Just like you, your skin needs healthy boundaries to live its best life
Your skin is your largest organ, wrapping you in multiple tissue paper-like layers. Amazingly, these fine layers are strong enough to protect you and complex enough to perform important physical, metabolic, and immune functions. Without the barrier provided by your outer layer of skin, you’d be at unmitigated risk from the elements. Getting plenty of good, undamaged fats helps maintain your skin’s healthy boundaries; they support your skin barrier to protect your inner resources and keep pollutants out.
The primary biological functions of your skin
Skin actively gathers sensory info from the environment, assists your immune response, regulates body temperature, and protects you. Not having this boundary between you and your environment would leave you vulnerable to the harmful effects of toxic substances and pathogenic microorganisms encountered in water, air, clothing, and elsewhere. The most external layer, called the stratum corneum, has tough cells called corneocytes which do this job well. They depend on fatty lipids to bind them together to maintain the natural integrity of the body’s perimeter and provide a beautiful and pleasantly smooth texture.
The lipids in your epidermis
The lipid substance in your skin’s outer layer is made up of fatty acids, ceramides, and cholesterol. Because the lipids also act as moisture retainers, you could be prone to dehydration without this barrier, as your body’s water could evaporate uncontrollably. Luckily, both maintaining and boosting the amount of water and lipids in the skin is possible. It is proven that the composition of your skin’s lipid layer can be significantly modified by your diet. And your skin may be asking for an “oil change,” so to speak.
First: fat quantity
People don’t get enough healthy oil. As a nutritionist, I’ve seen low-fat diets lead to worn-out-looking skin. That’s a shame since beautiful, healthy, soft, smooth, comfortable skin feels good and is attractive and appealing for people of any gender, color, or age. Fat is important to your skin’s ability to synthesize or modify immune compounds, fatty acids, collagen, cholesterol, and ceramides. If you don’t absorb fat, you risk vitamin D deficiency. Fat improves our absorption of vitamins A and E, key nutrients for glowing skin, and carotenoids, which protect your skin from the damaging effects of the sun.
Next: oil type
Studies show the quantity and type of dietary fats you ingest affects the makeup of the stratum corneum layer and how it behaves. Oil with essential fatty acids (EFAs) is crucial. As we know, EFAs are called essential because they’re needed for basic body functions just like essential vitamins or minerals. EFAs must be obtained from your diet, but marketing makes people confused about which fats are essential. While getting DHA, EPA, GLA, or monounsaturates from olive oil or other sources is good, they are not essential. Unlike these fatty acids, truly essential fatty acids are used by every cell.
Our skin needs ALA and LA – the essential fatty acids (EFAs)
Your skin adapts to inputs from your food and environment. EFAs help each cell to be healthy and provide cellular energy. ALA, an Omega-3 fatty acid, helps your skin respond in a healthy way to sun exposure. This fatty acid, found in sources like flax oil and sacha inchi oil is one that every human being needs to get. And since a couple of spoons of Udo’s Omega 3+6+9 Oil (Udo’s Oil, as it is affectionately called) from Flora provides plenty of every fatty acid you need, it is easy to take care of this requirement. Udo’s DHA 3+6+9 oil also works and has added GLA and DHA, which is a bonus.
Make good choices
If you appreciate your skin and consider how it is affected, you may choose to phase out unsafe toiletry and beauty products. You may drink enough clean water and stop frying your food (both to avoid eating damaged oils and to avoid breathing in the toxic fumes created by frying). You may reduce commercial foods with glucose and fructose, which create glycation and stop collagen from working, eating fresh, vitamin- and antioxidant-rich plants to help you meet the assault from pollution. If you take these steps, and still have dry skin, maybe you’ve forgotten to use skin-healthy oils at meals.
Say bye-bye to dry
Udo Erasmus, the formulator of Udo’s Oil, explains that dry skin reliably indicates a lack of essential fats. Whatever you eat goes to your vital organs first to ensure survival, which means skin gets them last! Anytime you have dry skin anywhere, especially if you know you’re drinking plenty of water, think of taking a greater amount of omega 3s and 6s. Their moisturizing properties reduce dryness and flakiness and protect from irritation. Try consuming them daily for 30 days! Your skin may be more beautiful and softer than ever!
Protect your face
Fats damaged by chemical processing, hydrogenation, or frying are a big insult to your skin. If you eat damaged fats, your skin is likely to look damaged too. Other factors that affect the skins’ condition include topical products, smoking and vaping, the bacteria in your gut, and exposure to the elements. Elements include not only the aging forces of sun, wind, and outdoor pollution but also cooking fumes and mold in the house. Of course, the food and water you ingest impact your gut and skin. Getting the essential fatty acids you need is a beautiful idea because it is an aspect that you have control over.
The other golden ratio
The omega 3-to-6 ratio in Udo’s Oil is considered ideal. This is important since Purdue University found that the right ratio improves collagen formation and quality. This collagen connection is one reason why EFAs lead to velvety skin, healthy connective tissues (like hair), and fewer signs of aging. They can balance the inflammatory response to reduce the impact of many skin conditions. Choosing to eat undamaged omega-3 fatty acids will help modulate our skin’s UVR-induced inflammatory response to protect against UV sun damage, too.
Make it simple to get what you need
To get all the fatty acids the skin needs, in one place, I love Flora’s Udo’s Choice DHA 3+6+9 Oil. It contains essential fatty acids like LA and ALA, and nonessential but beneficial ones for the skin like GLA and DHA. “Udo’s Oil,” as we call it, was made with health in mind. It contains none of the damaged molecules you want to avoid and all the fatty acids your skin needs and every other cell in your body.
Flora invites you to give your skin an oil change with Udo’s Oil – use promo code OMEGA15 for 15% off at checkout!
