How to Get Glowing Skin Naturally - and Completely Vegan
You want to know how to get glowing skin naturally in order to feel fantastic for family photos, group pictures and that boosted self-esteem each time you look in the mirror. However, you want to achieve that smooth glow in the most natural way possible.
It’s wonderful you’re looking to make such intentional choices.
The more you learn about the beauty industry - from lack of FDA regulations to how many products claim to “be natural” - you’re ready to cut out overly harsh chemicals and treat your skin as nature intended.
To empower this - let’s dive into the ways to achieve newfound radiance even ways to clear skin naturally - and achieve its best glow yet.
How to get glowing skin vegan style
There are a few key ways to get your best skin naturally, beyond donning expensive face masks or taking health supplements. It is vital to:
- Be highly intentional about anything you put on your skin
- Take in the right foods
- Increase intake of certain types of drinks (we’ll share which ones in a moment)
- Learn the shocking thing you’re probably doing every day - that’s actually damaging your skin
(And it’s not too much time in the sun or lack of sunscreen, although that’s certainly helpful, too.)
We are about to dive deeply into each of these tactics, from the specific foods to eat, drinks to avoid, vitamins to ensure your skin absorbs and the #1 thing your skin probably goes through every week - that’s scraping away the glow, rather than boosting it.
Before we do that, let’s touch base on WHY going natural will change your life (and skin).
Why go natural (beyond being more sustainable)
Not only are natural products with a focus on the environment more eco-friendly and ethical, your skin and body know how to process natural ingredients.
After all, when the skin has Formaldehyde, Parabens or Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) placed on it, which are common in many everyday beauty products, there’s a non-natural reaction to a non-natural ingredient.
Your body doesn’t react or process those outsiders like it would an essential oil or other ingredients from nature, often drying out, getting irritated or having increased acne.
Skin is the body’s largest organ & absorbs everything
The epidermis (the skin) is the largest organ in the body - and absorbs any and everything placed onto it. If we use products loaded with chemicals, that’s putting cancer-causing ingredients onto our skin, which can then enter the body and travel to all the other organs.
The face needs oils, ironically
Many common beauty products strip the face of all natural oils. While taking away oil sounds good, it turns out to be quite counter-intuitive.
Even for oily skin, the face requires the natural oils to keep balance in check. By scraping oils away with harsh chemicals in many common cleansers and exfoliants, our body’s response is to produce MORE oil - increasing shine that feels less than ideal in photos, especially with flash.
How to clear skin naturally, step-by-step
Now that we’ve walked through a few reasons going natural, sans-chemicals, let’s dive into the key ways to transform your skin without long-word-additives that are hard to pronounce - and likely not even checked by the FDA.
Boost Iron, which does more than keep you energized
A lack of iron can result in anemia, which leaves one feeling extremely tired, with pale skin and with shortness of breath. It’s usually fixable when enough iron is introduced again to the system.
Not only does iron beat the (extreme) yawns though -
Iron is vital to healthy, glowing skin. According to “Eating for Beauty” by David Wolfe, blood that is packed with iron offers a lovely glow to the skin. A few iron-rich foods include:
- Leafy greens like lush spinach and parsley
- Lentils, pumpkin seeds and millet
- Tofu
- Cashews
- Juicy fruits (often dried to be “candy-like”) - Figs, dates and apricots
Get that Vitamin C
Vitamin C isn’t only helpful for protecting skin from the sun (especially in summer months), your body needs Vitamin C in order to produce collagen. Why is that critical? Collagen:
- Promotes skin radiance and elasticity
- May even reverse the aging of skin
Without this Vitamin, collagen production cannot happen most productively.
It’s important to get this Vitamin in two ways: Apply onto the skin (like a natural moisturizer with Vitamin C) AND consume through foods, like spinach, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and cauliflower.
Load up on sulfur
Although we associate sulfur with a less-than-pleasant odor, it turns out this is an ingredient in many common foods that has incredible benefits. Sulfur is known to:
- Boost the radiance and ideal toning of the skin, even helping to heal acne scars and other marks
- Have a powerful influence on boosting health for hair and joints (especially ideal for those who do knee-slamming workouts like running or CrossFit)
Some wholesome foods with high sulfur include →
- Broccolli
- Brussel sprouts
- Kale
- Mustard greens
- Arugula
- Onions
Use the power of avocado oil
While avocado oil has become popular for cooking, it’s fantastic to eat and place on the skin for a healthy glow. This luscious fruit is ideal for how to clear skin naturally because it has:
- Vitamin E & potassium to nourish and moisturize
- Anti-inflammatory effects that are potent, helping tackle redness and swelling of acne
- Anti-aging properties, promoting youthfulness of skin
Applying oil directly on the skin elevates each of these benefits, however, it’s best not to overapply- as not to make the skin too oily. The easy way to get the right level of application? Use a carefully mixed solution with avocado oil already in it.
Cut back on the espresso
As delightful as the sip of a frothy latte may be, too much caffeine is dangerous for a few reasons.
The main issue? Loading up on coffee can simply be a mask for the real underlying problem - a lack of sleep. Extreme exhaustion and need for sleep diminish the glow of skin. An ideal level of rest, for most people is 7 - 8 hours per night and vital to keeping the dark under-eye circles away.
Perhaps sip green tea instead
Some studies lean on green tea, citing it may be healthy for the skin due to its levels of antioxidants.
The #1 (startling) method to NOT do? (Over)wash your face
When pondering how to clear skin naturally, most would assume face cleansing is a fantastic solution, always.
This is false.
When you clean a kitchen counter, it leaves the surface shiny and fresh. In theory, our skin should be treated the same way.
However, our skin is not a marble top counter.
Our epidermis is a living, breathing creation that needs a unique kind of approach.
Think of your skin as a sunflower. If you rubbed harshly on the petals with pesticides & a loofah, the petals wouldn’t brighten up - they’d get rubbed raw and diminish in brightness and be worse for wear.
The problem is that most people overwash their face.
- Wake up? Wash face
- Hit the gym? Wash face
- Have a forehead glisten from a walk in the sun? Wash face
- Go to bed at night? Wash face
When this washing involves harsh chemicals, like common over-the-counter cleansers, it’s ripping into that sunflower like a loofah - wearing it away.
While once to twice a day of washing (with the proper moisturizing after) is good, more than that can be harmful to the skin. It’s better to splash the face with warm water or use some essential oils to take makeup off as needed, rather than use that chemical-packed cleaner yet again.
Ensure your skin isn’t stripped of moisture
Even if your skin has received over-washing for years, it’s okay.
If you’ve washed your face often with a cleanser, do not fear. This can be overcome. In addition to cutting down on chemicals and washing face less often, make sure to moisturize skin to help replace that dryness.
Moisturizing with the right natural oils will help to heal any scars and halt skin from producing more oils, albeit ironically.
Here’s an incredible solution that contains many of the vitamins discussed that your skin needs AND helps overcome over-scrubbing and sun exposure→ The all-natural, vegan moisturizer known to heal
