Do you have dry skin? Did you know that the products you are using on your skin along with your diet could be causing this issue? Often, we don’t think about why our skin is dry, instead we just reach for a bottle of lotion without thinking about the ingredients. That was me, but I rarely deal with dry skin any more.

After changing to a more traditional diet and making my own natural skin care products, we all noticed that our skin was more moisturized. Using good quality soap without the glycerin removed (a trick of the industry), getting plenty of good quality fats, and using basic ingredients to create moisturizers for our skin that didn’t contain harmful preservatives, toxins, hormone disruptors, fragrances (which many ingredients can be hidden under), and colorants has made a significant difference.

When I was looking for natural moisturizers there wasn’t a lot of options on the market at the time, and I don’t trust labels, so I started making my own. Today there are a lot of options out there and recipes that you can make at home. I like to avoid liquid lotions because they contain water, therefore a harmful preservative must be added (which tend to irritate the skin). Without the preservatives you risk harmful bacteria building up in your liquid lotion. This is why we love our hard lotion bars-they don’t contain water! Liquid lotions also require an emollient and even the most natural emollients have been very processed. We have found the lotion bars to be less greasy, messy, and more easily absorbed than traditional lotion! You can also melt them down in a double boiler and repour them into a deodorant or stick container. My favorite project is to add peppermint essential oil to the melted oil, pour into a plastic stick container, and use it on our foreheads. Another moisturizer I made was salve. It is simply olive oil and beeswax with calendula (an amazing herb) from our beyond organic garden that is infused into the oil.  We love salve for dry feet or rough patches of skin and so much more. I experimented with my recipes until I got them just right. You can make these yourself, seek out a trusted source, or let us help you out here.

According to the Weston Price website, dry skin could be diet related. “Many practitioners suggest that the solution is to drink more water—usually eight glasses per day of water is suggested. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help much as you may already have learned. The reason drinking a lot of water doesn’t work very well is because the water in our cells is actually derived from the metabolism of fats. (The water we drink mostly goes into the blood stream and then out via the kidneys.) It follows, therefore, that when the skin is dry, it means there is a relative imbalance or deficiency of fats, especially compared to the levels of carbohydrates in the diet. I find confirmation of this in my practice in that most of my patients who suffer from dry skin are thin and have been eating a low-fat diet. They are also often hypoglycemic and crave sugar. Thus they are eating a diet that is high in carbohydrates but deficient in good quality fat. By changing the ratio, so that more calories come from fats than carbohydrates, the body produced more water for the cells. In addition, the body will now have more fatty acids available for our oil-producing glands, which are our natural moisturizers. Good fats include butter, lard, coconut oil, olive oil and small amounts of flax oil.”

Our family has learned to slow down, make careful observations of what heals/damages, get rid of the distractions, take a little more time preparing our food, and most importantly to seek the Lord’s wisdom. It’s a daily struggle and it never goes perfectly, but we just keep trying to do the best we can. If you are working toward a more traditional, clean, whole foods diet, and would like to take small steps to get there, then you are at the right place. Week one was get your salt right, week 2 was get your sleep right, weeks 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 were get your fats right, we had several weeks about seasonings and herbs, some important discussion about natural sweeteners, talked about Forgiveness, hopefully we got our eggs right, learned about the benefits of pastured, clean meats, considered getting mercury removed, we got the toxins out of our mouth, and this week we continue to get the toxins out and improve skin moisture. Join us next Tuesday for Get Your . . . Right.