There are an overwhelming number of ways to help beautify your skin, but we're going to tell you about just one of them today – cucumbers. Cucumbers are unique in that they benefit your skin from the outside as well as the inside. Cucumbers have beneficial properties when placed directly on the skin, and when added to your diet, they build healthier skin from the cellular level.
Why are cucumbers so beneficial to the skin? In addition to being about 96% water, cucumbers also contain silica, ascorbic acid, and caffeic acid.
Silica helps in the growth of connective tissues like skin, muscle, and cartilage. Ascorbic and caffeic acids both prevent water retention. And we know that water, the main ingredient in cucumbers, is vital to a healthy body and to life itself. But it is the combination of water and specific minerals in cucumbers that make them even more beneficial to our bodies than regular bottled or tap water.
To use cucumbers externally, cut off a couple slices and lay them over puffy eyes for 5 – 10 minutes. The ascorbic and caffeic acids will help reduce the swelling, plus the cooling feeling of the cucumber slices will relax and refresh you as well.
Cucumbers can help reduce the inflammation associated with other skin problems, too, such as dermatitis or burns.
There are several different recipes on the internet for cucumber facial masks. One simple recipe calls for ½ a cucumber cut into chunks, 1 teaspoon of mint, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, and the white of one egg. Mix them all in a blender and let sit in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes before applying to your face and neck. Because of the lemon juice, avoid getting this too close to your eyes. Wash off after about 15 minutes.
Adding cucumbers to a healthy diet will also help build healthy skin from the inside. As we learned already, the silica will help build healthy connective tissues, making the skin healthier, naturally.
The dark green cucumber skin is full of fiber, which aids in healthy elimination of toxins and waste from the body, too.
You can add cucumbers to your diet in a number of ways. Slice them up and splash with a bit of apple cider vinegar and dash of salt. Or, just sprinkle with a small amount of salt to make the flavor pop. If you prefer to avoid added salt, eat the slices plain, dip into ranch dressing, or cut up liberal amounts into a salad.
You can also make a refreshing cucumber salad with cucumber slices, a few onion slices, and some vinegar, sugar, and dill.
If you make fresh fruit and vegetable juice, add a half or whole cucumber into the mix, depending on how much juice you make. You won't notice much difference in taste, but it's an easy way to eat a good serving of skin-softening nutrients.
Or, you might prefer to try a homemade cucumber salad dressing recipe. A variety of recipes is, of course, available online.
Adding cucumbers as a regular part of your diet will make the skin all over your body healthier, not just your face. And because they're mostly water, they are very low in calories. So the benefit of adding cucumbers as a regular part of your diet is a tasty, inexpensive way to have healthy skin and a healthy body.
Rodger Harrison owns and operates Spring Creek Beauty Supply, an online provider of
salon hair products like
Pureology Shampoo, flat irons, and Matrix hair products.
