Nice and smoothie
Boldface names are pitching mailorder drinks to sip — and to slather
WOULD you put a frozen drink on your face?
Salma Hayek is banking on it. She is just one of the celebrities backing mail-order smoothie kits meant to beautify you from the inside out — and, in Hayek’s case, from the outside in.
Juice Generation is now offering three new drinks concocted by Hayek, and each doubles as a face mask: Blend it, drink it, smear it on your skin, and the actress claims you’ll see glowing results. Hayek, who says she was inspired by her grandmother — a “witch doctor” who often whipped up complexion remedies in her own kitchen — is a co-creator of the juice company’s “Blend It Yourself ” kits.
The best thing about them is the taste. They’re full of refreshing fruits and vegetables such as papaya, pear, avocado and nopal cactus. As for slopping them onto your skin? After applying the green gunk with a brush, I experienced a sensation bordering on brain freeze. Not exactly pleasant, but the aloe and cucumber left my skin soft, tight and calm. Another blend contains “superhero cubes” of hibiscus, rose water and calendula, which supposedly have antiinflammatory properties.
But the cooling sensation probably has little to do with the ingredients and more with the drastic temperature change, says aesthetician Sharon Boes, director of education at facial clinic Skin Laundry.
“It can be great if you have some sun exposure, because the cold can calm and soothe the skin,” she says. But be careful, she adds: “Major temperature changes can do more harm than good to your capillaries, and can lead to redness or a tight, taut feeling that could be uncomfortable.”
A subscription of six cups starts at $48, and so, as Boes says, you may be better off with formulas that help natural ingredients actually penetrate the skin, making them “more effective.”
Another company is touting the beauty benefits of its mail-order smoothies — not from slathering on the ingredients topically, but by consuming them.
Daily Harvest, whose investors include Gwyneth Paltrow and Serena Williams, ships a combination of produce picked and frozen at peak ripeness to maintain its optimal nutrition, the company says.
It charges $47.94 for six smoothies a week. One available flavor is the blueberry and hemp booster — a fibrous, nutty smoothie containing antioxidant-rich blueberries. Many of the drinks also include healthy fats, such as those found in avocados and walnuts, which are also good for skin, Boes says.
Still, you’re not going to get all that many skin-care benefits from eating or applying these mixtures to your face, Boes says.
“It’s not like you can just eat something and think you’re going to have the world’s best skin,” she says. “Even when you’re eating healthy food, your skin is [still] vulnerable to the environment around it.”