Green tea and tea in general can improve your overall health and your skin’s overall appearance. In fact, it’s simply amazing how many beauty benefits are in such a simple ingredient. Green tea’s antioxidants are among the most potent in the world. Green, black, and oolong tea along with coffee, red grapes, kidney beans, prunes, and red wine contain large quantities of polyphenols, a class of bioflavonoids that have been shown to have anti-aging qualities. Additionally, one of the major catechins in green tea has been proven to be good for your skin, so add a cup daily to your diet.
While drinking green tea is excellent for your skin, you don't have to only drink it to see all the beauty benefits it can have. Let's take a closer look at other ways a cup of brewed green tea can help soothe and refresh your skin.
1. Soothe a sunburn Was your SPF not high enough? Did you forget to reapply? Or maybe you missed a spot entirely. While we all know the importance of high SPF broad spectrum sunblock, sometimes we fall short. In those cases, cold compresses made with tea bags (any kind, not just green tea) can relieve pain and reduce skin redness.
2. Treat those bug bites A cool compress of green tea bags can soothe a bug bite in the same way that it soothes a sunburn. Steep the teabag and then put it in the refrigerator. Chamomile tea bags also work well for bug bites too. Once the compress is removed, pat dry and apply our Zax's Original Bug Bite & Itch Cream for additional relief from itchiness, rashes and swelling.
3. Spritz on dry skin Spritzing cool green tea onto dry skin twice daily can help draw out impurities and maintain your skin’s healthy glow. Or if you’ve lost that healthy glow, it can help bring it back. Simply brew a cup of green tea, let it come to room temperature and pour it into a clean small spray bottle. It works excellent as a skin toner too!
4. Use in a moisturizer Green tea is also a great ingredient in topical moisturizers. It not only serves as an anti-inflammatory, but its high antioxidant content works to naturally keep your skin from aging.
Applying green tea and green tea extract topically can help with acne, skin irritations and also help keep your skin looking younger.
Written by Alyssa Rolnick, Co-Founder of Zax’s Original Products, Registered Dietitian and Mother of 3 active kids.