Anti-aging skincare that works

1. A natural approach, I love Coffee & C-Ex serums.
2. Beauty counter’s anti-aging collection (Skincare Routine: specialized ingredients for supercharged skincare) is excellent for a safe yet traditional scientific approach.
3. Don’t forget that FOOD matters!

THE DETAILS:

FYI, when it comes to aging, we only grow more gorgeous as we journey through life. We are all beautiful, and life experiences make us more so.

When I say that premature aging makes me mad, what I’m talking about is SKIN DAMAGE. The kind of damage that gets progressively worse over time.

Damaged skin is less healthy and more prone to further damage. That makes me mad.

Whether that damage results from unknowingly using damaging, stripping skincare products OR from careless sun exposure or the wrong sun protection when we were young (interesting note: certain types of sun protection can actually make skin damage worse—check out my book Eat the Yolks for a detailed explanation), it stinks.

Unfortunately, it often takes some very targeted skincare and other nourishing strategies to turn back the clock.

First of all, we need skincare products that work.

For a long time, I’ve been praising Primal Life Organics. Their products are based on natural oils and extracts, with no irritating synthetics or weird gunk. I’ve collaborated with them on a vitamin C serum called C-Ex that has gotten amazing reviews.

Recently, I also discovered that their coffee bean serum is INCREDIBLY incredible—so much so that they put together a “revival package” based on it and C-Ex!

I use this combo daily: Coffee in the morning and C-Ex at night.

The coffee bean serum helps boost circulation, giving skin a healthier glow; the C-Ex adds softness and fights damage with nourishing oils. (All you need is about three drops of each.)

Now, I recognize that many people want to combine a few natural approaches (like the above) with a more conventional skincare approach OR aren’t interested in a natural approach. I get it.

See, I learned from many years of using my Nutritional Therapy practice to help people improve their skin that sometimes, my clients just didn’t want to use oils, apple cider vinegar, clay, baking soda, and what my husband affectionately calls “Birkenstock skincare.”

But since I Anti-aging skincare firmly believe that what we put on our skin should be as clean, crap-free, and safe as what we eat, we can all agree that using safe and effective products is the key to anti-aging skincare.

I’ve been talking about Beautycounter a lot lately, and for good reason: they’re the line I wanted to design myself.

In looking for a perfect balance of science, natural active ingredients, and effectiveness for my clients, I decided that I would be the one to create it for them!

I wanted to design a line using well-studied, effective, and safe ingredients, knowing that science can give our favorite powerful natural actives an extra boost.

Well, life got in the way – we moved, bought a farm, had a baby, yadda…and in the interim, Beautycounter beat me to it! (And probably did a better job than I could have – their founders are super experienced professionals in the makeup and science realm.)

Safety and effectiveness are what matter most to me, and they are what matter most to Beautycounter as well. They only use ingredients that have been tested for safety (because not all non-natural ingredients are “bad.”)

Therefore, I’ve added Beautycounter to my list of recommendations, including their anti-aging line.

It gets rave reviews from my anti-aging skincare expert!

My mom isn’t a product junkie, so it’s not easy to convince her to try new things.

But she knows I’m obsessed with ingredients like

1. vitamin C,
2. calendula,
3. ginger root,
4. sweet almond oil,
5. Algae extracts (celebrities LOVE their marine extracts), and
6. Circulation-boosting caffeine.

So, when I tell her to try something, she tries it.

(And when I tell her to become a Beautycounter Consultant because she’ll WANT to use the products, she does that too! Love you, mom!)

Of the entire Beautycounter anti-aging collection, the toner pads top her list due to the following:

1. The fruit acids (I LOVE fruit acids!), which help sticky skin cells exfoliate naturally without harsh scrubbing;
2. The vitamin C-based antioxidant helps reduce the appearance of fine lines;
3. The marine extract (an ingredient I have always loved and found massively anti-inflammatory) which helps even skin tone

Even better? Beautycounter has clinically tested its line for effectiveness. You can find the results on each product’s page.

The rest of the products in the full anti-aging collection are available here. (All items can also be bought individually.)

The final Anti-aging skincare that works key: Nutrition!

And since we can’t forget that our skin renews itself using the nutrients we eat, too, it’s often true that what we eat (or, more importantly, what we DON’T eat) impacts our skin even more than what we use topically.

Here are a few things I’ve done to improve my skin at the EROME:

1. I eliminated the use of all common industrial vegetable oils, which likely contribute to skin ageing by increasing inflammation and making the skin weaker and more vulnerable.
2. I stopped eating all processed and refined grains – think most bread, pasta, pastries, etc. (I will have a bit of well-made, often Einkorn grain or Spelt-based bread or pasta now and then, though. Quality is key.)
3. I eat coconut oil, ghee, and real butter because they contain more stable fatty acids that make my skin supple.
4. I drink warm lemon water with freshly grated ginger (sometimes with added collagen peptides) to make my skin glow.
5. I eat the WHOLE EGG – yup, the whole yolk too – because yolks have vitamin A, which the skin needs to renew.
6. I supplement with Magnesium Taurate and concentrate trace mineral drops to ensure my skin cells’ motors run at a youthful speed.