Why Yogurt, Cottage Cheese, and Soured Milk are Good for Skin.

You may have heard a lot of bad reputation of dairy in recent years including making people breakout. It is true but this article tells you a different side of the story, when dairy is the skin's best friend.

In ancient time, one of the most well known beauties, Cleopatra, was known to bath in milk to improve skin. It is also common that women in Egypt use yogurt and olive oil to improve skin's moisture and smoothness.

This article is drawn on the ancient wisdoms and look into the science behind the usage of dairy on skin.

What yogurt, cottage cheese, and soured milk have in common is Lactic acid, also known as AHA (Alpha Hydroxy Acid), a naturally produced sustain in milk that turns it into yogurt or soured milk. It gives it that tangy taste. In recent years, you might see this name popping up a lot in beauty products, the most well known one might be the Ordinary product. This is however a synthetically produced chemical. We want to further talk about the natural Lactic acid in dairy that offers the same benefits. Furthermore, it is easy on your budget as you might already find these in the fridge.

11 benefits of Lactic acid:

1. Improves on skin texture:

Lactic acid is best at improving skin texture compared to its peers in the AHA family including the glycolic acid. Not only does it bring out the natural moisture and keeps it hydrated, it also helps remove age lines and wrinkles too. Therefore, making the skin looks radiant and youthful,

2. Brightens skin and achieves a fairer complexion:

One of the greatest benefits of Lactic acid is brightening the skin including removing impurities, dark and dead skin cells. Therefore, you often find Lactic acid in skin brightening products like night creams, cleansers and serums.

3. Exfoliates the skin:

Lactic acid is great at dissolving the inner bonds that hold the dirt, oil, and damaged skin cells together, therefore, it helps improve the skin texture and blood circulation

4. Stimulates cell and collagen renewal:

Lactic acid helps stimulate the skin cell and collagen renewal, giving you a fairer and firmer skin texture.

5. Improves the skin natural's moisture:

Lactic acid has the properties to remove dead skin cells and maintains the skin natural's moisture

6. Improves signs of aging:

Lactic acid has been added in many products that targeting mature skin as it works wonders in reducing the age spots, wrinkles, fine lines, and hyper pigmentations.

7. Fades fine lines and wrinkles

Lactic acid helps increase the natural moisture in the skin, thus, help to reduce fine lines and wrinkles

8. Removes hyper pigmentation

The dead skin and damaged cells cause hyper pigmentation. Also, black spots and hyper pigmentation resulted from the increase of sun exposure without the appropriate protection. As Lactic acid helps exfoliate to remove dead skin and damaged cells, it naturally helps improve on hyper pigmentation.

9. Reduces pore appearance

Lactic acid helps reduce the pore size as it is effective in removing impurities, dirt, dead skin, and damaged cells. The pores appear bigger when they are clogged with unwanted impurities; where as cleaned pores will appear to be smaller.

10. Improves skin tone

In addition to removing impurities, Lactic acid also helps improve skin tone by even out the black spots.

11. Removes dark circles

Dark circles derive from a low blood circulation around the eyes area and from general dried skin. Lactic acid helps improve the skin's moisture and increase the blood circulation; therefore, helps improve on dark circles.

Possible side effects:

1. Sensitivity:

If use for the first time, it could make your skin sensitive. For consistent use, it could makes your skin peeled, red, itchy or swelling. If the severity increases, it is recommended that you stop using it until you see an improvement.

2. Sensitive to sun:

You must make sure to always use sunscreen to avoid sensitivity to the sun. A sunscreen is good for daily use anyway, so why not. A greater than SPF 30 is recommended. A failure to use it consistently will lead to a severe hyper pigmentation or dark spots.

3. Don't mix with retinoid

Both retinoid and Lactic acid are exfoliant so mixing them make the strength too strong for the skin.

4. Extra sensitive for dark skin tone

If you have a dark skin, test out the product on a smaller skin area to see any potential sensitivity. Also, make sure you wear sunscreen religiously as it can increase the hyper pigmentation for darker skin tone.

Usage directions:

Over the counter products:

It is not recommended for a daily use, test it out a couple of times a week then adjust as you see fit

Homemade Masks:

This is considered to be a safe introduction to Lactic acid because of the lower concentration compared to the over the counter products.

Skin Brightening Mask

Ingredients:

* Yogurt 1 tbs

* Honey 1 tsp

* Rose water 1/2 tsp

Method:

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and make a smooth mask

Apply to the face for 20 mins

Wash with warm water then pat dry

Acne removal mask

Ingredients:

* Yogurt 1 tbs

* Turmeric 1/2 tsp

Method:

Mix into a paste then apply to face for 20 mins

Wash your face with cold water, then pat dry

Use twice weekly for best result

Dark spots removal mask

Ingredients:

* Potato juice 2 tbs

* Lime juice 1 tsp .

* Yogurt 1 tbs

* Gram flour 1 tbs

Method:

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and make a smooth mask

Apply to face and let it dry, then wash off with warm water

Use it daily to see best results

Mask for dull and dry skin

Ingredients:

* Gram flour 1 tbs

* Honey 1 tsp .

* Glycerin 1 tbs

* Yogurt 2 tbs

Method:

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and make a paste

Apply to face evenly and let sit fo 30 mins

Spray some cold water then gently rub off for 2-3 mins

Use twice weekly to see best results

Dark circle removal mask

Ingredients:

* Yogurt 2 tbs

* Potato juice 1 tbs

* Cucumber juice 1 tbs

Method:

In the cheese cloth, scoop in the yogurt then squeeze out the juice

Mix this juice with the potato and the cucumber juice

Soak the cotton pat then place it on eyes for 15 mins

Use daily for maximum results

Source:

Foundation, The Skin Care . Let’s Talk About Lactic Acid Skin Care: The Korean Beauty daily skin care tips and tools for natural remedies and skin hydration, dark spots, dry skin, acne treatment, exfoliator