Hi, there 🙂
Yes, you’re right: there will be a kind of a lecture today or the ‘anti-alcoholic beauty campaign’.
New Year’s Eve Party, carnival, birthday parties and other holidays meant for having fun usually go with a glass of wine, cocktail or a different alcoholic beverage.
It happens that you have a glass of dry wine with your dinner.
When you’re upset, alcohol might soothe your nerves.
Generally speaking, small quantities of alcohol really help deal with different ailments and warm you up. Moreover, a glass of dry red wine benefits your skin – it’s a source of antioxidants which fight free radicals off. Undoubtedly, eyes get a spark and the cheeks get rosy after one drink. On the other hand, too much alcohol spoils your good looks. Drinking too much does lots of harm to your skin, hair and nails. Have you ever wondered what happens to the skin when you’ve had one drink too many?
How does alcohol affect your skin?
1. Alcohol and skin dehydration
Skin dehydration. This is what happens to the skin when you drink too much. Your body treats alcohol like a toxin and tries to neutralize its action. A lot of water is necessary to do it. While drinking alcohol, the body tries to remove it right away, leading to dehydration; it’s most visible in the extremely dry skin. The skin is prone to irritation, dull, easily damaged and doesn’t do well with the unfavorable external factors (strong sunlight, wind, frost, dry air of radiators). Some products may harm it, causing irritation and allergic reactions. Dehydrated skin takes more time to absorb all of the nutrients and you look tired all the time.
2. Alcohol effects on the skin of eyelids and dark under-eye circles
Does alcohol affect the under-eye skin?
Sadly, it does – quite largely. It takes place like in case of the skin on the entire body yet the skin under the eyes suffers most. It’s the most fragile. After just one cocktail, the skin of eyelids loses water and is much more prone to the appearance of wrinkles.
3. Alcohol and wrinkles
Alcohol users get wrinkles much faster because the skin lacks moisture. To make things worse, alcohol removes lots of valuable ingredients that are essential for the body functioning. Vitamins A, C and E as well as B vitamins are among the most crucial vitamins for the skin. Missing them leads to faster occurrence of wrinkles and the loss of skin density. Treat that as a warning: the more alcohol you drink, the older you look. After all, women want to cheat the clock, don’t they? 😉
4. Alcohol and acne, blackheads, seborrhoea
Alcohol has an impact on the occurrence of skin inflammation, too. Open pores, pimples, blackheads, acne rosacea – this ‘parade’ of blemishes is triggered by alcohol.
5. Alcohol and blood vessels
Alcohol also affects the vascular skin. It widens capillaries and that’s why the skin is red or rosy after having one or two drinks. If you keep treating your skin to such rosy cheeks, you’re going to ‘decorate’ it with red spider veins. The walls of blood vessels are stiffer and don’t go back to the original size.
6. Alcohol effects on hair and nails
Extremely dry, brittle, frizzy and stiff hair – this might be the effect of alcohol, too. As I’ve mentioned, alcohol dehydrates the body and keeps the skin from maintaining the moisture. Apart from the vitamins, zinc is washed out of the skin. As a consequence, hair splits and breaks. Due to alcohol, the intercellular cement and disulfide bonds are destroyed inside the hair.
7. Alcohol and the skin inflammation
People, who have a very sensitive or atopic skin that’s easily irritated, should be aware that alcohol additionally intensifies infections and makes them harder to treat.
8. Alcohol effects on your body weight
The alcohol effects on skin are very unpleasant. Still, if I haven’t managed to convince you to get ‘carried away’ just occasionally, remember one sad fact – alcohol makes you fatter! I know it has nothing to do with the skin but I think this argument is going to convince many of you. Remember, girls! Alcohol equals empty calories!
Alcohol effects on skin – alcohol in beauty products
Apart from the harmful skin effect of the alcohol you drink, there’s also alcohol added to cosmetics. Most products include it. Some of the cosmetic alcohols are harmless and evaporate after the application. Still, there are lots of short-chain alcohols which are comedogenic, causing dryness, allergic reactions, damaged protective coat of the epidermis; skin gets vulnerable and exposed to faster ageing.
The dangerous alcohols include:
Alcohol denat, Benzyl Alcohol, Ethanol Alcohol, Grain Alcohol, Isopropanol Alcohol, Propanol Alcohol (Propan-2-ol). They belong to the group of harmful, short-chain and monohydric alcohols. Too bad, so many cosmetics are full of them. These alcohols harm the skin.
Made it to the end? 🙂
Do you check the ingredients of skincare products? Do you try to avoid alcohol?
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