Is Water Your Skin's Ultimate Anti-Ageing Product?

​We are all searching for the ultimate anti-ageing product. Week after week we are bombarded with new products that claim to make us look and feel years younger.  These cleverly worded ‘promises’ are all backed up by long scientific words which dazzle us into believing that their claims must be true but sadly, 99% of the time, this is simply not the case.

In fact, whilst moisturising and cleansing are both extremely important when it comes to your skins’ health, you may be surprised to know, (and what the beauty industry don’t tend to shout too loudly about), is that there is a simpler and far cheaper way to give your skin the bounce and tautness of youth and that is… by drinking more water.
 
That’s right – it’s as simple as that. Water is one of the best anti-aging treatments available and better than that it’s free.
 
Dehydration and our skin
For many of us it’s hard to get enough liquid into our bodies on a daily basis and as such we can end up dehydrated.  Although we may not feel the dehydration necessarily, our bodies certainly do as hydration is essential to allow certain water reliant organs to fulfil functions such as digestion, circulation and excretion. If we don’t have enough water in our bodies this gets taken from cells to perform the important tasks, including our skin – the largest organ in our body.  As with all our organs, the skin cells need water to work at their prime, and whilst it may not need as much water to function, the result of it being dehydrated is anti-ageing.
 
What’s The Outcome?
Without this moisture in our skin it becomes dry and we start to look older than we are.  Our wrinkles are more apparent and the skin is more vulnerable to further wrinkling.  Our faces become drawn as the moisture is lost and even our eyes look duller as water is taken from them too.  The overall effect of dehydration is a tight, flaky and withered looking face. Imagine a dry wasteland where cracks have formed in the waterless earth and nothing can grow or blossom from the ground.  That is essentially what happens to our skin when we do not keep our body’s’ water level topped up – albeit to an extreme.
 
The Ins-and-Outs
The water you drink when you are dehydrated will not reach the skin first so you need to ensure that all the organs and cells which need water to keep you healthy and functioning correctly are kept topped up at a high enough level that the excess water you are drinking actually reaches your skin cells.  From there, it can begin hydrating them from within thus starting the anti-ageing process.  Anti-ageing products can penetrate the skins’ surface and hydrate a few layers down, but to actually keep the skin looking its best and most youthful, you need to counterbalance this outer moisturising with hydration from within and that means drinking water every day without fail.

The Facts
You may be wondering how much water you need to drink each day to keep your face looking fresh and your skin looking youthful and radiant?
 
According to one of Britain’s leading nutritionists, Jane Clarke, 2.5 litres is optimum.  As well as water though, research now shows that tea and coffee can count toward your total amount, but be aware that the caffeine in coffee and tannins in tea can respectively affect the calcium and iron absorption into our bodies.
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With that in mind, your best bet is to stick with plain water which, according to Clarke has, “virtually no additives and [is] the healthiest drink there is.”  Interestingly, she advocates drinking tap water over bottled varieties because our tap water production plants go through tighter regulations than some bottled water plants do. This is great news for us as it means the ultimate weapon in our armoury against ageing is essentially free and on tap – literally!
 
If you struggle to drink ‘plain’ water why not try my Infused Water for a burst of flavour.  If you have any great water recipes please share them.
 
Emma xx