With all of the push these days for high-tech skin care treatments and expensive products, it’s a good idea to remember that natural beauty starts with caring for our health. But we can use some time-tested natural beauty tips to help us along! Here’s how to get glowing skin naturally, with 6 steps to make it easy.
When it comes to skin care, natural skin care is the best way forward for so many reasons! If we’re interested in a natural lifestyle, natural skin care comes right along with it. These natural skin care practices are really evergreen, because they’re always beneficial.
We all want to look our best, without obsessing on our looks. We also want to be mindful of our budgets and the health of our life-sustaining earth.
So, in this post, I’ll list some ideas that will hopefully inspire you to move forward with a great attitude about taking care of your skin naturally.
How To Get Glowing Skin Naturally: 6 Easy Steps
1. Beauty Comes From Within
We’ve all heard that truly beautiful clear skin comes from within. We’ll be disappointed if we hope for results by excessively trying products that we slather onto the surface only. So, it’s important to maintain healthy habits and to ensure that we have a healthy diet. This is the time for working on internal beauty first.
Detoxes, cleanses and supplements are trending, because they help us to glow with inner beauty. That inner beauty will be reflected in our replenished skin. As youthful collagen decreases with aging, we need to supplement with foods and natural ingredients that either provide us with additional collagen, or encourage collagen growth.
If you’re an omnivore, then beef, chicken, bone broth and salmon are all excellent foods that provide collagen. For vegetarians and vegans, dark green leafy veggies, pumpkin seeds, cashews, citrus fruits, berries and green algae, such as chlorella (a fresh water algae or seaweed) are great choices to encourage collagen growth. Consider adding supplements like this plant-based collagen boosting powder ✓ that helps us to produce more collagen. I link to the unflavored version, as the flavored ones contain stevia and natural flavorings that some people find too strong; with the unflavored, you can always add your own flavorings… but it does come in some great flavors 🙂
And how about bamboo stem extract ✓ for gorgeous skin? Bamboo is high on the sustainability list, as it is one of the fastest growing plants on earth!
Bamboo supplements, a well kept secret of women in India, Asia and Southeast Asia, are great for skin, nails and hair. Taken internally, amazing bamboo contains 70% silica (!) and provides youth-retaining vitamins, minerals and plant-based collagen to boost your skin, hair and nail health – with surprisingly fast results!
Anti-inflammatory herbs, such as turmeric ✓ green tea ✓ and tulsi ✓ can be taken internally to help our skin. These powerful healing herbs are inexpensive, easy to find, and are excellent to support natural skin care by promoting glowing skin from within. They can be taken in tablet form, as teas, or incorporated into lotions and creams, like this anti-inflammatory green tea facial cream ✓ that includes resveratrol and hyaluronic acid.
Anti-bacterial and antiseptic herbal teas can regularly be used as a face wash for cleansing, also.
2. Back To Basics
“Simple is better” – that’s the natural skin care “mantra” to keep in our awareness. We’ve had time to delve into lengthy and sometimes complicated skin care programs for a while now, and it’s been fun (and needed!) to get more in touch with our particular skin issues.
As we emerge from the last few years – with less “downtime” – we’ll find that clean simplicity is the way to go. Moving forward, we should avoid over-using products. Instead, zero-in on a few simple routines and products that are good for your personal skin-types and issues.
Rather than trying out whatever is popular on-line, whether we need it or not, now is the time when we should try paring down our skin/body/cosmetic cabinets, throw out the expired or dried up bottles – or the products that didn’t work for us – and stick with a few powerful natural winners that bring us the desired skin quality that we love.
3. Traditional Natural Skin Care
As mainstream skin care moves toward complicated scientific “breakthroughs” in an attempt to move closer to the ever elusive Fountain of Youth, we should take a few minutes to really think about whether or not that is realistic. Obviously, eternal youth is not within reach… otherwise, we’d see all the wealthy, well-connected “beautiful” people… well, staying beautiful and never aging! And that just doesn’t happen! They regularly turn to cosmetic surgery and expensive treatments and procedures in an attempt to hold on to their youth. As Dolly Parton once said, “ If I see something saggin’, baggin’ or draggin’, I’m gonna have it nipped, tucked or sucked.”
Fixating on eternal youth is not only unhealthy for our mind-body-spirit connection, but it is also not sustainable for the earth. Skin care products or procedures that require “state of the art” facilities, huge processing plants and expensive equipment are not really sustainable, in terms of energy consumption.
In natural skin care, we find ourselves turning to traditional methods that are better for us and for the earth. They keep our skin healthy and vibrant, so we can embrace being our best self, at whatever age!
Chinese Face Roller and Gua Sha Tools
Manual lymphatic massage of the face is a beautiful and soothing natural skin care practice that we can easily add to our routine, a few minutes per day.
Using traditional Chinese-inspired mindfulness massage only requires simple tools, such as face rollers and gua sha tools.
These hand held implements use smooth little pieces of natural minerals, like rose quartz and jade for toning facial skin and smoothing wrinkles.
Whether you choose a face roller or a gua sha hand held tool, the first step is to start with a clean face. You’ll apply a small amount of mild skin care oil or lotion, so the tool can glide easily over the skin. When you are finished, be sure to wash your tools with mild soap and water to avoid bacterial build-up.
Face Roller Benefits – best for reducing fine lines and wrinkles and firming up facial skin; reducing skin inflammation and puffiness, while mildly toning the skin.
Gua Sha Tool Benefits – best suited for helping with pain relief and for resolving deeper rooted skin issues; easier to control and achieve firmer action than a roller.
Jade or Rose Quartz?
Rose Quartz is considered the “Love Stone” and is better for soothing and healing sensitive skin.
Jade is known to have balancing and cleansing effects, and is also associated with retaining youthfulness. (again, not to be extreme in our expectations!) Jade will remain cooler than rose quartz when using it for facial massage.
Herbs are also important for topical use. If you enjoy DIY facial treatments, I wrote an article on ubtans, traditional skin care facial scrubs. Ubtans are highly prized in India and they are used especially as skin care treatments for brides in the days before their wedding. But don’t wait for a special day! Ubtans can be used anytime, and the article features several recipes for various skin conditions.
4. Natural Sun Protection
Skin protection is something that is super important if we want glowing skin. I’ve written before on sun protection, for example, how to prevent sunburn naturally before you ever get into the sun and how to treat sunburn. By taking supplements that provide skin protection before heading into the sun, you can shield your skin from the effects of excessive sun time.
If you’re not interested in that route, there are natural oils that are wonderful for sun protection.
First on the list is luscious organic red raspberry seed oil ✓ that has a very high SPF rating (28-50). Red raspberry seed oil’s fatty acid content provides protection and rich nutrients to the skin surface.
Second would be organic carrot seed oil ✓ with its high SPF rating of between 38-40. These beautiful natural oils can be used alone or made into your own custom blend, combining with jojoba oil, coconut oil or wheat germ oil, all of which are excellent for sun protection.
If you don’t feel like DIY, you can try this natural sunscreen with herbal oils and essences ✓. It’s formulated for children, and if it’s gentle enough for children, it’s good for me, too! It doesn’t contain all the baddies, just lots of healthful natural ingredients. (and is cruelty free!)
Regardless of what you use for sun protection, remember to be mindful and don’t over-do it in the sun! Any sun screen oil or product will provide different results depending on the person, so go gradually and please, be careful of your skin.
5. Plant-Based Skin Care
Plant-based, vegan and organic skin care have been trending for some time now and will continue – with a slight change in focus. When these topics began trending a few years back, we were so happy and excited to see this happen! But over time, the public has noticed the disconnect between some companies’ marketing and the actual product quality.
Many, many natural product marketers have been caught out “green-washing” – that is, exaggerating or even being blatantly dishonest about the naturalness or sustainability of their product ingredients. Consumers have become more aware and are holding the companies to responsibility.
We want natural products that are sustainably produced, and we don’t want more false advertising! Be sure to educate yourself, so that you’re not taken in by inspiring but misleading descriptions on products. I wrote an entire article about the differences between beauty product labels – specifically, about organic, vegan and clean labels. What are those companies promising and what do they actually deliver?
You want to make sure your skin care choices are authentic, especially if you’re willing to pay a bit more, thinking that it’s good for you and the earth,.
Personally, I tend to go by the individual product rather than a brand, as oftentimes, a brand will excel in one product but fall short on another; so I don’t really have a “favorite” brand. There are amazing companies out there, so just make sure that you purchase from reputable companies for your natural skin care products.
6. Dewy, Glowy Skin Is “In”
Here comes that word again – simple! It’s time to embrace light skin care lotions and oils instead of caking on matte finishes. The dewy, glowy look is always attractive and we can achieve the goal by opting for lighter, simpler products that won’t clog pores and irritate the skin.
Back to traditional skin care treatments, consider 100% natural camellia seed oil (Tsubaki oil, in Japanese), which has been a favorite of Japanese geisha for centuries. Light and hydrating camellia oil is high in anti-oxidants, Omega fatty acids and emollients that keep your skin moisturized and luminous, while combating signs of aging.
Camellia seed oil ✓ is also great for lashes and hair – geisha were known to smooth camellia oil onto their hair combs and regularly comb the nutrient-rich oil on the scalp to keep hair luxurious. It’s seed oil, with a light fresh fragrance; don’t expect it to be flowery.
Or another option is this illuminating anti-oxidant botanical facial oil ✓ filled with protective skin care oils like argan and marula oil, plus rosehip and sweet almond, with orange essential oil – minimizing wrinkles, while hydrating and brightening the complexion.
Conclusion
Natural skin care doesn’t have to be overly time-consuming, expensive or fussy. Pay attention to your inner beauty, and outer beauty will be so much easier to achieve.
Simple, clean and fresh is the way to go. Look to traditional beauty care for inspiration and technique, and incorporate these natural skin care practices into your routine.
And make sure that you are getting the real deal by taking the time to research companies and their practices. Read the fine print and ingredients lists!
There are gorgeous natural products that don’t rely on high energy consumption that are excellent for both the earth and for our own natural beauty. Enjoy trying some of them for glowing skin!
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*This Article First Written: February 21, 2022