It cannot be stressed enough: good skin is essential to good makeup.  More than that, your face is a reflection of what is going on in your body.  A few years ago I made some drastic changes in my diet.  While I believe that everything should be consumed in moderation, some things, like vegetables, should be included in our diets more than others (far easier said than done).  There was a time when I could not imagine not having some form of bread, cereal, or cow’s milk for breakfast.  I believe my (panicked) reaction was, “But what am I supposed to eat?!” You have to create a diet that works for you or it will. not. work. After about 8 years researching food and what it does to us, I came across Kimberly Snyder, a clinical nutritionist, and her book The Beauty Detox Solution.  While I follow some of her principles, that lifestyle in general is not for me.  One thing I swear by, however, is her Glowing Green Smoothie.

I started drinking a GGS first thing in the morning starting November 2011.  Snyder claims that if we eat balancing foods, they will continually cleanse our bodies on a daily basis.  While I have no definitive proof because I do not strictly follow her plan, I can tell you this without hesitation: my life and my skin have been transformed.

When I started drinking a GGS most mornings and began to eat clean 80% of the time, things started to change.  My nose was less runny; I had more energy; and most of all, my skin, which has A L W A Y S battled acne, completely cleared.

Snyder notes that when you first start a clean diet, toxins that have built up in your system will start to exit the body in different ways for different people.  This is what happened to me:

Don’t worry, it only lasted about a week.  These photos were taken in November 2011, just out of the shower with no product on my skin, and in natural light…as is this one, but taken today:

I hope you’ll consider what’s going into your body, because, clearly, it can show up on your face.  Let me reiterate:  I eat cookies, drink wine, and have a bit of an obsession with dark chocolate.  But balanced with way more vegetables at every meal, my skin is much happier.