Cocktails That Improve Your Skin: As Bogus as It Sounds

 

Quite some time ago I wrote a post about how taking expensive supplements aimed at helping you have great skin are a waste of your money (see my post Nutritional Supplements and Your Skin for more information).  Yet I was still surprised to come across the following article recently in The New York Times,  Improve Your Skin by Imbibing: Radical or Fadical?, in which the author describes a bunch of cocktails at an exclusive club in NYC that claim to even out your skin tone or diminish fine lines.  Now wouldn’t that be nice – to have a cocktail and get glowing skin as a bonus?  I found the article very funny for a few reasons.  One was the complete enthusiasm and idiocy of the guy who help create the drinks that include his “crystallines” of vitamins, minerals and fruit extracts.  I mean really – does he really believe throwing back a bunch of drinks with a few added vitamins will improve anyone’s skin?  Apparently yes.  The fact that anyone considers this a true way to help improve the look of one’s skin made me snicker. 

Before you think that perhaps there is some truth to this club’s claims that drinking their cocktails will make you look like a super model remember the following – alcohol will dehydrate your skin and can give some people undereye circles and puffiness.  As long as the alcohol stays in those expensive cocktails no one’s skin is going to be looking any better.  Luckily the article ends with a good dose of real fact from Dr. Patricia Wexler, a celebrity dermatologist based in NYC.  She explains:

that alcohol actually had a dehydrating effect, and that it could lead to puffiness, especially if plenty of other, nonalcoholic fluids weren’t consumed along with it.

As for the notion that a measured amount of alcohol in a carefully composed elixir could turn back time, “Nothing in a cocktail will give you younger skin,” she said in an e-mail. “But your judgment might be impaired, and you might see Angelina in the mirror.”

 

So if you happen upon a cocktail in your neighborhood club that promises to fight acne or make your fine lines disappear just remember that this cocktail won’t make you look better, but it can, as any alcoholic drink can, make you feel better.  Bottoms up!