How To Get Glowing Skin
Beautiful, glowing skin. It’s what many of us want from our skin care routines, but what does it actually mean to have skin that glows? Skin care experts describe characteristics of glowing skin like this:
- Hydrated and dewy
- Smooth texture with minimized pores
- Healthy coloring due to good blood circulation in skin
- Even coloring
A glowing complexion is a healthy one. But when you factor in daily stress, environmental pollution, lack of sleep and even age, it’s no wonder that obtaining glowing skin is at the top of everyone’s most desired list.
Depending on your skin type – especially for those with naturally oily pores or dry, flaky and dull texture – it might feel like a glowing complexion is impossible to achieve. But here’s the good news: A few lifestyle changes coupled with a consistent skin care routine using effective products can transform a dull complexion into one that radiates and glows.
How to Get Glowing Skin (Naturally)
While it’s true a good skin care routine is essential to maintain a glowing and healthy complexion, a few lifestyle habits are also key in providing ample nourishment and benefit to skin cells. Daily exercise, healthy diet and proper hydration are important for your overall health and they work wonders for the skin!
Drink Water All Day
As the largest organ, the skin craves water. And when you stay hydrated, you’ll start to notice a few positive changes such as:
- Healthier complexion
- Minimized lines and wrinkles
- Reduced water retention
- Clearer skin
If you don’t stay on top of your water intake, dehydration (even mild!) is quick to develop. Aside from cognitive and physical effects of dehydration, a lack of water affects the look and feel of your skin, too. When you’re dehydrated, skin cells struggle to do even the most basic functions, such as cell turnover. This slows down the sloughing of dead cells, causing them to build up, resulting in a dull complexion, clogged pores and breakouts.
One of the easiest ways to improve the look and feel of your skin is to stay hydrated. Beneficial in a number of ways --- both inside and outside the body --- water is helpful in flushing toxins and excess sodium while also boosting circulation and elasticity in cells. If you experience frequent breakouts or skin issues like eczema, drinking enough water daily increases blood flow to skin cells, which is essential for flushing impurities and buildup in the pores. As you make water an important part of daily habits, you’ll notice a decrease in breakouts, blemishes and overall pore size.
Eat Your Antioxidants
A diet rich in nutrients and antioxidants plays a major role in the health of skin. It’s no secret that ingredients like sugar and processed foods zap important nutrients from the skin and leave it looking less than stellar.Foods high in sugar and fat (and low in vitamins or minerals) can cause skin to be more prone to breakouts, hyperpigmentation and dullness. Certain foods, such as dairy or wheat, can even cause inflammation for some people, leading to reactions that cause skin to become blotchy, thin and vulnerable to further issues.
Instead, look to foods that are high in antioxidants. The benefit of consuming these foods is to fight back against exacerbating factors that lead to signs of early aging, such as free radicals.
Dermatologists recommend including ingredients like these into your daily meals:
- Lycopene, an antioxidant found in tomatoes
- Ginger, known to contain anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties
- Chia seeds, high in omega-3 fatty acids which nourish and strengthen skin cells
Eating an antioxidant-rich diet full of colorful fruits and vegetables also plays an important role in protecting skin from free radicals or environmental stressors like ultraviolet rays. Polyphenols, such as resveratrol, are especially beneficial in keeping skin cells healthy and fighting back against damaging free radicals.
Get Exercise, Especially Yoga
Another powerful way to improve skin and get a glowing complexion is through daily activity. You don’t need to run marathons to achieve beautiful skin – something as low-impact as Pilates, taking a daily walk or some gentle yoga offers plenty of benefits to the skin too!
Just like water, exercise is an effective tool in obtaining healthy, glowing skin. Daily activity gets the blood pumping, which in turn boosts circulation and sweating – nature’s way of “detoxifying” the body. When you exert yourself enough to work up a small sweat, you’re encouraging your body to release nutrients, hormones and oxygen where you need them most – your skin! Oxygen-rich blood provides benefits to skin cells by plumping and nourishing them to give you a natural, colorful glow.
Yoga, in particular, has often been touted as a way to feel balanced and calm, but did you know it boosts skin health too? Dr. Genieve Burley explains, “Moving your body is medicine. It allows for detoxification by flushing all of the organs, it increases respiration, it lubricates joints and strengthens muscles. All of this leads to healthier, happier skin.”
Try Face Yoga Or Facial Massage
As part of your daily habits, incorporate face yoga or massage into your skin care routine. With a few simple techniques, facial massage benefits skin by:
- Boosting circulation
- Promoting detoxification and lymphatic drainage
- Enhancing elastin and collagen production to boost skin’s elasticity and tone
Using either your fingers or a beneficial tool like a jade roller or gua sha stone, try adding a few simple moves into your morning or evening skin care routine. The key to an effective facial massage is using a product that glides, or slips, easily over the skin – cleansing oils, facial oils or serums are all great choices!
Watch this In The Mix video for step-by-step instructions on facial massages that bring out a beautiful inner glow:
Professional Treatments for Glowing Skin
Ever wonder what you can do in the treatment room to give skin a much-needed boost? Skin stimulating treatments – such as those using microcurrents or microneedling – are best done professionally with a trained esthetician for safe, visible results.
Book A Microneedling Treatment
For those with troubled areas, including acne scars or enlarged pores, stimulating treatments such as microneedling offer enhanced benefits. A microneedling tool, also known as a derma roller, features tiny needles in a range of sizes that create microchannels, or tiny holes, in the top layer of the skin. By creating these microscopic channels, the tool encourages new collagen generation to repair skin for a smoother and more even texture. Additionally, creating microchannels in the skin allows for potent skin care ingredients to penetrate to deeper levels for enhanced results.
Professional treatments such as microneedling are also effective if you’re trying to reduce the appearance of uneven coloring due to melasma. When dealing with areas of concern like sun damage or melasma, always look to a professional for advice on how to brighten and exfoliate in a safe and beneficial manner.
Microneedling is a powerful way to deeply exfoliate and encourage cell turnover – something to consider if you want to minimize the appearance of pores or uneven skin tone and slow down the development of fine lines and wrinkles.
Enhance With A Microcurrent Facial
Another beneficial treatment for improving skin health is a microcurrent facial. Used in the treatment room, microcurrent facials use different wavelengths of electricity to brighten, tone and plump skin while also boosting collagen production and blood circulation to give skin a glowing, firmer appearance. Other ways microcurrent facials enhance the complexion include:
- Boosting cellular repair and activity
- Detoxifying and reducing puffiness
- Enhancing muscle tone to provide definition
- Tightening skin to minimize the appearance of pores
Get Glowing Skin with These Products
The foundation of gorgeous skin can be built with diet, exercise and spa treatments, but the final piece in this equation is your skin care routine. Whether it’s regularly using a treatment like a “hot” face mask or incorporating brightening ingredients into your regimen, there are many ways to go from dull or lackluster skin to glowing and healthy with an at-home routine.
Don't Forget “Hot” Treatments
There are plenty of reasons why masks are recommended for glowing, healthy skin! Benefits of frequent masking – especially when selecting masks with active, effective ingredients – include:
- Brightening the complexion and minimizing dark spots
- Refining the appearance of pores
- Deeply hydrating skin cells
- Absorbing excess oil and decongesting clogged pores
- Minimizing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles
Using a mask which is hot or warming like the Turmeric Energizing Treatment with Citrine Gemstones from our Gemstone Collection can turn up the heat and the glow. Hot treatments include ingredients which make the skin feel warm, like paprika or zeolite. The warming sensation opens pores and awakens the skin, revealing an energized complexion. Eminence Organics Representative Alicia Hawthorne shares that treatments that make the skin feel hot usually result in “a healthy glow and firmer looking skin.”
Choose the best face mask for your needs and be sure to incorporate it into your skin care routine a couple of times a week for best results.
Product Picks
Choose Brightening Ingredients
For many, a glowing complexion is one that is balanced or even in tone. Whether you’ve developed signs of sun damage or feel like your skin is looking slightly dull, turn to antioxidants and naturally derived ingredients to brighten and improve the appearance of the skin. When selecting the right skin care product to give your skin a glowing makeover, look to brightening ingredients such as turmeric, stone crop and licorice root.
Turmeric, in particular, is a favorite of many dermatologists and estheticians. As an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory for the body both inside and out, it gives skin a natural glow while also enhancing collagen production, calming breakouts and cleansing pores.
Exfoliate For Radiant Skin
If you don’t slough away dead skin cells regularly with a physical or chemical exfoliant, now’s the time to start! “Exfoliation removes the barrier of dead skin cells clogging the skin and uncovers fresh new cells below. This allows the products to penetrate more deeply into the skin, which makes them more effective,” says Alicia.
When the skin is properly polished and fresh, it helps light bounce off the skin – lending to the idea of a radiant glow. Jennifer Graf, an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City explains. “Your complexion looks radiant when it’s smooth enough to reflect light. Dead skin cells pile up, diffusing the light and making skin dull.”
Use an exfoliating product two to three times a week after cleansing as a part of your regular skin care routine to keep skin look healthy and fresh. For enhanced results, look to supercharged products such as the Turmeric Energizing Treatment for an exfoliation experience that leaves the skin looking silky and luminous.
Hydrate With Facial Oils
After exfoliating, it’s important to use deeply hydrating ingredients to care for newly revealed skin cells. Facial oils in particular are one of the best products to use in a skin care routine to lock in hydration and give skin a glowing appearance. Our Camellia Glow Solid Face Oil with Pink Tourmaline Gemstones is a solid facial oil that melts into the skin for deep, replenishing hydration.
Botanicals are beneficial in rejuvenating and softening the skin’s appearance – in particular if your complexion looks stressed, dull or fatigued. Look to marula, hemp seed and camellia oils for skin that looks glowing, supple and rejuvenated. Watch a demonstration of how to apply this oil with our Lead Skin Care Trainer, Natalie Pergar, in this step-by-step video.
Tap Your Inner Positivity
Finally, while there are treatments and products that brighten and smooth the skin, a gorgeous natural glow always starts from within.
Wellness starts with a good foundation of diet and exercise, as well as a skin care routine that helps strengthen and hydrate the skin. And for some, a balanced life also includes looking inward and embracing a positive mindset, as well as tapping into the use of natural botanicals or crystals to provide relaxation and bring inner peace to an otherwise busy daily routine!
Want to learn more? Connect with an Eminence Organics Spa Partner for a consultation and find out more about product recommendations and available treatments.