A balanced diet is the be-all and end-all of any healthy lifestyle – it’s not for nothing that they say “you are what you eat.” But did you know that what you eat also affects the appearance of your skin?
At almost two square metres, skin is our largest organ, and it reacts sensitively not only to external influences such as UV radiation, dry air, temperature fluctuations, or environmental and weather effects, but also to an unbalanced diet. If you want glowing skin, you shouldn’t rely exclusively on creams, serums, or peels – you should also take care of your skin from the inside. The foundation is a healthy, nutrient-rich diet – and that’s easier than it might sound at first!
In this article, we reveal why beautiful skin comes from within, why the right diet is so important, and what really matters. We’ll also give you tips on which foods deliver particularly essential nutrients and which factors you should definitely avoid when caring for your skin from within.
Beautiful Skin from Within – The Effects of an Unbalanced Diet
We all dream of healthy skin and a radiant complexion. We leave almost nothing untried in pursuit of it: regular visits to the beauty salon, exquisite lotions with expensive ingredients, or face masks with varying degrees of effectiveness. But without the right diet, firm, youthful-looking skin remains a pipe dream. If your skin lacks essential nutrients such as minerals, vitamins, and important antioxidants, this becomes noticeable in various ways:
- Your skin looks tired and loses firmness.
- Your complexion appears pale, dull, and lacklustre.
- Your skin reacts more sensitively to external influences, e.g. sun, dry air, temperature fluctuations, or skincare products.
- Skin blemishes such as pimples, blackheads, or acne appear more frequently.
- Your skin itches, is visibly irritated or dry, and is prone to redness or irritation.
- Premature signs of skin ageing appear in the form of fine lines.
Skincare from Within: Drink Your Way to Beautiful Skin!
Our bodies are made up of 80 percent water – if we drink too little, this shows up directly on our skin: tissue receives less blood flow, dries out, and loses elasticity as a result. Water isn’t just a solvent for vitamins; it also helps transport nutrients around the body. A balanced fluid intake is also the foundation for smooth skin metabolism, as it ensures optimal blood circulation. Sufficient fluid intake is therefore especially important for a fresh complexion and beautiful skin from within. The German Nutrition Society (DGE) recommends that healthy adults drink around 1.5 to 2 litres of water (or unsweetened tea) spread throughout the day.
It’s best to drink a glass of water right after getting up: during this process, your body produces warmth, which gives you more energy to start the day and also boosts your metabolism. But it’s not just water – green tea or kefir are true beauty elixirs for the skin as well. While the fermented milk drink promotes clear skin by nourishing, moisturising, and soothing it, green tea stimulates metabolism and supports the body’s detoxification.
Source: Mikhail Nilov/pexels
Our Sanft & Schön tip: Do you find it hard to drink enough water? Then simply liven up your mineral water with fresh fruit like raspberries or lemons. Cucumber, fresh mint, or ginger also lend their flavour to the water. Not only is this healthy and provides additional vitamins, it also makes drinking water more enjoyable.
The 5 Golden Food Rules for Beautiful Skin from Within
Important nutrients can be absorbed through food that support your skin’s natural function and make it more resilient against external influences. Skincare products alone can’t make your skin glow – that requires the right diet as well. We’ve put together five golden rules for you to keep in mind when it comes to nutrition:
1. Protein
Healthy skin needs protein to build and strengthen connective tissue and provide more firmness. So make sure you eat a protein-rich diet. By the way: foods high in protein don’t necessarily have to be of animal origin, like fish or lean meat – vegetarians or vegans can get enough protein from soy, various legumes, and nuts.
Source: Polina Tankilevitch/pexels
2. Alkaline Foods
If your body becomes too acidic, wrinkles, blemishes, and irritation can result. So prioritise foods that your body metabolises into bases, such as pineapple, grapes, raw tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms, herbs, sprouts, or macadamia nuts.
3. Iron
An iron deficiency in the body leads to pale skin and skin conditions, as cells and organs aren’t supplied with enough oxygen. Getting enough iron therefore helps give you beautiful skin from within and makes your complexion glow. Good sources of iron include oats, sesame seeds, flaxseed, quinoa, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, and legumes.
4. Fruit and Vegetables
The DGE recommends five servings of fruit and vegetables a day: these vitamin bombs supply your body with numerous minerals, trace elements, and fibre, which has a positive effect on your natural skin metabolism. But be careful: make sure to enjoy sweet fruits in moderation, since alongside their many vitamins, they also contain large amounts of fructose.
Source: Ella Olsson/pexels
5. Natural, Unprocessed Foods
Freshly prepared food contains all the important nutrients that matter for vital-looking skin. So try to eat foods that are as unprocessed as possible, and avoid industrially processed meals.
Fighting Free Radicals: Antioxidants for Beautiful Skin
When it comes to skincare from within, antioxidants are an essential component for a radiant complexion. Antioxidants are a group of vitamins and minerals found in many foods and skincare products that help protect your body from free radicals. So-called “free radicals” are intermediate products that form during various metabolic processes involving oxygen and that, in large quantities, can harm your health. Harmful external influences such as cigarette smoke, air pollution, or UV radiation also trigger their formation.
Our skin is permanently exposed to free radicals – with serious consequences: they accelerate the skin ageing process and promote skin inflammation and irritation. Antioxidants come to the rescue – they can be both produced by the body itself and supplied externally through food.
Source: Yu Hosoi/unsplash
Here’s an overview of which antioxidant-rich foods should end up on your plate for beautiful skin from within:
- Vitamin C: Vitamin C is the best-known antioxidant and acts on free radicals in the watery regions of the skin. It’s responsible for building collagen fibres, which firms the skin and softens wrinkles. Vitamin C also helps shrink enlarged pores and reduce blemishes. Foods with a high concentration of this helpful vitamin include berries, citrus fruits, kiwis, peppers, fennel, broccoli, parsley, sea buckthorn, Brussels sprouts, lamb’s lettuce, peas, and ginger.
- Vitamin E: Vitamin E’s antioxidant effect protects the membranes of skin cells and supports cell renewal. It also forms a natural defence against harmful UV radiation and increases your skin’s resilience. Vitamin E therefore helps maintain your skin’s natural barrier function and contributes to a healthy complexion. Avocados, peppers, blackcurrants, walnuts, hazelnuts, and vegetable oils such as rapeseed, sunflower, or olive oil provide plenty of this powerful antioxidant.
- Beta-carotene: Beta-carotene is a precursor of vitamin A. It’s not only good for your eyesight, but also supports the repair and formation of skin tissue and acts as a natural sunscreen from within. Thanks to its antioxidant effect, this provitamin A promotes cell protection and ensures that new, young skin cells grow back, slowing the skin’s ageing process. Good sources of beta-carotene include carrots, almonds, pecans, and tomatoes.
- Zinc: The trace element zinc has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects, which stimulates wound healing. If you suffer from dry, flaky skin, acne, or blemish scars, this is often a sign of zinc deficiency. In this case, you should turn to foods with a high concentration of this trace element. These include nuts, shellfish, grains such as wheat bran or oats, and legumes.
Source: Bruna Branco/unsplash
Caring for Your Skin from Within: Dietary Don’ts
Now that you know which foods are essential for beautiful skin from within, let’s turn our attention to the factors that have a negative effect on your complexion. These include things like excessive alcohol consumption, nicotine, stress, and lack of sleep, which not only harm your general health but also your complexion, leaving visible traces behind: alcohol draws moisture from your skin and makes your complexion look unhealthy – tobacco promotes wrinkle formation and hinders your skin’s optimal moisture production. Too much stress also accelerates skin ageing. You’ll find 10 helpful anti-ageing tips in this article.
If you want radiant skin, you should avoid this kind of lifestyle as much as possible. Give yourself rest and recovery to free your cells of negative messenger substances and promote regeneration. We recommend a structured daily routine and planning ahead to prevent stress before it starts.
But there’s also plenty to consider when it comes to nutrition: just as some foods can positively influence your complexion, others have a negative effect on beautiful skin from within. We’ve put together four dietary don’ts for you:
1. Foods High in Sugar
As delicious as it tastes, excessive sugar consumption has a negative effect on your body’s hormone levels. Since these hormones influence, among other things, the activity of your sebaceous glands, too much sugar leads to increased sebum production over time and, in turn, to the development of blemishes. Sweet temptations also promote inflammation in body cells and skin problems.
2. Saturated Fatty Acids
Foods rich in so-called “bad” fats attack cells and lead to the development of pimples and acne. Saturated fatty acids are often found in heavily processed foods or ready meals. So it’s best to favour unsaturated fatty acids over saturated ones. “Good” fats, found especially in nuts and many types of fish, contain important vitamins that slow skin ageing and improve your complexion.
3. Foods with a High Glycaemic Index
These are foods that cause your blood sugar to rise sharply. The high release of insulin, as the body’s response to the rapid rise in blood sugar levels, stimulates the growth of the sebaceous glands, which clogs pores and results in pimples, acne, and blackheads. Sweets or sugar in all its forms – from white flour products like bread to soft drinks, white rice, or crackers – should therefore be replaced with whole grain products, brown rice, or fruit and vegetables. Omega-3 fatty acids in particular support the skin optimally by protecting it from drying out and strengthening connective tissue.
4. Heavily Seasoned Foods
Seasoning your food too heavily can, under certain circumstances, lead to increased water retention in tissue. Dark circles and puffy eyelids can be the result.
Source: Tim Samuel/pexels
Your Checklist for Beautiful Skin from Within
The following points will help you care for your skin from within:
- Supply your body with enough fluids (water or unsweetened tea).
- Make sure to include plenty of foods with a high antioxidant content in your diet. The main saviours in the fight against free radicals are vitamin E, vitamin C, and beta-carotene.
- Eat fruit and vegetables every day.
- Choose foods with unsaturated rather than saturated fatty acids.
- Avoid stress as well as excessive alcohol and nicotine consumption, and give your body enough sleep.
- Reduce heavily seasoned and processed foods as well as sugary foods.
- Swap wheat products for whole grain products.
- Stay away from foods with a high glycaemic index.
- Your iron, zinc, and protein levels should always be covered.
Source: Andres Ayrton/pexels
Beautiful Skin Comes from Within!
True beauty – and radiant skin – come from within. Your lifestyle and eating habits play a decisive role here and can affect your complexion both positively and negatively. A lack of nutrients usually shows up in your complexion first, while a balanced diet supplies your skin with important vitamins and minerals and makes it glow. “The right diet” by no means means strict deprivation, but rather a healthy balance.
If you follow our tips for beautiful skin from within, give negative habits the cold shoulder, and incorporate sensible foods into your diet plan, you’re sure to notice a change in your complexion before long. We also recommend regular, professional facial treatments, such as Aquafacial, microdermabrasion, or microneedling in Berlin Mitte, which support your skin’s natural functions, regulate the skin renewal process, and so give you a radiant complexion.