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The Skin Issue

For the past year I have been buying and experimenting on my own skin - mostly my face - with various expensive and inexpensive products. At the end of all this expensive research, I expected that I would have a definitive skin regime to recommend to you, but you know what? I really don't. However, I can bottom line the whole beautiful skin thing for you right now.

First of all, we should give up the nasties that create pasty unhealthy looking skin and here are the Big Five: Red meat, refined sugar, caffeine, cigarettes and alcohol. These are all tremendous stressors on our systems, causing an increase in male hormones, oxidants and inflammation. This could lead to changes in the pH of our skin and may overstimulate the sebaceous glands which in turn can cause acne, or black or white heads.

Do I really have to say, stop smoking? This is probably the worst ager there is, - causing not only that "smoker's face" with lip lines and deep grooves but also the attractive yellow skin which never goes with any of the clothes you own. Smoking is also thought to contribute to all of the eye diseases like macular degeneration, glaucoma and cataracts, as the 50+ chemicals from the cigarette smoke continually stream into the eyes, irritating and hardening the retina.

Now that we have taken away all the nasties, what do we add? First and foremost, beautiful skin starts with a 1) NUTRITIOUS DIET. I highly recommend reading anything by Nicholas Perricone M.D. He's a dermatologist and is right on with his recommendations, esp. with his list of superfoods for the skin: The list includes lots and lots of Wild Alaskan Salmon - everyday is not too much; none of that farmed salmon which has no omega 3's in it. You do know that farmed salmon is actually grey, don't you, and they fake-dye it that pretty salmon color?

To continue with the Perricone superfood list for healthy, radiant skin: Apples, Pears, Blueberries and Grapefruit; Avocados, Olives and Coconut; Cinnamon, Chile peppers; Flaxseeds, Almonds, Walnuts, Sunflower, Pumpkin Seeds and Sesame Seeds; Dried Beans; Low Fat Yogurt; and if you want to eat grains moderately, he recommends Buckwheat ( which is not really wheat) and Oats. He doesn't like grains, including wheat, because of the inflammatory effects.

As for vegetables, Perricone likes them all, but esp. garlic, spinach, kale, broccoli sprouts and crucifers like cauliflower and cabbage.

Let's not forget 2) WATER! Please drink tons so your skin won't have that dehydrated look to it. We have to work extra hard to hydrate here in Colorado.

Perricone (and I) like the following 3) SUPPLEMENTS for beautiful skin: First of all Omega 3's, and lots of them - maybe 2400 mgs per day - either in the form of the Wild Alaskan Salmon and/or some molecularly distilled, mercury-free Omega 3 oil. I know that Carlson's and Norwegian Naturals are pure OTC oils. And Standard Process has just come out with a pure tuna oil that I will be offering soon. If you have trouble like I do with tolerating oils, then take your fish and fish oil with a fat digester like Lipo-Complex. If you tend to burp the fish oil up, then keep the gel caps in the freezer because this way the caps will open up further down your digestive tract, hopefully out of burp range.

Perricone (and I ) also like alpha lipoic acid which is a wonderful antioxidant for the skin. I take 300- 600 mgs per day which is what he recommends. Make sure you have enough Vitamin A - 25,000 iu's as this is the "skin" vitamin; buffered Vitamin C , 1-3 grams or to bowel tolerance. A special kind of C, called Ester-C or ascorbyl palmitate, which is fat soluble, is particularly good for the skin as well.

Vitamin E and a specially potent form of Vitamin E called tocotrienols is also good for the skin: As Perricone says in The Wrinkle Cure: ". . . tocotrienols have the ability to completely disperse in a cell membrane, move about at warp speed, and scoop up free radicals far more quickly than alpha tocopherols [vitamin E]." Perricone also suggests COQ 10 and minerals esp. magnesium and acetyl-l-carnitine which are all good for repairing aging and damaged skin.

Be sure to include other concentrated anti-oxidants, like Greens First or Red Alert which make it really easy for us to get 10 helpings of fruits and vegetables per one scoop-a-day.

4) EXERCISE is key as well, for two reasons: First of all, as we sweat we release toxins through our skin - which is the third main detoxifier of the body (liver is first, kidneys are second). Be sure to shower after exercise, so the toxins don't stay on your skin and create eczemas, rashes and blotches. Secondly, as we move our bodies, we will also stimulate the lymph glands (which run alongside our muscles) which in turn will dump more toxins into our blood stream to be excreted from our kidneys and bowel.

I think it's a great idea to sign up for one 5) FACIAL per month. Or as many as you can afford. Maybe minimum 4 times a year? A good facial removes all the dead skin and refreshes your cells, allowing new and healthy skin to appear. Also, purchase something like Haushka's Cleansing Cream which has little gritty bits in it and wash your face daily with this. Use a rough washcloth every now and again on your face to debride the dead cells then use a good moisturizer after your face is very clean. I will also use some clean soap on my face, like a glycerine soap or an organic one from Whole Foods. Never use a deodorant soap on your face.

In my quest for the fountain of youth, I have experimented with several supposedly top-quality 6) MOISTURIZERS: Lavere's Lifting Serum, SkinCeuticals C E Ferulic (an antioxidant formula which smells like hot dogs), Youthful Essentials, Wrinkle Serum, Kinerase's C6Peptide Intensive Treatment and some products from Jurlique, Hauschka and Perricone.

Currently, I am using Hauschka's Cleansing Cream in the morning and at night, rubbing around a bit (carefully) with a washcloth to debride the dead cells. Then I apply SkinCeuticals, C E Ferulic, maybe some Hauschka Moisturizing Day Cream, then I top everything off with good old Burt's Bee's Moisturizing Night Cream which is like socially acceptable bear grease - but I need it to combat the uber-dryness of winter in Colorado. If I am going out in the sun I use SkinCeuticals SPF 20 with transparent zinc oxide or Kinerase's SPF 15.

I will most likely re-buy everything I am currently using, although, in addition, I will buy the very expensive Perricone Alpha Lipoic Night Cream which has treated my skin very well in the past. I tried Perricone's Ester C product but it proved to be a bit chafing for my skin. (FYI: My skin tends to be ruddy and sensitive.)

None of the above stuff is cheap, (over $100) with the exception of Burts, which is about $8.

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