Ayurveda: How to Use Skincare as Skin Food

Here’s one of my secrets (I call them “skinsights TM”) that really seems to help my clients so I want to share it with you. This really helps people understand their skin a lot better.

When you’re confused about what to use on your face, or why your skin is reacting a certain way to a certain skincare regimen, or what to do next, consider:

Think of skincare as skin food.

Next: imagine how the body would react if that food equivalent was administered to it.

Here are some scenarios that will illustrate this concept so you can begin to use it as a tool:

 1) Simple, small meals

Can’t go wrong here. Ayurveda detoxes often involve a mono-diet of kitchari which is a tried and tested combo of foods that digest easily, mix well, and help improve digestion and elimination. Furthermore, the rule for eating in Ayurveda is at any meal fill 1/3 of the belly with food, 1/3 with water and leave 1/3 for digestion space.

Are your skincare meals small and simple or are you overloading the skin with too many things, layers, products? Skin has to process, ie, digest, the stuff we put on it. Less is more. Give your skin some digesting space, and make sure you are facilitating digestion with easy-to-digest products. { Aside: plant oils and butters are one of the easiest things for skin to eat! }

2) Whole foods

Whole foods are foods that have been minimally processed. Unfortunately, most foods these days have been processed quite a bit. If you think about it, even grinding hamburger meat is a type of processing. Tofu is processed soy beans. Bread has absolutely been processed, and so forth. Processing, simply put, destroys nutritional value. Nutrients and enzymes that we think we are eating, have long since been rendered ineffective through the trauma of heat or chemical additives or time.

In skincare food land, the equivalent is using refined oils and lotions that contain lots of fillers, preservatives, chemical actives and emulsifying agents. Refined oils have been treated with heat and chemicals to remove taste, smell, color or all of these things. Unfortunately, as with food, the more taste and color something has, the more nutrients it has as well. Refining can also change texture, turning something that was previously non-comedogenic into something that clogs pores.

In my personal experience, the difference between unrefined organic grapeseed oil and refined non-organic grapeseed oil is extreme. The former absorbs into skin easily, the latter sits on the surface of the skin no matter how little of it you use. Skin can tell what it wants to eat!

When a lotion is emulsified (all lotions are mixtures of water and oil and actives. In order to keep the water and oil from separating an emulsifier is used. But then a stabilizer must be added. All of this dilutes the product and increases the risk of pores clogging) heat and high rotation blending are very often used. This creates another opportunity to damage our skin food and kill nutrients.

Vitamin C in particular is particularly heat sensitive and exposed to heat or refining is useless. Our guava seed oil (used in Clear Resolution and Unveiling Fluid) has very high amounts of vitamin C (0ver 20x the amount in citrus fruits), is completely organic and cold-pressed and is never exposed to heat higher than that of a sunny summer day, so you can be sure it is bioavailable for your hungry skin.

My interpretation of whole skin foods is keeping liquids and oils separate, thereby negating the need for all the stabilizers and emulsifiers and undue processing. This is why my serums and balms are entirely lipid-based and my absorbing fluids are how skin gets water-soluble food.

Keep it pure.

3) Fasts for cleansing

In Ayurveda, it is recommended to do a seasonal cleanse called Pancha Karma. Part of this detox involves fasting. Fasting helps the digestive system, the hormones, the liver, all the numerous constituents involved in the complicated process of metabolizing REST. Rest is important. It allows for rejuvenation and repair. So is trusting the wisdom of body and its processes. The body is meant to be a self-healing organism. And that includes our skin.

This may blow your mind, but skin knows when it is out of balance and WANTS TO HEAL and rest, and repair and rejuvenate!

You may have heard of the caveman regimen. It sounds extreme but you guys, DO IT. It is skin (and life) changing. It is basically where you just throw all caution to the wind and trust Nature. You stop doing anything to your face – no products, no cleansing, and for the super extremists, no water (people bathe instead of shower). And at first you freak out, and there is some “interestingness” as the skin rebalances.

If you are brave and persistant and make it through that initial awkward, scary phase of feeling naked and dirty all at once, you see gorgeous, balanced, calm skin. And you realize how much time and money you could save…. And you realize how easy it is to fuss your skin with too much and too harsh skin products….

4) Nutrient dense vs. Nutrient poor

I’m just going to blatantly copy a bit from my bio here so sorry if this seems sale-sy:

If you think about it in terms of food, it’s as if before you were putting white bread and pizza on your face. I mean, if you are what you eat, same probably goes for your skin, right? Seriously, even the most expensive, conventional skincare (even prescription!) only has 2-3 actives at most, and if you’re very lucky, they comprise maybe 10% of the overall formulation. In contrast, moss is like a fabulous organic kale salad with goji berries, bee pollen, hemp hearts, etc, etc.

moss contains soooo much life and nutrition for your skin – 100% in fact. We are completely free of any non-active ingredients. Every formulation contains only ethically sourced, organic (if possible), raw, clinical and food-grade ingredients of the highest quality which actively contribute to the synergy and efficacy of the product. And the diversity of vitamins and healing compounds in even a single {cold-pressed, unrefined} oil is astounding.

What’s more is that all of these nutrients in plants are actually bioavailable! That means our skin can actually absorb and use them. Most conventional skincare “actives” are actually unable to penetrate the skin and uselessly remain on the surface. Organic and natural has a reputation of being less “powerful” than conventional (and maybe that’s true for household cleaners) but for skincare the exact opposite is true.

5) Food Combining

In Ayurveda there are all sorts of rules for which foods can be combined and which can’t. Some of them are obvious and some of them, for lack of a better way to express myself, are poetic.

Like for example, it is medicinal to mix ghee (clarified butter) and honey, but it is very bad to mix them in equal quantities, 50/50. It should either be 30/70 or 70/30, at least. Also, it is bad to eat dairy and meat in the same meal…hello, cheeseburger…bye, cheeseburger…. It is also contraindicated to eat grains and meat at the same time. Meat in general is discouraged because it is believed that food carries the feelings it was prepared with. So meat, naturally carries fear and violence. The largest meal should be the noon meal – and so on.

Skin food is the same. We are taught to use heavy or exfoliative products at night. Sun protection during the day. Lighter makeup during summer. Heavier makeup for fall.

Ingredients should all synergize well, and so should products, if you’re putting multiple products on your skin.

Some things to consider: Be careful if you’re putting multiple products on your face and they all contain essential oils. EOs are very strong and must be applied in proper dilution. Other products lose their efficacy if they are diluted and you might as well not have applied them at all!

Luckily, if you’re using natural skincare, you can afford to be a lot less careful, because happily, most natual products do not negatively affect each other. The exception is exfoliants and acne remedies. Very important to not over or under do it with these two categories. Under-do = useless, over-do = harmful.

I make sure all of my products are balanced and offer multiple benefits, so the need to apply multiple products is lessened. For instance, all of moss‘s anti-acne products also have profound anti-aging benefits as well.

6) Eat for the season

Ayurveda recognizes three seasons, and in each one a different dosha is at particular risk for getting unbalanced. People whose prakritis (individual constitutions) are bi-doshal, are encouraged to eat to balance different doshas depending on the season.

So also our skin may have different food needs depending on the season. In general, in the winter the skin is drier and more devitalized, in the summer the skin is oilier and in the spring the skin is fussy and sensitive.

So don’t be alarmed if something that was great for your skin in the winter starts to appear less awesome come spring. The trick is to make no drastic changes, but gently and ever so slightly adjust the skin food until a new balance is found.

Sorry to keep referencing moss, but as another example – all of my products are made to be blended with each other, which is another reason I’m so into anointing bowls. If you own multiple moss oils/products, you can always blend them drop by drop in an anointing bowl to create your custom seasonal skincare. Here are some examples using Clear Resolution as our base:

Winter: Blend CR with Renewal Matrix and Salvation for richer nourishment.

Spring: Blend CR with Clean Canvas and/or Salvation for allergy and irritation reduction and use Floral Waters instead of Nutrient Synergist.

Summer: Blend CR with a drop of Souffle de Rose, or use an absorbing fluid to help spread a smaller amount of oil than normal on the skin, for lighter coverage.

7) Food carries feelings

This might be the most important insight of all. In Ayurveda, there are several beautiful guidelines surrounding this. One is to only let someone who loves you cook for you. Because food absorbs feelings. If someone prepares your meal hastily, without care, that energy gets transmuted into the food and into your body. That is why meat is not generally recommended – because it inherently carries fear and violence, no matter how humanely it was butchered. Another beautiful rule is to prepare the mind before you sit and eat. It is bad to eat in anger, distraction, sorrow or haste. In fact, until your emotions stabilize, it is advised to fast.

If there is one thing, ONE THING, for you to take away here it is that emotions carry energy. How many times have you (me too!) applied some medicinal, chalky cream with desperation and frustration? How many times have you furiously scrubbed at your face, as though you could rinse it completely off and begin anew? How many times have you gone through your entire skincare routine mindlessly or hastily or with your head full of thoughts about how bad your skin looks?

Your skin is your skin. It is your one and only skin. You must learn to love it now, without waiting for some future day of magical beauty.

Love is the most powerful and important medicine for your skin.

That is why I try VERY hard to make all moss products absolutely beautiful. I prepare them in peace and meditation for your healing. I try very hard to get the ingredients and the aromas and the feel absolutely perfect. I want you to feel happy as you apply moss. Because then the food your skin eats is happy food. And happy skin food turns into happy skin.

So, yes, some food for thought here. Lol! 😉 Hope you enjoyed.

As always, in bliss (and now you see why I say this), beauty (it is in you NOW, I promise) and awe of Nature (my muse and idol),

xx

Celestyna