It is all women’s dream to have perfect skin, and we try countless serums and creams. We try to fix from outside – religious skincare routine, led masks, beauty salon visits, yet there is a much simpler fix we’ve been neglecting. Say goodbye to ALCOHOL.

 

Deep down, you know the effects of alcohol on skin and may be feeling you need to cut down seeing ageing skin and appearance. But, life is tough –  you feel the overwhelming need to temporarily escape from stress, emotional struggles, or even boredom and you end up succumb to temptation.

 

The good news is when it’s only an occasional decadent, it’s actually good for your health. There is a saying in Japanese  “Sake is the best of all medicines (酒は百薬の長)” – a small amount of sake brings health benefits such as stress relief, relaxation and improved blood circulation.

(Bear in mind, sake cup is tiny – 45 ml / 1.5 ounces), so once a month of sake is ok)

 

However, if you drink regularly and sometimes excessively, your skin is being affected by alcohol almost perpetually. It appears as skin concerns. The effects of alcohol on skin are real. I’ve been there many times myself and know how awful and daunting it is to wake up to dull skin, some spots and swollen face.

 

After much emotional struggle to control my alcohol consumption, I’ve managed to find the right way to live with it. I’ve gone back to the Japanese approach to be more healthy and have better skin as a result. 

 

With the Japanese way, I drink much less, snack less while drinking and keep my weight under control. And obviously, my skin is now more radiant and supple 🙂

 

In this post, I’m going to share how to get alcohol under control and make it work for your health, not against it. 

 

First off, it’s important to understand what alcohol does to your body and skin, so you become aware of the negative effects and the damaging you are causing to yourself!

 

 

5 Effects of Alcohol on Skin

 

 

The truth is your skin is a mirror of your internal organs. Your skin is reflecting the inside of your body. The effects of what you eat and drink directly appear on your skin as dry skin, acne or breakouts. 

 

1 ) Permanent Redness on Your Face

 

When you drink alcohol, the skin gets inflamed, and this appears as redness on the skin. It is a skin’s reaction to inflammatory substances such as histamine, which causes hot flashes in the face.

If it’s temporary, you might just think “Oh well, I’m drinking and feeling a little merry, so”. And you might not be too bothered about the redness.

However, when you are a regular drinker, the skin tissue becomes perpetually inflamed, and you can have redness on the face pretty much all the time. 

Unfortunately, this redness caused by regular alcohol consumption is difficult to hide with makeup, and you will have to live with the skin flushing.

 

 

2 ) Acne and Breakouts

 

If you like beer, sweet wines, or cocktails, you need to be careful! They contain a lot of sugar, and you may be consuming too much of it without realising.

Excessive sugar intake can cause your skin to over-secret sebum and lead to acne and breakouts. 

On top of that, alcohol dilates the blood vessels, and it stimulates sebaceous glands to easily produce sebum. It means you are already prone to develop acne. 

Alcohol also consumes a lot of B vitamins which is an essential nutrient to maintain healthy skin and its turnover. When you drink alcohol, you become deficient in B vitamins, and your skin is less able to function properly. 

More sebum, less functional skin, it clogs the pores and leads to acne…

Drinking alcohol itself is already acne-prompting, and if you drink alcohol with lots of sugar like beer, sweet wines and cocktails that only increase the chance of developing breakouts!

 

 

3 ) Dark Circles under Eyes

 

Dark circles under the eyes are generally caused by fatigue, lack of sleep, a significant strain on the eyes or poor blood circulation.

We all experienced poor sleep from drinking and felt groggy the next day. This is because the liver is still working really hard to break down all the alcohol and detoxify the body during the sleep. 

The body is actually not resting even if you’re asleep, that’s why you never feel well-rested or can have a good night sleep when you drink.

You may not realise, but you can be deprived of sleep more than you think if you are a regular drinker. If your sleep is almost perpetually poor quality due to frequent alcohol consumption, you will inevitably have dark circles.

 

4 ) Dry Skin & Wrinkles

 

When you drink alcohol, it enters the body and gets carried to your liver. Then the liver breaks down the alcohol to flush the toxin out of the body. During this process, it actually requires a lot of water.

Your body loses a significant amount of water and gets dehydrated as a result. Your skin also becomes dry, which can lead to fine lines and wrinkles. 

If you look at a woman who’s been drinking for 20 or 30 years and a woman who’s the same age who hasn’t or has had little, you will see a huge difference in the skin. More wrinkles, red face and dull skin.

Wrinkles around the mouth and eyes are particularly hard to reverse, and they easily can make you look 10 years older.

Drinking ages you much faster than you may realise!

 

5 ) Damage to the Internal Organs incl. Skin

 

Excessive drinking has been known to damage mucous membranes of the liver and spleen. If the internal organs are damaged, the skin, which is a mirror of the internal organs, also gets damaged. 

Skin damage may not be visible when you are young, but over time it starts to show in your face as fine lines and wrinkles. 

 

Beauty Benefits of No (or Little) Alcohol

 

 

Sometimes, we all drink a little more than planned only to regret the next day. I’ve been there myself many times, and when I was much younger I almost wanted to feel the devastating effect – sort of a memory of how much fun I had with my friends the day before…! 

I did make many fond memories this way and had so much fun, but I can tell you that it slowly is damaging your beautiful self. I have to skip the whole story of how I came to this realisation, but it was an excruciating process, to say the least.

I’ve been working to reduce my alcohol intake significantly down to a few times a month max and below are the effects that I’ve seen on myself – many beauty benefits!!!

 

1 ) Slimmer Face

 

Drinking less alcohol can also have a positive impact on your appearance!

Have you ever noticed how your face is different after drinking the night before? Your face may be swollen, and your eyes get puffy. 

There are mainly two reasons why your face get swollen after drinking.

 

[Excess fluid in the body]

Alcohol reduces the hormone (antidiuretic hormone) which hold onto water and limits how much urine the kidneys make. It means you feel you need to go to the toilet more often as the body is controlling your urine less!

Alcohol has a diuretic effect, so you lose a lot of water from the body. This is why you feel thirsty, even if you are drinking.

Since you’re thirsty, you end up drinking more water than you should. This leads to excessive water in the body, and it causes swelling in the body.

Also, you don’t go to the toilet during the sleep, so the excess fluid remains in the body, and this causes swelling the next morning. 

 

[Salty snacks]

All the salty snacks you enjoy with your drink are the other reason your body becomes swollen. I know it’s SO easy to keep munching on crisps with a glass of prosecco and you end up eating a little too much of it!

When you intake too much salt, your body holds onto extra fluids to balance the sodium level in the body. This excess water in the body causes swelling the next day.

The combination of alcohol and salty snacks make it a sure way for your face to swell, and if you drink regularly, your face becomes perpetually swollen without even realising. 

 

This is one of the very first things I noticed when I stopped drinking alcohol regularly.

My face slimmed down!

And when you look better, you will naturally feel better and more confident, so this is really a big plus for you.

 

2 ) Weight Loss

 

This is another huge benefit you will get when you stop drinking alcohol or reducing to almost none.

I personally have never been overweight, but I did not realise alcohol was making my body easy to store fat around the belly (all too familiar?!). It felt like an annoying wobbly belt around my waist or something.

In my case, within a few days, my waistline started to shrink and slim down. I could not be any happier!

When you cut down or quit alcohol, your liver starts to function better, and the digestive system becomes more active. Your metabolism improves, and it can help lose weight.

On top that, you crave less salty snacks and junk food. And, you are not taking extra calories and sugar content from alcohol. What’s not to like 😉?!

 

3 ) Clear Skin

 

Alcohol is only damaging to your beauty. It causes many skin problems like dry skin, spots and breakouts as described earlier in the article. 

This was the case with me. I’ve always had a very strict beauty ritual and skincare routine, but I did not realise how MUCH alcohol was making it all LESS EFFECTIVE until I stopped drinking and reduced to almost 0 alcohol.

As my metabolism improved, my skin turnover function got better, and spots started to fade away. After a few days, my skin was already well hydrated, and all the skin troubles were clearing out!

It was a hard lesson to learn, but now from my experience, I am convinced that alcohol is seriously damaging to the skin and causes unwanted acne and breakouts.

 

4 ) No More Wrinkles or Dry Skin

 

Alcohol dehydrates the body and skin. When you drink alcohol, the body steals water from the body to process it, which makes you thirsty and dehydrated.

And when you have dry skin, fine lines and wrinkles become more noticeable.

If you are a regular drinker, the wrinkles become permanent, and no matter what you put on the skin like expensive serums and creams, literally no point because inside your body you have the poison playing damaging the internal organs and the skin.

I personally experienced this myself. I used to use more serums and creams to combat fine lines around the eyes and my mouth when I was a regular drinker. I kept searching for more and more eye serums and expensive creams. Ouch😲 on my bank account too.

When I stopped drinking, it was almost shocking but only in a few days, the fine lines were less visible as my skin no longer was suffering from dehydration. In 10 days, I had almost no wrinkles and looked a few years younger too!

If you don’t want to have more wrinkles or prevent getting them, limit alcohol. 

 

5 ) Shiny Hair

 

You will see your hair start to shine and look more healthy when you cut down drinking in general (better yet, quit!).

Just as alcohol has many negative effects on the skin, it’s got pretty much the same impact on your hair. As the body suffers from drinking, it cannot send enough nutrients to the hair, and it becomes dry and brittle. You may experience more hair loss than usual too.

For me, it only took about a week to see some changes in my hair. It got definitely shinier, fuller, and experienced less hair loss when I washed my hair.

I cannot be any happier to see my beautiful hair come back like when I was younger.

 

How To Live in Harmony with Alcohol

 

 

If you’ve been regularly enjoying drinking, it can be really hard to cut back or even quit altogether. 

The truth is you don’t really have to quit 100%, and there is a way to enjoy a few drinks without harming your health and skin. 

As mentioned in the beginning, a little amount of alcohol can benefit you. (And I mean really A LITTLE amount) it’s about controlling the amount and frequency.

Follow the below steps to get your drinking under control.

This is the exact steps I follow, and it’s got a Japanese twist!

The key is to make it gradual, so you don’t get too stressed over it. It would be easier for you to stick to new habits that way. Step by step, little by little. 

 

STEP 1 – Control the Amount – Drink Water While Drinking

 

This is quite obvious, but you often end up not drinking enough water when drinking alcohol. Every quenched thirst by drinking even more alcohol? Don’t!

Make sure you drink water instead when you get thirsty while drinking. It dilutes the alcohol content and helps prevent dehydration.

What I usually do is every sip of booze, a sip of water.

Basically, you are drinking the same amount of alcohol and water at the same time, and it’s amazing how much it can prevent you from excess drinking. You cannot really drink a lot of alcohol when you’re drinking so much water too – trust me!

Water saved, is saving and will be saving me from alcohol damaging my body and skin! This is the first thing you can implement to start controlling the amount of booze.

 

STEP 2 – Reduce the Frequency to Once a Week

 

This might come as a hard one if you’ve been a regular drinker, but from my personal experience, when you get the alcohol intake under control, you often find yourself craving alcohol less. 

Only start reducing the frequency ONCE you’ve gained control over the amount. It’s much easier when you are already drinking much less than you ever had been. 

You can even go from drinking every day to a few times a week. Then a few times a week to once a week. 

The key is to make it easy for yourself and not so stressful. You wouldn’t last otherwise.

 

STEP 3 – Eat Healthy Snacks (Japanese Way)

 

Now you are in control of the amount and frequency, you can step up even more.

Change what you eat while drinking.

This is where you can try the Japanese way.

In Japan, people tend to eat healthy snacks with drinks. Typical examples are edamame, yakitori, sashimi, small grilled fish, tofu, pickled vegetables, and so on. Everything is served in small portions too.

It’s called Izakaya style dining. 

People take time to enjoy and savour the drinks as well as the healthy tapas-style dishes. The Japanese diet is one of the healthiest in the world, and it helps you to enjoy drinks without worrying about taking extra fat and sugar from snacks like nuts, crisps, salami and fries.

 

STEP 4 – Enjoy Sake for Beauty Benefits

 

Did you know sake has many beauty benefits?

Geishas used sake as a facial lotion before putting on makeup, and sake has a deep-rooted history in Japanese skincare. Sake facial toners, sake face masks and sake bath.

It all started when people started to realise sake brewers’ hands were like porcelain – which made them think sake must have some ingredients that work on the skin, so why not put it on our body?!

Many studies on the health benefits of sake have been conducted in Japan, and it is now being scientifically proven that the ingredient called “α-EG” contained in sake does increase collagen in the skin.

Below are other beauty benefits of sake Japanese people are aware of:

• Brightening and softening
• Minimise wrinkles and sagging
• Helps soothe and glow
• Promotes hydration
• Helps cure acne
• Improve skin’s turnover

 

Wondering how much you should be drinking sake to see those effects?

Enjoy a few small cups of sake once a week! 

Traditionally, you drink sake in sake cups called Ochoko in Japan, and they are really cute 😉

Tosnail 5 pcs Ceramic Japanese Sake Set – Pink Blossom

An Ochoko is a small cup that can hold typically about 45ml (1.5 ounces) of sake. 

It’s a perfect size for slowly sipping and savour a drink.

You are only drinking a tiny amount this way and take alcohol to actually promote health rather than harm it. 

Lastly, if you already want to try sake in your skincare routine, you can try this popular sake lotion below.

Sake High Moisture Skin Lotion Toner By Kikumasamune

 

Summary

 

Let’s quickly recap now refresh what we’ve just gone through!

Below is a summary of the post:

 

Effects of Alcohol on Skin:

• Perpetual redness on your face
• Acne and breakouts
• Develop dark circles under the eyes
• Dry skin, wrinkles
• Damaged internal organ including skin

 

Beauty Benefits of No/Little Alcohol:

• Slimmer face, look better
• Easier to lose weight
• Clear skin, no dry skin
• Fewer wrinkles and fine lines
• Shiny and fuller hair

 

How to Live in Harmony with Alcohol:

1. Control the amount
2. Reduce the frequency
3. Eat healthy snacks
4. Enjoy sake for beauty benefits

 

If you want to have beautiful skin and age slow, definitely consider quitting or reducing alcohol. It can be hard in the beginning, but you will be SO glad afterwards seeing so many beauty benefits! 

Try the Japanese way –  your skin might benefit from it ✨