The Low-Down on Beautiful Skin

[shelley]

The skin represents what's happening INSIDE the body, not just outside. In fact, the outside is only about 20% of the entire story, the rest is all about the inside - your intestines, the foods you eat, the nutrients you're lacking.

That's why it's nearly pointless to spend tons of money on creams, lotions, soaps. If you have skin eruptions, start cleansing. Start with bowels, then liver, and remember to sweat (cleanse lymphs) frequently. That's your first step, including proper hydration (2 cleansing drinks a day plus plain water, tea, broths, smoothies, freshly squeezed juices...)

So read the FAQ and choose some good blood purifiers, liver cleansing, and follow the basic cleansing/candida/blood type diet until your face and body are clear.

Once you start cleansing, you need to address the deficiencies. The most common deficiencies and safest to supplement are what I call "Skin Food." Skin food is: Vitamin C, all the B's but especially bioton, Iodine (essential for good thyroid function), Vitamin A, Vitamin E, and Zinc.

These can be taken safely at therapeutic values for about 1-2 months, then you'll need a break or take only RDA values. Overdosing on anything, even things that are good for us, is bad. DO NOT take a "one a day" multi-vitamin, or any that claim to give you tons of value in just one pill. They're crap - they just clog up the body with junk and give you expensive urine.

It's best to get these nutrients from SAFE supplements and super-foods. You can get enough iodine, for instance, simply by eaing seafood or sea veggies once a week. See the FAQ for more info on Skin Food and super-foods.

You also need a very strong power of digestion - see the FAQ. Both skin food and digestive power are under VHMSystem. All acne people should take the stomach acid test and supplement digestive enzymes and lecithin.

Acne people need lots of fat busters, which includes some of the B vitamins, plus amino acids (essential proteins, which Nutritional yeast flakes and eggs have) and plant chemicals that you'll get from juicing and whole foods. Blueberries are especially potent.

When you have eruptions, only use cleansers, no moisturizers. Soap is essential for getting oils off the face, and so is best for use at night after your skin is really oily. Use something gentler, like a milk-based cleanser, in the mornings.

Only use lukewarm to warm water unless you plan on doing deep cleansing.

I adore Clinique soap, Dr. Bronner's, and I found Master's Miracle II to be too drying but others have liked it fine.

Witch Hazel is an excellent and cheap toner/astringent and safe and mild antibiotic. Simply apply with a cotton ball.

In dry climates, the best moisturizer is simply pure water with a tiny bit of pure oil, preferably avocado or jojoba. Use a spray bottle and mist your skin several times a day, especially if you're on an airplane. This will keep the body from dehydrating the skin in an effort to conserve fluids during the dry seasons.

Skin Test for nutritional deficiencies and low thyroid: Simply feel the back of your upper arms. The skin should be baby soft. If you feel hard bumps, this means your pores are hardening, a process called keritinization. Keritinization happens when the body doesn't have enough Skin Food, which compromises all your cells. The body tries to make up for the breaches to the integrity of the cells by making them harder, since it can't make them supple like they should be. Supple skin requires good fats. Margarine, canola, any fat that's used to deep-fry apart from grapeseed oil, bottled salad dressings, sauces and marinades, are all bad fats. Avoid them except for rare cheats.

Good fats are: coconut, vegetable, olive, nuts and seeds (except peanut should be limited and used sparingly), cod liver oil, wheat germ oil, and Udo's Choice. DO NOT supplement with fats in pills as they are rancid and bad. Unstable fats like wheat germ should be stored in opaque bottles and in a refrigerator. Your oils will last longer and be healthier if you refrigerated them.

Flax seed oil has gotten very popular, but because of its propensity to inhibit the thyroid it should only be used in conjunction with other fats like Udo's Choice.

My skin regimen is pretty simple: wash with soap once or twice a day depending on how much I've sweated (showers count). Once or twice a week I do a cleansing mask of either clay or fruit enzymes. I don't need to do many nourishing masks because I get it within my diet. I have a special tool for extracting whiteheads.

I've made a point of finding very cheap and easy to find products that got great reviews and trying them. For instance, Queen Helene's Mint Julep clay mask is really excellent. I'll work up a list - everyone feel free to share whichever products are good and worth the bucks.

I often need to use exfolliates to get off the dead skin layer. The cheapest exfolliate is baking soda. Works great. Fruit enzymes are also wonderful. A combo of both works pretty good - recipes to follow in another post.

Mostly what I want people to understand from this post is you don't have to take Accutane, antibiotics, or forever give up chocolate to have beautiful skin - you just have to take care of your liver and bowels and limit your chocolate binges until you are properly nourished and digestion is strong. This is what a doctor will not tell you - your skin is ugly because your digestive power is low. NOTHING you are eating is getting broken down into small enough bits. These large bits are now toxins that clog up your tongue, intestines, making their way into your blood, and the body tries to deal with them by exiting through the skin because your regular exit paths (bowels and kidneys) are overwhelmed.

Skin is only meant to exit sweat and miniscule minerals and salts and some fat-soluble toxins like pesticides. If you do not sweat enough, they won't exit fast enough and will cause irritationn which leads to swelling/eruptions/infectious matter. It's that simple!

So the way to beautiful skin is to have good digestive power and a diet that has more nutritional foods and fewer junk foods. There's no cheating on this. The common work arounds like Accutane and antibiotics just cause more problems further on because they demand that your liver and kidneys do even more work.

The other thing acne people need to understand is the difference between the types of skin eruptions, but that's another post.

Hope that helps!

[J F]

Such as I know when my face pimples are from clogged liver vs. too much soy or iodine. If it's iodine, I'll get a small cluster of little bumps beneath the skin that don't have white puss in them. When it's soy, which usually occurs when I'm also having an iodine issue (too much fun at the sushi bar.....sigh.....the sake made me do it. it's not my fault. blame the sake.), I'll get similar bumps but all across my forehead.

If I have had too many berries and peppers and other phenol foods without getting enough sulfates to exit them fast enough from my body, or I don't get enough cardio exercise to deal with them, I get eruptions along my neck and jawline where the lymph paths are. Those start out as big red painful bumps and can then turn to big red painful bumps with whiteheads attached if I do too much with the berries and the liver stress starts to compromise my digestive system. Tres chic.

If I get a batch of whiteheads on my forehead, I have to fess up to too many cheats with bad fats and refined breads or starches and not enough healthy foods or trips to the veggie juice machine. I have only myself to blame for this, but DAMN if that teriyaki burger and chili-cheese fries with chocolate milkshake chaser wasn't tasty!!!!!! And, actually, sometimes it's just a matter of too many rebuilding foods and not enough in between breaks with cleansing veggies and fruits. You can OD on the good stuff, too.

But, like Shelley said, that's for another post........

(mmmm......cheeeeseburger)

[h0ppy]

Another tip I should add to Shelley's terrific post, is that in my experience, getting to bed and falling alseep by at least 12pm is really important for clear skin (and better health in general). One reason is that staying up late all the time will screw up your digestion. We're normally supposed to have a BM after we eat breakfast, but if you make a habit of sleeping in, all that crap will be sitting inside you. I also believe your liver is most active between 1-3am.

They don't call it beauty sleep for nothin'!

[Hope]

Shelley,

Is there a milk-based cleanser that you can recommend? I saw a recipe that uses 1/2 c. yogurt and 1/2 t. honey; leave it on for 2-3 min., then wash off with cold water. I've also tried using dry milk powder mixed with water as a cleanser in the past---but it was SO messy. I may try the yogurt one, but that'll be hard to do when travelling. Is there anything out on the market that's any good?

Hope

[shelley]

I like the sort-of milk based (white and creamy anyway) Clinique cleanser for sensitive skin. When traveling go for convenience!

[Hope]

Hey Shelley!

Is this the one you're talking about?

http://www.clinique.com/templates/products/sp_nonshaded.tmpl?CATEGORY_ID=CATEGORY4916&PRODUCT_ID=PROD10558

Thanks! Hope