Water and Your Skin – Made for Each Other or What?

We've all read it – you know the bit about "drink enough water and you'll solve any problems with dry skin you may have", and you'll probably have come across the "my skin is radiant and blooming since I started drinking 8 glasses of water a day" line as well.

There's lots of myth around water and what it does for your skin and these two are probably the most popular. Let's dispel them now and then move on to look at what the real relationship between your skin and the amount of water you drink actually is.

Increasing your water intake cannot get rid of dry skin as water never actually gets to the epidermis (the outside bit of your skin). You can't moisturise your skin from the inside out and therefore can't use water to deal with any dry patches you may have. One down, one to go! The one about "radiant and blooming" has never been proven scientifically and really sounds like an adman's dream to me. Who else would be telling us about reducing fine lines and wrinkles other than an adman? So on a more positive note what can you expect from water as far as your skin is concerned.

By now we all know (I hope) that water helps to flush out toxins from your body and there is some thinking that points to build ups of toxins leading to increasingly frequent breakouts of every teenager's nightmare, acne. The jury might still be out on this but encouraging water intake (no, not tea, caffeine or colas) can only be a good start for teenagers and not-so teenagers alike.

Think about this though. Your skin is one of your body's organs (actually it's the largest) and like all organs your skin needs nutrition to keep it health and functioning correctly. Probably the best example is scurvy. Rarely heard of now but once a very common when people didn't eat enough fresh fruit and vegetables and suffered from a lack of vitamin C. Scurvy really did cause some significant skin problems. So, top up on the citrus fruits and cabbage and how does your body get the nutrients to the place where they are needed – you guessed it – water. Nutrients are delivered throughout your body by the water you drink. So, not enough water will lead to lack of nutrition for your skin.

There's a strong link between water and your skins health. Water is extremely important for your skin as part of a balanced intake of nutrients as we've mentioned before and will probably mention again. Get the balance right and you'll give your skin the best possible chance of being beautifully healthy.

Well, ask yourself, are you drinking enough water to keep those nutrients moving around your body. How much is enough? We're all so busy it's easy to forget such a simple, undemanding thing as a sip of water but we do need to keep our intake up so we'd like to issue a challenge. The AH!QUA challenge.

Download our new app and having three free days, on us, to check out your well being levels. Start your hydration regime at the same time and in three days you'll be able to see a big change. The AH!QUA challenge is a great way of introducing yourself to the first of many things you can do to improve your well being.

To start your three free (and that's not easy to say) days measurements just download ****APP NAME*** by clicking here.

To find out about other ways of making your water intake even more useful and details of some useful tools we've got to help you manage your hydration just click here.