Natural ways to have your skin glow

It is every woman’s dream to have a healthy glowing skin. More than a great wardrobe or a skilled hand with make-up, glowing skin turns heads.

Just ask any woman with flawless skin about their experience. Such a woman will regularly get stopped by strangers complimenting her on her seemingly pore-less, lit-from-within complexion. Many women will do anything to get this skin, even going as far as bleaching to get a fairer, glowing complexion. And yet, it is possible to get and maintain a beautiful skin, naturally. It is easy and only requires a little patience.

Understand your skin type
“It is always better to know your skin type before applying anything on it,” says Julie Katalemwa, a skin specialist, health and beauty consultant, at Faibaah Plaza, basement shop No 12. Using homemade facials and scrubs like milk, gram flour and sugar are good because they cost less yet very effective.

Things like honey, eggs, milk, turmeric, onions, water, tealeaves and fruits, like avocado, pawpaw, water melon, and yellow bananas, can be added to the homemade masks. These can be applied weekly but at least eat one or two of the fruits every day.

How to use home-made treatments
When using avocado, the specialist says that it is better to mix it with honey and -apply it for about 20 to 30 minutes. She cautions against using harsh soaps, say soap when cleansing for it might burn the skin. “Medicated and Aloe Vera soaps are the best type to be used when cleansing, they protect the skin from wearing out so quickly. However, one can make her own herbal cleanser from tealeaves, a bit of ginger, garlic and honey.

Katalemwa says different people have different skin types that are worked on differently. With an oily skin, she says, one needs to use a moisturising cleanser every day to remove the oil and clear. This prevents it from becoming rough with rashes and pimples. One with a dry skin needs to use it once a week.

“Boil the ginger, tea leaves and garlic. Use a filter in a clean container to get clear water, and then mix it with honey. This helps to remove dirt and oil from the skin. It is better to use cotton wool when cleansing than a piece of cloth,” she says. Katalemwa talks of lemon cleanser andI- water(a form of cleancer) that softens and glows the skin. “I-water is first boiled then put a machine to purify it; it can only be got from beauty shops or skin clinics,”

Be diet conscious
Before thinking of using things like spot removers, anti-aging creams among others, to beautify your skin, Twaha Rwegyema, a nutritionist at the Ministry of Health, says one should think of what she eats because this brings about an aged or young appearance.

“Diet plays a vital role in keeping the skin beautiful. When one eats lots of refined sugars, white flour and takes many aerated drinks, they will develop wrinkles, blotches and skin patches,” he says. He adds that eating a proper and healthy diet is the first step to take towards getting a beautiful natural skin.

Rwegyema gives out tips on how to have a glowing natural beautiful skin

Use foods that are rich in proteins, it is because lack of proteins makes the skin dull. Things like soya beans, milk, cottage cheese, eggs and chicken are rich sources of proteins.

Eat fruits like apples and vegetables like cucumbers and tomatoes that have fibre content. Fibres are very important for the skin because they help to keep the skin glossy and beautiful. Such fruits should be eaten unpeeled so as to keep the fibre.

Eat vitamin rich foods because vitamins help to make the skin striking. For example, Vitamin A prevents spots, repairs the damaged tissues, helps in detoxification of toxins from the body and also delays wrinkles. Sources of Vitamin A include; eggs, milk, sweet potatoes, papayas, apricots and peaches, among others.

For vitamin B, it helps in maintaining a healthy skin tone. This vitamin can be got from fresh fruits, vegetables, milk, fish, cereals and grains. Vitamin C helps in reducing wrinkles, age spots and improving blood circulation. It can be found in citrus fruits and tomatoes.

The nutritionist however adds that, yoghurt; dairy products and other healthy food items should be consumed daily to help the body function well. “A healthy body comes along with a beautiful skin” he says.

ckatende@ug.nationmedia.com