Beauty From The Inside Out | The Relationship Between Good Gut Health & Our Skin

We believe true beauty shines from within and when it comes to achieving beautiful glowing skin, what we use to nourish our bodies with internally, is just as important as what we use topically. You’ve heard of the saying ‘you are what you eat’ and when it comes to beauty, it couldn’t be more true.

Focusing on the connection between good gut health and our skin, we spoke to the founder of Imbibe, Felicity Evans, who in the pursuit of healing her own gut issues back in 2014, now boasts some of the most in-demand ingestible beauty products and the longest hair and glowiest skin she’s ever had. 

Here Felicity shares with us what beauty means to her, the importance of looking after our skin from the inside out, her advice for those just starting out and what products she recommends trying first.

What does beauty mean to you?

How much love, compassion and kindness we can show to ourselves and others. How comfortable we feel in our own skin.  How comfortable we are expressing ourselves.  How we nourish our intellect and treat our bodies.  These are all qualities that are beautiful and that I strive for every day. 

Why should we be looking after our skin from the inside out?

Because it will truly show!  It’s literally the birthplace for bouncy hydrated skin, beautiful glossy hair and not to mention, wellness.  We talk about Skin-Nutrition at IMBIBE - what and how we eat directly affects not only the look and texture of our skin but our overall health and wellness.   For example, supplementing with our clinically evaluated Ingestible Miracle Collagen is shown to have a direct effect on the collagen stores in our skin tone and reduces wrinkle depth.

How does our gut health relate to our skin?

There is the gut : skin axis and it’s basically a well-established fact that there is a connection between the state of our gut and the state of our skin.  Whatever is happening in our gut will show up on our skin.  That could be inflammatory symptoms, eg. rosacea or dermatitis, that has links to the state of our gut.  Also, it’s shown that our microbial balance affects the state of our skin.  So it's super important to have a well-nourished microbiome with flourishing good bacteria (probiotics) to positively impact our skin health.  And that’s exactly why I created our Beauty Renewal Probiotic concentrate. 

For those only starting to explore the concept of ingestible beauty, where do you recommend they begin and what should they be looking for in a product?

Begin with our Inner Beauty Must-Haves.  This is specifically what I created for the person just starting out.  The basics are a good high-quality bioactive collagen peptide supplement and a good-strength multi-strain probiotic.  These two will work in two ways:  to both plump and firm the skin from within with the Miracle Collagen, and balance the microbiome and support the gut health with the broad base probiotics. They need to look for products with active ingredients with no lower quality fillers and excipients which just bulk out a product to make it cheaper for the brand but actually don't necessarily benefit the consumer.  It’s an all too common mistake I see consumers falling for.  And it’s just not fair. 

How long until you can usually start to see results?

We don't guarantee results and I encourage anyone to read the reviews on our website as a starting place.  Our customers generally report seeing positive changes within 14-60 days of taking the range.  Everyone is so unique, with their own lifestyles and some people feel better inside a long time before they see any physical changes.

You mention you’ve got the 'most glowiest skin and longest hair you’ve ever had’, using these kinds of ingestible products, what are some of the other benefits?

Sleep!  Sex!  Happiness! Stronger Immunity!

What is the main difference between your hero products Miracle Collagen, Protect and Beauty Renewal?

Miracle Collagen is to stimulate new collagen in the skin and strengthen and thicken hair.  Beauty Renewal is our famous three-in-one probiotic concentrate for gut health, microbiome nourishment and to help with digestion and bloating symptoms. Protect is our Vegan Adaptogenic Super-Purple Powder for stress, immunity and to protect collagen formation. They all compliment each other and can all be taken together as one master drink.  I do it daily!

Lastly, what is your number one skincare tip?

Smile!  It makes you more beautiful.  

And after that, make sure your skincare ritual caters for BOTH “dry” and “dehydrated” skin, which are two common things we see most often that women need to address both.  Even “oily” skin can be so dehydrated and crying out for moisture.  

Dehydrated skin needs moisture - which we provide with our Collagen Restore gel-serum which features both seaweed and aloe vera and 17 other botanicals; and dry skin needs oil, which we have created our Collagen Protect oil-serum specifically for. This has Italian grapeseed oil, coffee seed oil, seaweed and lots of other native botanicals.  

They both work together to heal, hydrate and deeply restore all skin types for radiant, glowing skin no matter your age or stage.