Six Ways to Keep Your Sparkle This Holiday Season

With social events, entertaining and beach visits on our agendas, if there is ever a time that we want to be sparkling with youth and vitality, it's during the festive holiday period. It can be a challenge maintaining our healthy glow as this time of the year is filled with many unavoidable beauty depleting activities! A lack of sleep, poor diet, the stress of word demands, increased alcohol consumption and dehydration can often leave our skin and body feeling a little lack lustre.

Below we provide six inside out beauty tips to keep you sparkling this Christmas season:

Glorious Greens. If you are going a bit overboard with sugar and alcohol, ensure you are balancing this all out by having at least a bowl or two of greens. Greens, in particular, bitter greens such as arugula, rocket, radicchio, rocket leaves, dandelion, spinach, chicory and mustard leaves are wonderful liver toners. They also help to increase the creation and flow of bile, the substance that removes waste from the organs and blood. Bitter greens will assist you in digesting your food, in particular, fats so munch on a few leaves before your meal, and they will act as a great aperitif. Greens are also rich in folate and B vitamins which are essential for your body’s energy and detoxification pathways which tend to become compromised in the holiday season.

Intermittent Fasting. When eating excessive calories on a daily basis, as tends to happen during the holiday period, our hunger hormones such as ghrelin and leptin can become imbalanced which reduces our ability to burn fat. Intermittent fasting for one or two days of the week during the holiday season can be a great way to reset your hunger hormones and increase your metabolism even if you are overindulging. Fasting may involve restricting calories on one or two days of the week and eating normally on other days or restricting caloric intake between a certain time e.g. between 12 pm to 8 pm.

Liquid Beauty Boosters.  Increasing water intake is something we all know we must do to keep our skin moist and dewy and our body’s detoxification and digestive system intact. Supercharging water with antioxidant-rich botanicals makes it work even better for you. During the holiday season iced versions of our Edible Beauty No.2 Fountain of Youth Tea and No.1 Green Goddess Detox Tea are refreshing, hydrating and a treat for the skin and liver. To make iced versions of these blends, just brew them as normal and refrigerate infused with berries, sliced citrus and herbs.

Mask It. Late nights, sugar and alcohol consumption show up in our complexion. Sleeping masks are literally an overnight beauty fix when it comes to dull, red or lacklustre skin. We love using the Edible Beauty & Coco Bliss Intensive Repair Mask to boost the plumpness of the skin, reduce redness and bring back a youthful glow. Apply this all over the face in the evening as a thick layer and do not remove it. You will wake fresh-faced and in awe of this miracle mask. The secret ingredients in this mask include B vitamins and Vitamin E which work to repair the skin, reduce inflammation and eliminate redness. If acne or sunburn is affecting your golden glow, use the Edible Beauty & Soothing Nectar - Hydrating Gel as a leave-on mask at night. Aloe gel, Cucumber, Calendula and Chamomile in this blend work to calm the skin, balance oil production and heal scarring and sunburn.

Sweat It Out. Whether it be hitting the gym, having an infra-red sauna or sweating it out at the beach, building up a sweat is a wonderful gift for your skin. It allows the skin pores to open which releases the build up inside them. Toxins that can clog pores and plague the skin with pimples and blemishes are purged through the action of sweating. Circulation is also increased to the peripheries and skin cells which boost skin cell turnover. These skin benefits only apply to mild or moderate sweating.

Bright Eyed. Giving your eyes a pick me up is as easy as a providing them with a caffeine hit. Dip cotton pads in iced black coffee and apply over closed lids for 10 to 20 minutes. Caffeine found in both coffee acts to constrict blood vessels to diminish discolouration and reduce puffiness. The coffee in our & Gold Rush Eye Cream has strong anti-inflammatory action to reduce puffiness around the eye area while increasing circulation to brighten dark circles. & Gold Rush Eye Cream also contains pure Gold Leaf, which imparts radiance, aids in the reduction of fine lines and wrinkles and works to visibly reduce the appearance of dark circles.