What no one tells you about skin care in perimenopause and menopause?
The miracle cream that will erase your wrinkles. Or Better than Botox. The secret to beautiful skin after 50. Nobel Prize Winner Technology in skin care. You, like me, probably have read them all and more, much more.
There are so many creams, potions, procedures and supplements promising us youth in a bottle, an injection, procedure or a pill. If they would work, we will not have wrinkles anymore. So is there a secret to beautiful, healthy skin at 50, during menopause and perimenopause? The pill is the closest from all those promises, the reason is that the secret is our hormones.
The supple, radiant skin that we had in our younger years depends greatly on our hormones.
The cream can put moisture, the procedure can force the skin to generate collagen and a more radical procedure can lift and iron out wrinkles, but the overall effect won’t give you beautiful skin. And, beautiful skin can make you look younger and prettier even with wrinkles and flaccidity. Beautiful skin has a characteristic called radiance. Radiance can go away during perimenopause and menopause. In Ayurveda, radiance is part of something called ojas and it means live, healthy tissues.
Skin radiance comes from our hormones and health. It is affected by emotions.
Have you seen the face of a bride? Happiness is visible. Audrey Hepburn was right:
Happy girls are the prettiest
If your estrogen is out of balance in earlier years then the skin maybe oily. Hormones out of balance in midlife in perimenopause or menopause can cause skin dryness, lack of luster, loss of volume and in some people, very reactive skin (that’s me). If the person has estrogen dominance, the skin is going to be oily. If your hormones, especially estrogen and T3, are not balanced your creams and treatments are not going to be as effective.
If your liver is not working properly you may develop allergies, redness, discolored patches, etc. A lower thyroid functions will bring dryness, hair loss and eye brow hair loss.
How do you get radiance?
Well, this is part of what a healthy lifestyle with low stress, good nutrients and happiness brings to your life. There are a few things you can do.
The main thing is to try to balance your hormones. This is a big topic and one of the main topics of this blog. In short, in order to balance our hormones we need to:
- Eat enough good fat
- Eat a diet rich in nutrients
- Lower stress
- Consume a low glycemic diet (low sugar)
- Sleep
- Eat a natural diet
- Make sure you are having all the minerals your body needs
- Be happy. Make yourself happy. Happiness is an attitude; it comes from within us, not from the exterior.
If you would like to know more about how to balance your hormones with lifestyle changes read here about my program BLISS in menopause
Help your organs
We also need to help our liver and adrenals. The liver and adrenals are going to help the thyroid and are going to help us have more available estrogen, our own estrogen.
The type of nutrition above will help you liver and adrenals. In some cases, we need to take supplements after a period of neglect. That is what I did and worked out very well for me. I will include a link to the products I took. If the imbalance is deeper, you need to go to a practitioner. I recommend an Ayurveda or functional medicine practitioner. The solutions for hormonal balance don’t give immediate results, you may need months before you see results, but the results are great if you keep trying.
Other tips for healthy skin
Follow a simple skin care routine. It should include cleansing, moisturizing and exfoliation once or twice a week.
Use a star ingredient or a few of them. You don’t have to become an expert or a junkie. Certainly you don’t need to use expensive products. I will be publishing a series of articles on this topic. Star ingredients are retinol, alpha and beta hydroxy acids and many more.
Don’t overexpose to the sun
I am not saying always use sunblock. Use a safe sunscreen when you are going to expose yourself for longer periods of time. But mostly use common sense, wear hats, stay indoors at the time the sun is stronger, don’t tan, etc.
Take more precautions when you abruptly change to a different weather. For example, if you live in a cold place and take a winter vacation in the Caribbean. These changes are more damaging to the skin.
If you eat healthy your skin is more resilient and the sun causes less damage.
These are the products I used. These are affiliate links:
Adrenal Health – To support the adrenal glands
Liver support