Who doesn’t love sweets? Maybe there are people who does not have a sweet-tooth but mostly people like sweets, especially this holiday season. There are lots of candies, cakes, desserts that would make you want more, its really a treat. These sugar-made snacks and delicacies are really to look forward to in any occasion.
Sugar is one of the main ingredients present in every kitchen, it also has benefits if we use it as a skin care ingredient. These sweet stuff is naturally a sweet, short chain, soluble carbohydrate that is mostly present in our food.
Here are three benefits for our skin:
1. Sugar is another natural source of glycolic acid (hydroxyacetic acid), the smallest AHA (a-hydroxy acid)) a colorless, odorless and also hygroscopic crystalline. Mostly this substance is used in skin-care products, textile industry, food processing and even in pharmaceutical industry. It has the capability to penetrate the skin so you can find this substance in chemical peels used by dermatologist or other physician in the medical field. It improves the texture and appearance of the skin, it can reduce wrinkles, hyperpigmentation, acne scaring and improve skin condition like seborrheic keratosis, hyperkeratosis and actinic keratosis.
Once this substance penetrates the skin, it weakens the binding properties of lipids that is holding the dead skin together, thus allow the stratum corneum to exfoliate and exposed live skin cells. Its not advisable to be ingested, so you must consult your physician before using it on your own. Most especially when you’re going out during daylight make sure to put sunscreen if you applied a peel to avoid damaging your new peeled skin.
2. Sugar as a topical exfoliant. We can see in different websites or magazines that sugar is used as body or face scrub due to its small particles and its content. It exfoliates and removes old skin cells on the outermost surface of your skin. So if your feel your skin seems dry and rough you can use this substance to reveal a youthful, glowing, healthy-looking skin.
If you’re scrubbing, choose the brown sugar which is much softer and granulated, so it can be used even on the face and sensitive areas. But to be sure, also do a small patch test in one sensitive area of your skin to see if your skin reacts to it.
Then you can make your own simple homemade-sugar-scrub, just mixed brown sugar, olive oil (coconut oil or grapeseed oil as alternative) and a few drops of essential oil for a great fragrance. You can also use ginger if you want it to have a spicy scent, few drops of citrus like orange juice for a vibrant feeling.
You can also make a face scrub by mixing sugar, a few drops of lemon juice for hydrating, and honey. Just take note that you must not scrub everyday cause it will worn out your skin, just like brushing a thin cloth over and over. You can do it about twice or once a week. Some only do scrubbing in winter because it exfoliates the top layer of the skin. So it moisturizes and penetrates much deeply and hydrate much longer because of the cold temperature.
3. Sugar act as a natural ‘humectant’. Humectant are hygroscopic substances that is used in keeping things moist. So the sugar retains the moisture that was absorb and drawn the water vapor into or beneath the surface of the object or the organism and by applying it in our face it maintains the moisture in our skin.
