If you are like most women, you have probably tried endless beauty fads over the years, or have beauty products lining your counters that have gone unused. If you scour the internet, you can find advice about a multitude of habits to incorporate into your routine, or products you “need” to try. I don’t know about you, but to me, all this advice can be overwhelming! While there are many ways to enhance your beauty through expensive treatments or products, I suggest you start by trying out these natural beauty boosters for you to incorperate into your daily beauty routine!

Boost Your Daily Beauty Routine

Enhancing beauty is probably one of the most common topics women talk about at any age. However, beauty boosting hacks seem especially important when women go through life changes such as pregnancy, natural aging, getting into or out of relationships, and entering into motherhood. For many women, especially those who are busy moms, it can be hard to make time to prioritize beauty-boosting habits with everything else on your plate! This is why we have these four essential, quick, natural beauty boosting tips you can add into your routine without the blow to your wallet or time.

Eat Natural Beauty-Boosters

One simple way to boost your beauty is to do it from the inside-out! There are many nutrients in foods that can naturally boost beauty. These include Vitamin C, Biotin, Omega-3, and antioxidant-rich foods. Let’s break each of these down.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is a strong antioxidant that can help protect your skin, nail, and hair health by fighting free radicals, unstable atoms that can cause damage to cells. Free radical damage could lead to accelerated aging, wrinkles, loss of hair, dull-looking skin, and even breakdown of collagen in the skin. Vitamin C can also help brighten the skin, and is an important part of collagen formation! While many beauty products contain Vitamin C to apply topically, getting Vitamin C in your diet is just as important. Try adding these Vitamin C-rich foods to your diet-

• Citrus fruits (oranges, kiwi, lemon, grapefruit)
• Bell pepper
• Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage)
• White potatoes
• Strawberries

Pro tip! Chop bell pepper, strawberries, and potatoes on the weekend to have on hand to throw into meals during the week.

Biotin

Biotin is a B-vitamin that is probably best known for its role in beauty. It's essential for the digestion of all three macronutrients and absorption of other vitamins and minerals from your food. A deficiency of Biotin, while rare, often presents in weak nails and hair loss. Boost your hair and nail health with these Biotin-rich foods-

• Eggs, especially the yolks
• Salmon and tuna
• Liver
• Sunflower seeds
• Almonds
• Sweet potato
• Spinach and broccoli

Omega-3

Omega-3 is an important nutrient that can help protect the skin barrier and reduce inflammation. In some studies, omega-3 supplementation has even been shown to slow skin aging! You can find omega-3 in sources such as-

• Fish (salmon, cod, mackerel, herring, oysters, sardines, bluefin tuna)
• Flaxseed
• Chia seeds
• Walnuts
• Soybeans

Pro tip! Try meal prepping salmon burgers to have on hand for a couple lunches during the week.

Antioxidant-rich foods

Similar to Vitamin C, antioxidants protect against free radical damage, reduce inflammation, brighten skin tone, and even support skin and hair repair. Try these antioxidant rich foods for a beauty boost-

• Avocados
• Sweet potatoes
• Berries
• Tomatoes
• Green tea
• Leafy greens (spinach, kale, chard)

Pro tip! When you are on the go in the morning, try a quick, beauty-boosting smoothie. Blend together spinach or kale, strawberries, kiwi, banana, flax or chia seeds, avocado, and greek yogurt or collagen for protein.

Stay Hydrated

It sounds really simple, but drinking water can be one of the most difficult things to remember to do every day! Good hydration has beauty-boosting benefits such as ridding toxins from hair and skin, providing adequate moisture for glowing skin, and enabling cellular metabolic processes. Overall, this is a great starting point for your daily beauty routine. A good daily goal is to drink about half your body weight in ounces of water. If you struggle to drink water as a part of your daily routine, try these tips:

1. Set reminders or a timer on your phone. 
2. Add flavor to your water. If you struggle to drink water because you find it boring or tasteless, try adding lemon, lime, orange, mint, berries, or cucumber to your water.
3. Drink a glass of water as soon as you wake up in the morning. Starting your day with a glass of water can boost your water intake for the whole day!
4. Get a water bottle with time markings, such as this one from Amazon. Having a visual reminder to drink water can help you reach your daily hydration goals.
5. Similar to the tip #4, keep a water bottle on you at all times- if you are running errands, working at your desk, or going to be out of the house for a while, fill up a water bottle and bring it with you. You are much more likely to consistently drink water when you have it nearby!

Exercise

You likely know about the benefits of exercise for disease prevention, muscle building, and stress management, but did you know exercise can benefit your skin as well? Exercise can have many benefits when it comes to your skin health, including:

• Stimulating blood flow that improves cellular repair and nourishment (i.e. helps skin heal itself and have a more even, glowing look)
• More effective removal of toxins from skin
• Decreasing stress; less stress means your skin (and hair!) will be less prone to acne, eczema, psoriasis, breakage, and inflammation, all of which are triggered by stress. 
• Prevents and even reverses the signs of aging. 
• Improved skin moisture and prevention of dry skin. 

With that said, if skin is not properly taken care of before and after exercise, you may see a short-term flare up of breakouts or other skin issues such as eczema. Follow-up exercise with a skin toner or a shower to remove sweat build-up on the skin. When exercising outside, be sure to apply SPF to protect your skin from sun damage. If you have additional questions about a good skincare routine for your skin type when it comes to exercise, reach out to one of Vessel’s Nutrition Coaches in the Vessel app for recommendations!

Natural Skincare Products

If you are anything like me, you have probably tried out your share of harsh products on your skin and hair over the years. From the exfoliating scrubs (does anyone remember the now-banned beads those products used to contain?) to harsh chemical peels, these products may actually be doing more harm than good. Opt for more natural beauty products to support healthy skin. Most of us are trying to fuel our bodies with more “natural” foods, so it makes sense that we would want to do the same with the products we are using on our skin and hair. While “natural” can be a vague term, for our purposes, natural is defined as a product free of synthetic fragrances, dyes, parabens, sulfates, and phthalates. Try checking your products in EWG’s Skin Deep database to see how it ranks in terms of its chemical content. If you get a bad report on some of your products, it may be time to switch them out with something a little more natural!

New and Improved Daily Beauty Routine 

Optimize your natural beauty by incorporating the natural beauty boosting tips that work for you and your lifestyle. If you are still feeling lost, or want more personalized recommendations, our nutrition coaches in the Vessel app are beauty experts! Check out our nutrition chat feature to talk to a coach in real-time and get all your beauty-related questions answered. What is one natural beauty-boosting tip you will incorporate into your daily beauty routine?