Impact of Hydration on Skin Appearance
Drinking enough water plays a critical role in hydrating the cells throughout your body, including your skin. When you drink water, it helps to flush out impurities and toxins at the cellular level, contributing to skin hydration and overall health.
Before getting into the specific benefits staying hydrated has on skin health, it’s important to get a better understanding of the composition of our skin.
What Is Skin Made Of?
The largest organ in the body, the skin makes up about 16% of total body weight and is divided into three layers. The epidermis is the outermost layer of skin and acts as a protective barrier against environmental stressors. The middle layer—the dermis—contains connective tissue, hair follicles, and sweat glands. It provides structural support and nourishment to the skin. The hypodermis is the deepest layer and is made of fat and connective tissue, insulating the body, and serving as a cushion.
These layers are made up of water, protein (including collagen and keratin), fats, minerals, and other chemicals.
What Is Collagen?
Collagen is a vital protein that's a main building block of skin. It's the most abundant protein in the body, making up about 30% of total body protein and three-quarters of your skin. It plays a crucial role in maintaining skin health, as it supports the skin's firmness and youthful appearance.
Hydration directly impacts collagen production and quality, as well as the skin's ability to retain moisture. When properly hydrated, the body is more effective at producing and maintaining collagen, which is essential for preventing premature aging and maintaining skin suppleness. Staying hydrated is key for supporting the natural production and functionality of collagen, helping to support overall skin health.
Benefits of Drinking Water for Skin
Without adequate hydration, the skin's natural processes, such as cell turnover and repair, may become compromised, leading to various skin issues. Adequate hydration promotes a healthier, radiant complexion. By ensuring your skin cells are well-hydrated, you can effectively maintain a smoother and more supple skin texture.
However, the benefits of drinking water for skin health extend beyond surface-level effects, reaching down to the cellular structure, ultimately enhancing the overall health and appearance of your skin. Specific benefits of drinking water for the skin include:
Firmness
With age or significant weight loss, your skin may begin to sag. Hydration helps prevent sagging, making the skin look firmer. Water revives the skin’s elasticity, preventing it from sagging and tightening it in areas that are prone to sagging, like the upper arms, waist, and jawline.
Skin Tone
Drinking water improves the overall appearance and health of the skin, making it look more toned, luminous, and clear.
Prevents Premature Aging
Staying hydrated can help prevent premature aging by increasing skin elasticity and moisture retention. This can delay the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines, and make your skin look smoother and more youthful. Hydration is the key to youthful-looking skin and a radiant complexion.
Faster Healing from Cuts and Injuries
Hydration aids in the repair of damaged skin, reducing recovery time and promoting smoother, healthier skin. For example, if you’ve ever gotten a sunburn, you know how painful it can be and how long the healing process can take. Drinking more water can help speed up the healing process for your sunburn!
Helps Prevent Acne
Staying well-hydrated can also improve your immune system. Having a healthy immune system also keeps your skin's microbiome strong and able to fight off acne-causing bacteria.
Smaller Pores
Throughout the day, it’s common for our pores to become clogged and enlarged. The more water you drink, the more the balance of oil and water on the surface of your skin improves. A better balance of oil and water can help reduce your pore size, decrease acne breakouts, and reduce blemishes.
Improved Complexion
Drinking water can help alleviate skin issues such as eczema and psoriasis.
Less Itchy Skin
Hydration helps keep skin moisturized and, since moisturized skin isn’t dry, the itchy skin that often accompanies dry skin goes away or is reduced.
Reduces Puffiness
When skin appears puffy, it’s retaining water. It does this to protect you from dehydration when you don’t drink enough. Drinking more water will reduce the puffiness in your face.
Benefit of Hydration for Skin in Winter and Dry Climates
As temperatures drop, it's important to pay attention to your hydration needs. The colder weather can reduce our thirst, and you also might not recognize when you're sweating. Indoor heating can also reduce moisture in the air, leading to dehydration without you even realizing it. For these reasons, you’ll want to keep track of how much water you’re intaking during the winter months to prevent dehydration.
Cold weather and low humidity indoors and out depletes skin of its natural oils, so water escapes out of this barrier, causing skin to become dehydrated. Drinking water is important during the winter to keep your body hydrated overall, but also keep your skin hydrated to prevent it from getting dry and to maintain its overall health.
A great way to easily ensure you drink enough water is to use filtered water to make better-tasting teas, soups, and other drinks and meals to keep you and your family hydrated throughout the winter.
The ZeroWater 5-Stage Filtration System
The healthiest hydration solution is clean water with reduced contaminants and chemicals. ZeroWater’s filtration solutions, including filtered pitchers, reduce contaminants to provide better-tasting, higher quality water that supports better hydration habits.
Our products feature a 5-stage filtration system that exclusively leverages ion exchange technology and other unique benefits to provide clean, great-tasting water. Each stage eliminates specific contaminants that are commonly found in tap water, such as lead and the forever chemicals PFOA/PFOS.
Shop ZeroWater’s water filtration products today to find the best option for your home so you can enjoy drinking better tasting water that helps your skin stay hydrated.
Read our FAQ’s to find answers to any questions you may have.
Sources:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/10978-skin
https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/collagen/
https://www.adventhealth.com/blog/how-drinking-water-helps-acne