We all, or at least most of us, want beautiful, glowing skin, with as little acne as possible when we are young, and as few wrinkles and ‘imperfections’ of one kind or another as possible later on. Often, even as teenagers, we turn to products to make ourselves look as beautiful as possible, and make-up is usually used to brighten our complexion. Unfortunately, all too often we lack not only information about really good quality cosmetics, but also awareness of what is behind beauty as we know it today.

The skin, our largest organ, which is also the first visible organ and therefore the mirror of our well-being and state of health – physical, mental and spiritual – requires not only external but also internal care.

I remember a decade or so ago, when I asked a lady selling home cosmetics at an eco-market what she would recommend for acne-prone and generally a bit irritated skin on the face, she replied succinctly that you should look not only at what you put on, but also what you put in. I also remember that this went a little deeper than I would have thought – after all, I am now writing this ten years later (and a decade older) – but perhaps also more than the lady really meant. But hand on heart – she was right.

Trapped on the surface …

Although I’ve been concerned about what I put in my mouth since I was a little girl (I was in 5th grade, to be precise, when I started my first serious diet), I’ve really always had too much to do with it. If I ever ate chocolate, for example, I would quickly get a guilty conscience and go for a long run. So chocolate was forgiven. If I ever indulged in a bit more for lunch, I skipped dinner in the evening. Because I didn’t deserve it. If I ever ate a little more in general throughout the day, I fasted the next day. I mean, I had done it the day before! In short, all the time dealing with food. And exercise. And again with food.

If I had this illusion that I had some order and discipline, the feeling that I was working on myself, my skin didn’t agree. It did not feel that my “working on myself” was for my own benefit. So it continued to react with acne and other imperfections, which I started to scratch off after a while, because I had an impulse that the skin on my face had to be smooth, and freckles were not part of that. I was trapped on my own surface.

Skin – a mirror of our inner state

A few years later, when a minor accident led me to the path of Ayurveda, which opened wide the glorious doors of an extraordinary philosophy, a way of life and of taking care of oneself in the true sense of the word, as it involves a completely holistic approach, I realised, amongst other things, that the skin, besides being our protector, is also a literal mirror of our inner state. When we are stressed, our skin is our mirror. Pitta dosha will “sprout” acne and maybe redness, vata dosha will have even drier skin and kapha dosha will have even more oily skin than usual.

In Ayurveda, there are three types of doshas, and all three are present in each of us, but to varying degrees, usually one is dominant, but the key is that all three are in balance. If they are not, then this imbalance will manifest itself either in ill health or eventually disease, and almost always the first signs can be seen in the skin. So we should actually be grateful to the skin for showing us our inner state, rather than covering up anomalies with foundations and other beauty products that cover up our inner state, layer by layer, even for ourselves. The further we are from ourselves, from our own truth, the more difficult it is to correct this disturbed state of ours. But surely this is not only possible with external applications of “something”. Besides, under this ‘something’, the skin also breathes harder and we may unwittingly aggravate its condition.

So yes – I can only thank the lady who, at that time, a decade ago, served me that, slightly crude, sentence. But I would also like to add to her thought today that it is not only what we physically put into ourselves that is important, but also what we put into our minds every day. Let us just remember the old Indian proverb about which wolf we feed …

And when we learn and fully accept the mindset that what is more important in life than how we look on the outside is how we really feel, and when we connect the state of how we feel with how close we really are to ourselves, to our truth, beauty will come naturally. When our inner beauty, our inner fire, our authentic energy is lit, nothing, nothing can stop it from breaking through and the healthy energy on our cheeks and the glow in our clear eyes.

Inner and outer beauty – there is no one without the other!

And full-fledged external care becomes a matter of course. When you find the right care for your skin type (including your wellbeing or stage of life), it can be a balm, however clichéd it may sound. There’s something so beautiful about applying what our skin craves to our face with care and self-love. Because who will do that for us if not ourselves?

And as Ayurvedic doctor and guru Dr Vasant Lad says, beauty can be trulyageless. Of course our physical body ages, but if we keep it healthy and agile for as long as possible, and our mind clear and clear, our soul will also be happy and full, and we will achieve what each of us probably wants most – peace and freedom. And once we have a sense of this, we can also see beauty as something timeless. Inner and outer. Because there is no one without the other.

And thank you again to the lady who gave me such an important sentence at that eco-market.

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