I really believe it's never too late, certainly you can make the most headway with your children. If I'm with my family and we just got some ice cream, we find a shady spot. You can always spot the dermatologist family because they're at a spot under a tree.

Treat yourself to a "beauty night" for healthy skin

I would always recommend plenty of sleep. The human body is capable of amazing things if we just take care of ourselves.

Cleanse, everyday, fortify your skin with a serum and moisturize to hydrate and protect. Make sure you do the same in the evening. Once a week, schedule time for a "I deserve it…Beauty Night" and treat your self to an exfoliating scrub or light peel.

Stop over-exfoliating. With so many products on the market that have exfoliating properties like chemicals or naturally occurring assets in everything from cleansers to moisturizers, we are overdoing a good thing.

We need a good skin care system including not more than three or four products daily. Keep it simple; target your skin conditions and be consistent. If you are not sure how to get started, consult a professional aesthetician and leave the exfoliating to the professionals!

1) Wash with a gentle cleanser, such as Cetaphil, and then follow-up with an eye makeup remover, if necessary, to remove any remaining makeup. (I like Lancome Effacil.)

2) Then, in the morning, use an anti-aging cream with a good mix of anti-oxidants and emollients. Olay Regenerist is a great, inexpensive product, as well as an alphahydroxy acid cream, like one of those from Alpha Hydrox.

3) Follow up with a sunscreen, or use an anti-ager with a good sunscreen in it to save a step.

4) In the evenings, use a retinoid such as Retin-A, an eye cream, and an additional moisturizer, if necessary.

I recommend a variety of nutritional supplements in addition to the complete spectrum of vitamins and minerals recommended by nutrition experts worldwide, (B-complex, Vitamin E, Calcium-magnesium, etc.).

My research has shown that nutrients that possess antioxidant properties act as natural anti-inflammatories. This is important because antioxidants are Nature's anti-inflammatories. Designed to work synergistically to enhance the benefits of the anti-inflammatory diet, these nutrients offer anti-aging, anti-inflammatory, fat-metabolizing, and peptide-boosting benefits and help prevent and reverse oxidative damage on a cellular level, of critical importance as we age.

Active skin care product ingredients recommended include:

• Alpha Lipoic Acid
• Vitamin C Ester
• DMAE (Dimethyl Amino Ethanol)
• Coenzyme Q-10
• Conjugated Linoleic Acid
• GLA
• L-Carnitine Fumerate
• N-Acetyl Carnitine
• L-Tyrosine
• Omega-3
• Carnosine
• Benfotiamine
• Astaxanthin

• One cardinal rule is to never go to sleep with makeup on. Never! Cleanse as best you can, even if you can't do your full regime.

• I steam or sauna and facial as often as I can

• Organic masks also help

• Plenty of water and exercise and healthy food

• Use good products, mostly organic

• Get a peel or a professional cleansing at least once a year

• I try to keep myself serene and relatively stress-free

• Since l am married, I think a good, healthy sex life keeps life juices flowing and healthy internal hormones going. Internal radiance shows on one's skin.

An ounce of prevention

The first thing you should do is practice preventative care for your face. You can go to a gym and work out muscles, but the only thing you can do for your face is be healthy.

• Good nutrition
• Use of daily sunblock (spf 15 daily and spf 30 when exposed to the sun)
• Drink plenty of water
• Consider a daily skin care regimen of a skin rejuvenator (Alpha hydroxy acids, antioxidants like Vitamin C and polypeptides)

Research, learn, and be open to the use of oils in skin care. Oils have been around for centuries in many indigenous areas throughout the world. Don't rely on made up skin "cocktails" to treat your skin –turn to simple, natural oils.

Deep exfoliation is the key to healthy skin. Exfoliation removes the old, dead skin cells that stick to the surface and block your pores.

If your pores are blocked, even the best cleansers can't remove the terrible oxidizing compound, porphyrin, produced by bacteria we all have in our skin! And moisturizers can’t penetrate the nasty layer of dead cells, either.

The start of great skin care is monthly exfoliation. It's relatively inexpensive… about $125-200 per session, and worth every penny.

• I highly recommend Vibraderm™ Microdermabrasion. No messy crystals to re-block your pores and the gently vibrating paddles actually stimulate collagen formation.

I usually say to get your skin care from your dermatologist. If you're gonna use something that costs $100 and up, it might as well be prescription strength.

Remember, anything over the counter has to be gentle enough for an albino person to be able to use. If you want a cream with vitamin C...might as well be one with say, 10% more than the over the counter version at 2%. Of course your dermo will assess the perfect regime and amount, too.