6 Daily Habits for Beautiful Skin, According to Dr. Vicki Belo

By Ysabel Vitangcol on October 6, 2020

It’s often easy to forget, but we’re still in the throes of a worldwide pandemic—one that has irreversibly changed the way we work and live. With everything that’s going on, the last thing you want to worry about is bad skin. Nobody wants to deal with an annoying chin breakout, or oiliness that gets in the way of you looking ~*fresh*~ during that Zoom meeting. So we’re giving you 6 habits, as advised by Dr. Vicki Belo, that you can try and integrate into your daily ritual for more beautiful skin. It’s the best time to embrace being bare-faced—and it starts with a perfect base.

1. Take collagen supplements.

Your serum may claim to contain collagen, but according to Dr. Belo, topical applications may not be enough. “Topical collagen does not have the same effects as the oral supplementation of collagen. Collagen is too large a molecule to penetrate the skin, which means topical collagen doesn’t stimulate collagen production on a cellular level the way collagen supplementation will,” she explained in an August 2019 interview with Cosmo.ph.

“Collagen is the most abundant substance in our body next to water. It makes up 75 percent of our skin, and is responsible for keeping it young and firm. It also gives strength and support to our bones, hair, and fingernails. It’s like the frame of a house that provides structure to different parts of our body. Without it, [our skin] becomes weak and it loses our form. So if you are serious about maintaining youthful skin, anti-aging topical products—even if they contain collagen—are not enough. Collagen supplementation is key.” 

You lose 20% of your collagen at age 20, so now is as good a time as any to begin. Try the Belo Collagen Melon Smoothie, available at The Belo Shop.

2. Wear sunscreen, even indoors.

“A sunscreen a day keeps the wrinkles away,” Dr. Belo said in the April 2020 article ‘Should You Wear Sunscreen, Even at Home?’ “To avoid the formation of wrinkles, the best thing to do is use sunscreen in the morning, even if you’re not going out…the best is SPF 5 PA++++, with Broad Spectrum Coverage, UVA [protection] to prevent wrinkles, and UVB [protection] to prevent sunburn.”

3. Use Dr. Belo’s personal secret for stopping pimples before they even appear.

Dr. Belo has a secret (well, not-so-secret, since she passed this tip on to Camille Co!) to thwart pimples before they wreak havoc on your skin. When she feels that dreaded bump coming on, she applies ZO® Exfoliation Accelerator on the affected area. The product’s glycolic acid and green tea content brings down inflammation, which keeps the bump from morphing into a full-blown pimple. Ta-da! Shop it here.

4. Switch up your treatments every once in a while.

“I believe in always rotating my treatments, because it’s like planting things in the ground: if you keep planting the same crop eventually all the vitamins and the minerals for all that particular crop are gone. So it’s good to change treatments often,” Dr. Belo explained in a 2019 interview with Preview.ph. One week, you’ll find Dr. Belo sticking to her fave Glycopeel Cleaning and Powerpeel combo; the next, she’ll try something different like the Contouring Facial, or the Madonna Oxylight Facial. “If you keep getting the same treatment every week, month, or three weeks, then it just shows that your skin isn’t really evolving or getting better.”

5, Dr. Belo wants you to eat kimchi!

Both Dr. Belo and Dr. Hayden Kho believe in the importance of keeping your gut healthy—it has a lot to do with your skin health. “There’s no way you get [collagen] from food unless you eat the cartilage in between the chicken,” she said in an October 2018 interview with Pep.ph. “Kimchi is a good way to do it. It’s not because it creates collagen, but it does create a good bacterial environment in your gut that helps with the formation of collagen. Anything that’s fermented is actually good. Then you need your omega-3 fatty acids, your omega-6, so you take your cold-water fishes. Hindi puwede bangus, lapu-lapu, tuna. You have to take cold-water fish like salmon [and] cod.” 

6. Despite the challenges, try to get enough sleep.

Working from home can take a toll on your circadian rhythm, especially as increasing work demands blur the line between office time and rest time. Dr. Belo recommends using a melatonin supplement to help smooth things over. “As we get older, we lose melatonin, so we don’t sleep well at night. That’s the only time our body can regenerate and rejuvenate, so we really have to sleep well. But guess what? Melatonin really helps with immunity, [and] it’s anti-inflammatory. It’s important to take this usually about 30 minutes to 1 hour before we want to sleep,” she recommended. You can get your melatonin from the Formula VB Immunity Booster Kit at The Belo Shop.

At first, these habits might seem frivolous. Maybe you’re not the type to remember to take collagen supplements. Or maybe kimchi just isn’t your thing. That’s okay—you can engage in a collaborative effort with your Belo MD to find ones that better suit your preferences. However, good habits take time to develop. They can be annoying to stick with at first, but once the results make themselves known, these tips will become lifelong rituals.

To book an in-clinic consultation, call 8819-BELO or email info@belomed.com.

Want to chat before diving in? Click here to book an online consultation with a Belo MD. If you want to speak to the Beauty Expert herself, click here to book an online consultation with Dr. Vicki Belo.

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