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 cells
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: With a consistent skin care routine using effective products and a few lifestyle changes, anyone 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 not only for your overall health, 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 causes a slowdown to sloughing dead cells and over time they build up, causing a dull complexion, clogging pores and causing 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, fat and with limited vitamins or minerals cause skin to be more prone to breakouts, hyperpigmentation, dullness and breakouts. 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. When free radicals are created, they weaken the body and skin on a cellular level, leaving it more prone to damage and causing a noticeable decrease in healthy, radiant skin cells.
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.
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 and combined with botanical ingredients. Find out if your spa is currently open and offer virtual or in-person consultations, and whether they offer these types of treatments at this time.
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
Building a healthy foundation for skin with proper diet and exercise, your skin care routine is the final leg that makes up the trifecta of glowing, gorgeous skin. Whether it’s regularly using a treatment like a “hot” face mask or incorporating brightening ingredients into a routine, there are many ways to go from dull or lackluster skin to glowing and healthy with an at-home regimen.
Don't Forget “Hot” Treatments
There are plenty of reasons why masks - as well as “hot” or warming 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
Add to this list, the benefits of using a mask which is hot or warming like the Turmeric Energizing Treatment with Citrine Gemstones from our new Gemstone Collection. 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.
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. Featured in our new Gemstone Collection, the 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.
Tap Your Inner Positivity
Finally, while there is a variety of 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!
The new Gemstone Collection from Eminence Organics harnesses powerful botanical properties and combines them with the uplifting energy of gemstones like citrine and pink tourmaline to provide wellness to all aspects of your being – from the inside out.
Want to learn more?
Make an appointment at our locations in MA and RI for a free virtual or in-person consultation and find out more about product recommendations and available treatments.