Limit the red to your lips, ladies! © Showbit
To my colleagues constantly interrogating me for the secret to my allegedly immaculate complexion – shout-out to Jerene and company – here’s a totally F.O.C. beauty tip you can test out right now.
Drumroll, please: Suck on an ice cube.
That’s it? That’s it. This embarrassingly simple solution is a really “cool” way, so to speak, of balancing out blotchy skin.
I’ve suffered from spectacular splotches on my skin my whole life: A trade-off, it would seem, for being as pale as death. (Not a good deal, I assure you; Prince Harry’s quite possibly the only person capable of rocking a ruddy complexion.)
Sheer serendipity led me to stumble upon this skin-saving trick: It was a muggy night at a pub many moons ago when I noticed that swilling several ice chips around in my mouth for a minute or so seemed to mollify my mottled mien. Bingo! A beauty win-win all round.
Now for the whys and wherefores. You may be aware that facial redness (“erythema” in derm-speak) is due to the dilation of blood vessels close to the skin’s surface. To dial back the blotchiness, you’ll need to shrink said blood vessels, which is where the ice cubes come to the fore.
Here’s how. When you hold a piece of ice to your upper mouth, the sensitive nerve endings cloistered around that area signal the dip in temperature to the interconnected blood vessels in your face, causing them to constrict for a more even complexion.
To the skeptics out there, it appears as if science backs me up on this one; studies show that ice can help to soothe the symptoms of sensitive skin.
I know what you’re thinking: But what about the brain freeze, Eugene? For that, Nicolas Travis, Singapore skincare entrepreneur and founder of upcoming grooming label Allies of Skin, recommends swirling the ice about as if you’re at a snooty wine tasting; the key is not to hold the cube continuously against the top of your mouth. This will ease the electrifying jolts to your brain that can come with gulping down too-cold globs of ice cream.
Try this the next time the weather gets you hot and bothered and let me know how it goes for you. As for yours truly, I like going the whole hog and pairing this with an acne-alleviating beer mask, frosty mug of the good stuff for actual consumption on the side.
If you’re a teetotaler, by all means skip the spirits and cool off with cubes straight from the freezer. Talk about saving face at no cost. Now suck on that!