Do you think coffee use has a positive or negative effect on the skin?

Not only does caffeine lift a tired mind, but it can also perk up and energize the skin. While drinking caffeine in the form of coffee won’t do much to help your skin, skincare products that contain caffeine have a variety of benefits that can help your skin look smoother, younger, and healthier. Caffeine is an antioxidant, which is known to protect skin from damage caused by free radicals — molecules that break down your collagen and cause fine lines, wrinkles, and otherwise saggy, sallow skin. For caffeine to be effective as mentioned, it must be applied in highly concentrated doses. Generally, we always recommend that patients go with medical-grade skin-care products, as they are backed by controlled studies that prove the products’ formulations, ingredient transparency, and efficacy.

Top 4 Caffeine Skin Care Benefits

✓ Helps Revive Puffy-Looking Eyes

Probably the best-known beauty benefit of caffeine is its ability to help improve the appearance of puffy-looking eyes. Often, when your eyes are puffy, it’s due to fluid accumulation. When applied topically, caffeine works as a vasoconstrictor – a fancy way of saying it temporarily constricts your blood vessels and reduces swelling of the skin.

 Eye products containing caffeine help encourage your body to flush out this excess fluid, which may give your eyes a smoother, noticeably less puffy appearance.

✓ Anti-Aging & Antioxidant Benefits

Caffeine is high in antioxidants and when applied topically, the antioxidants in caffeine attack free radicals in your skin from UV rays and pollution, providing temporary protection from premature aging. Free radicals are one of the main causes of fine lines and wrinkles as well as loss of elasticity in your skin. Topical caffeine can help boost elasticity and firm the skin, which may promote a more youthful.

✓ Reduces Cellulite

Caffeine acts as a diuretic in skin care products – meaning when it’s applied topically, caffeine will dehydrate fat cells by preventing excess fluid build-up. Your skin will appear smoother, firmer, and tighter. Even if it is temporary, we’ll take it.

✓Caffeine is Energizing For Your Mind and Skin

When ingested, caffeine stimulates your central nervous system, causing you to feel more awake and alert. Topical caffeine has a similarly invigorating effect on your skin. It’s particularly useful to reach for when your skin feels tired, like after a sleepless night.

There is no recommended daily intake for probiotics, so there is no way to know exactly which fermented foods or what quantity is best. Therefore, the general guideline is to just add as many fermented foods to your daily diet as possible.

Why fermented foods? Fermenting is one of the oldest techniques for food preservation. Mankind has been fermenting foods and drinks like beer and wine for centuries. Foods that are fermented go through a process of lactofermentation in which natural bacteria feed on the sugar and starch in the food, creating lactic acid. This process creates an environment that preserves the food and promotes beneficial enzymes, B vitamins, and omega-3 fatty acids, as well as various species of good bacteria.

Another way to look at fermentation is that it takes one type of food and transforms it into another kind. For instance, cabbage becomes sauerkraut, cucumbers become pickles, soybeans turn into miso, and milk can be made into yogurt, cheeses, and sour cream.Not all fermented foods contain probiotics. Some foods undergo steps that remove the probiotics, as with beer or wine, or make them inactive, like baking and canning. However, most fermented foods are probiotic foods as well.

If there is a potential downside to fermented foods, it is that their taste and smell can be quite strong, which may be unpleasant for some people. The unique flavors and textures of fermented foods are due in part to the different species of bacteria used.On the upside, there are many types of fermented foods from which to choose, so there is a good chance you can find something you will enjoy.

The most common fermented foods that naturally contain probiotics, or have probiotics added to them, include yogurt, kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut, pickles, miso, tempeh, kimchi, sourdough bread and some cheeses.

Yogurt is considered the most valuable player of probiotic foods because it has a flavor and texture that’s generally appealing to Western palates. The number and type of bacteria species can vary depending on the yogurt brand. Yogurt is easy to add to your diet. Besides having it for breakfast or a midday snack, you can substitute yogurt whenever you use mayonnaise in egg salad or potato salad, or in almost any baking recipe. Yogurt also can be the basis for sauces, salad dressings, or marinades.