6 non-skincare things I do for healthier skin.

It sounds a little kitschy, but healthy skin is a lifestyle.

Much to my own dismay, having great skin takes more than a solid skincare routine. It can never be easy, right?

You can really get into it with healthy skin lifestyle habits, especially once you start looking at supplements and specific diet or food recommendations. I am not the expert in those arenas and won’t pretend to be for even a second. And to be so real for a sec, it can quickly become information overload for me.

my skin as of 6am today — patches of redness, uneven tone, puffy from last night’s Goodles, and an overnight pimple patch of course 💅

This last year, I’ve focused on more of a “starter pack” approach. The mantra my clients hear often is, the best routines are easy to keep. None of these habits ever felt that ‘hard’ to commit to, and that’s the trick to making it a lifestyle. If you feel like your skin is really going through it, regardless of having a solid routine, my advice is to start wherever you can. Get in a groove where these things become second nature, before you get into hyper specifics (and spend more money).

1. Clean(ish) eating. It goes without saying, yeah? A line you’ll likely hear from any good esthetician is that what we put into our body directly impacts our skin … our skin is our largest organ, after all. Avoiding things like added sugars, refined carbs, and processed foods is a great place to start. And if I can add one more priority to the list, protein – it’s essential for collagen and elastin production.

2. Lots of water. Again, no shocker here, water is super important to overall skin health. If I had a nickel for every client who thought they had dry skin, when it was just dehydrated… Hydrated skin is able to retain its natural moisture, look more plump, and keep the toxins flushing through.

   

   I am nothing if not a beverage goblin — always have at least 2 water bottles on my person.

3. (Very) little alcohol. I’ve never really been a drinker and rarely do. Alcohol is dehydrating, can cause redness/rosacea to flare, and if you’re like me, also results in puffiness the next morning.

4. Catch those Zzzs. I regret waiting until my mid-30s to take sleep seriously. But like everything else on this list, good sleep hygiene is universally beneficial. We’ve talked about the purpose of nighttime skincare before – sleep is when our skin does its restorative work. For far too long I was a 5 hours/night person, and my current average is closer to 7. There’s still room to improve.

5. Sweat. Exercise improves circulation and breathes some needed oxygen into the skin. I’m very fortunate to be someone that genuinely loves working out. Sure, there are plenty of days I don’t have the motivation and have to rely on discipline to get myself to the gym. Developing an exercise routine is really finding what feels best for you. I strength train 4-5 days/week and try to get 10,000 steps/day.

   

6. Sun protection. I’ll never stop preaching it. Obviously SPF, but hats are my non-skincare BFF for making sun protection a lifestyle habit. I recently bought this silk-lined hat from Comme Si after Dianna Cohen shared it. It’s more of a splurge but I wear a hat at some point every day, and that’s called justification.

I would love to hear any other lifestyle habits that also happen to help skin health!