The summer may be a time to shine, but the season also poses a threat to the vitality of your skin, hair, and body.

Sun and heat exposure can make your skin flaky and pigmented, your hair dry, and your body sluggish. The following 5 summer tips to keep your skin, hair, and body beautiful are just what you need to keep in mind in battling the season’s elements.

1. Eat and Apply Antioxidants

According to research, antioxidants may very well be your skin’s greatest ally this summer. Antioxidants prevent collagen destruction, inflammation and wrinkles in human skin cells after continued exposure to UV-B, which is the skin-damaging ultraviolet radioactive rays.

You can get antioxidants from foods or from a topical solution. High antioxidant foods include berries, broccoli, garlic, green tea and tomatoes. If buying an over-the-counter topical solution, look for a serum that has a vitamin C content of 5-10 percent. Apply to a freshly washed face before moisturizing.

2. Exfoliate on the Reg

With exposure to the sun comes flaky, sometimes peeling skin. Instead of walking around looking rough and weathered, be sure to exfoliate regularly to remove dead skin cells.

There is no need to buy an exfoliant when you can make one yourself easily and cheaply. Simply brew one green tea pouch in ½ cup of hot tea water and allow the tea to cool. Next, mix 2 tablespoons of the green tea with 2 tablespoons of sugar until combined, and then add 2 more tablespoons of sugar. Lightly rub onto the facial skin, exfoliating and protecting at the same time! Repeat 2-3 times per week.

3. Moisturize with Coconut Oil
 
Just as important as exfoliating to remove dead skin cells and reveal supple, smoother skin is to infuse skin with moisture and protect against the elements. Coconut oil contains lauric acid, a fatty-acid that fights off bacteria and viruses, and contains fats that moisturize and smooth your skin without leaving it sticky or feeling oily.

Virgin coconut oil is also a pure, unadulterated way to protect your skin without the toxins in store-bought moisturizers. Apply a light layer evenly across skin and face after showering. Its unique fat content allows it to withstand high temperatures, and thus fare well on your skin and hair throughout the day without changing chemistry and losing its effect.

4. Hydrate
 
You’ll never hear enough of this summer tip, but it’s always worth a reminder. Hydration is the key to staying energetic, healthy, and agile during the summer months. As the temperatures rise, so too do perspiration and the body’s loss of moisture. Be it through fruits and vegetables, juices and smoothies, or filtered water, choose to consume foods and beverages that have a high water content. In this same vein, limit your intake of dry, dense, sodium-packed foods that leach you of moisture.

5. Lighten the Load

It’s easier to get away with thick foundations and creamy lipsticks, blushes and eyeliners in the fall and winter months, but the summer heat can turn an otherwise flattering makeup job into a sticky, suffocating, acne-causing situation. With the heat, the face’s pores open up and are more receptive to whatever is applied on the skin. Foundations and creams can clog pores and cause acne. Instead, stick to a light, all-natural tinted products and let the sun slightly tint your skin tone and deem bronzers, blush, and other make-up essentials less necessary.

Photo Credit: Katerha

The post 5 Summer Tips to Keep Your Skin, Hair, and Body Beautiful appeared first on EcoSalon.

Remember the teen years, when chocolate meant sugar meant zits meant caked-on cover-up? Get ready to laugh in chocolate’s face, (and then consume it wildly like some mythical monster out of Lord of the Rings.) Now chocolate (can be) good for us! Okay, perchance not in the way of Willy Wonka-style gorge-fests swimming in chocolate lakes or stuffing éclairs down our throats. But the sweet stuff is better for your skin than you may think.

And why is chocolate awesome, besides the fact that it’s a scientific fact that women who consume it regularly have a better sex life? One study showed that women who ate chocolate had “the highest levels of desire, arousal and satisfaction from sex.” (In your face, broccoli!) But as any nutritionist will tell you, dark chocolate is stocked full of antioxidants that are great for your skin. And the darker the chocolate, the higher the levels of the good stuff. This means you have to chow down on the dark stuff – as in, 35 percent cocoa – to get the benefits. Unfortunately, the only benefits milk or white chocolate are going to give you is a sugar high.

So why is dark chocolate so magical? First, the nutritional aspects of chocolate are going to rock your skin. Its high levels of antioxidants help to protect your skin’s collagen, which will help to keep you looking younger, sweeter, and healthier. Mauro Serafini, PhD, works with Italy’s National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research in Rome. As Dr. Serafini reports, “antioxidants gobble up free radicals, destructive molecules that are implicated in heart disease and other ailments.”

Second, you don’t have to actually eat it to get the benefits. (Though, of course, why wouldn’t you?) Chocolate contains cocoa butter, which is extremely softening to the skin and can be an effective anti-inflammatory. Some chocolates contain Shea butter, which is also a great moisturizer. Another study showed the topical application of cocoa plant extracts prevented wrinkles from forming in lab rats exposed to ultraviolet light.

This means one thing – we can smear chocolate all over our faces and justify it in the name of beauty, not because we’re having some kind of weird Joan Crawford-style breakdown! Check out this fun recipe for a chocolate facial which is softening and exfoliating.

One organic dark chocolate bar (Make sure it is at least 35 percent cocoa.)
5 tablespoons of salt
2 tablespoons of oatmeal
1/5 cup organic milk

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, letting it cool until it is pleasantly warm. Mix salt and milk in another bowl. Combine all ingredients. Work into your face with circular motions, allowing it to harden. Turn on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory while resisting the urge to eat your face. Wash off with warm water.

Image: peter pearson

The post Improve Your Sex Life <em>and</em> Beautify Your Skin with Chocolate? appeared first on EcoSalon.