Hey – Who wants a cocktail!!?? Don’t you love hearing that question? Me too! Especially when it’s been a really long week, or it’s the holiday season and you’re just in da moooooood! Truthfully – I’m not a big drinker, but I for sure love my martini’s on date night. Oliver says they make me more fun. Yeah, I’ll bet.
Anyway, let’s talk alcohol and SKIN, shall we? Here’s the deal – Not to be a buzzkill (which of course means, I’m about to be a buzzkill), but in a perfect world we wouldn’t drink alcohol at all. It’s damaging to the body and to the skin. Truth.
Whether you drink in moderation, which is considered 1 drink a day for women, or drink heavily – which is considered 8 drinks a week for women, (yikes!) – the fact of the matter is that over time, consistently sipping away can silently wreak havoc on our skin.
That aside – let’s be real. Most of us are going to have a cocktail every once in a while. We just are. So for me, it’s all about having full knowledge and awareness of the effects alcohol has on our skin, and having solutions that can somewhat mitigate the effects.
4 Ways Alcohol Ages Your Skin
…And what you can do about it
1. It Dehydrates Your Skin
No big surprise here – alcohol is a diuretic, which is why we’re bee-lining it to the ladies room every 20-minutes! Alcohol causes our body to flush out water at an increased rate – dehydrating our skin, zapping it of moisture. That’s why the day after a night out, skin looks dull and lackluster. It’s dehydrated!
What to do:
No kidding – Drink a glass of water in between each cocktail. I know, I know – it’s pretty much the equivalent of your mom telling you to “have an apple” instead of a cookie, but believe me – it does help to keep your skin hydrated.
Yes, you’ll make more restroom trips (I hate the word “pee”) – but your skin will appreciate it and it’ll help to avoid that awful next-day headache.
Drink a glass of water in between each cocktail to keep skin hydrated and avoid a next-day headache. I like having sparkling water with a squeeze of lime. It does help!
2. It Ages Your Skin
Even moderate drinking can cause undereye puffiness, reduced facial volume & dull dehydrated skin. Heavy drinking (8 or more drinks a week), rears its ugly head in the form of: Broken Blood Vessels, Puffiness under the Eyes and throughout the face, Deeper Wrinkles and Fine Lines, Dehydrated Dull Skin.
2 Things You Can Do:
1. Hydrate on the daily
First, drinking (8) glasses of H20 as part of your daily lifestyle, will really help with skin hydration. It won’t undo all of the damage that regular drinking has on your skin – but it will help.
2. Use a Water-Binding Serum
Second, to combat dehydration – integrate a hydrating, water-binding serum like PCA’s Hyaluronic Acid Boosting Serum, into your daily skin care routine. This hydrating serum was the “2018 Cosmopolitan Beauty Award for Best Hydrating Serum.”
PCA’s Hyaluronic Acid Boosting Serum earned the 2018 Cosmopolitan Beauty Award for Best Hydrating Serum.
3. It Leaves Skin More Vulnerable to Sun Damage
Bummer. A glass of wine poolside is just soooooo relaxing, but drinking can make our skin more vulnerable to damage from UV rays, and can cause our skin to burn more easily. Translation: Sun damage. You’ll want to make a good SPF a regular part of your skincare routine year round. Even on cloudy, cold days – UV rays are still present – so SPF up!
My go-to daily SPF is Supergoop! Unseen Sunscreen. It is invisible, weightless and quickly absorbs into the skin. It works perfectly under my make-up. It’s not greasy or heavy.
4. It Inflames Your Skin
Alcohol is an inflammatory. Translation: It agitates the crap out of your skin, showing itself in the form of puffy, bloated eyes and face.
2 Things You Can Do
1. Choose Clear Alcohol
As a general rule of thumb, the Clearer the Better. Clear alcohol has the fewest ingredients and moves through your body the quickest, making it one of the best choices in terms of your skin. That means vodka, gin or tequila.
2. Re-Think Your Mixers
A lot of mixers are filled with sugar. Combining sugar and alcohol is a double-whammy for your skin, because both are damaging and inflammatory to the skin. Instead, mix with flavored sparkling waters (sugar free obvi), or straight-up – as in a vodka martini (my fave!).
Go Green!
To keep your skin looking more even-toned, and not as red and flushed when having a cocktail – try a good green tinted primer, like green-tined Golden Rose CC Cream. Green tinted primers and moisturizers are great for covering redness in the skin and making skin tone look more even. Try it!
A Green-tinted primer will keep skin looking even-toned while cocktail-ing – avoiding the dreaded red-and-flushed look.
Wanna know the BEST Foods to Eat Before Cocktails?
Before a night out, be sure to fuel your body with the right foods! Here are 12 Foods to Eat Before Cocktails
