Hello Hello!
Hope everyone’s okay! I’m currently sitting at my desk writing this at 11pm on a Monday night (hold on I think its Monday let me check… it is, just!) as corona has completely thrown my sleep pattern out of whack and time currently is not an issue. Anyone else feel me?
So this post is on ‘Dairy‘. This was a post that I was buzzing to write as it’s the million dollar question to me (and I’m sure to many others too) – does dairy affect skin/breakouts? Truth be told, I don’t really know, can anyone help? Only joking I do have a good idea of what my answer to this question is, so lets go!
First of all a little bit of context – I don’t completely, completely go dairy free always as I still live at home and live with 4 other people who all love cheese, cream etc. So it can be challenging! However I do my best as much as I can, and therefore I do have an answer. Of course this is just what I think for my body and everyone is different, but we can’t all be that different really, but you never know haha. Anyway, here goes…
As I know you’re all on the edge of your seats waiting to find out the answer, my verdict is that YES it does have an affect. Let me tell you what I think, I thought I’d put it into perspective… So last week it was easter here and as we all know easter involves chocolate, which is full of dairy and sugar (I hope everyone knows that…) and I’m an absolute sucker for anything sweet, and a bit of a chocoholic really, especially when it’s in my peripheral vision. Therefore, that weekend/week a lot was consumed. The week before this I had a week where I tried my best not to touch dairy as much as possible, I did exercise regularly and tried to have lots of fruit protein smoothies (I know I surprised myself that week!). My skin looked the clearest and brightest it’s been in a long time. Then came easter. I got 2 medium sized Easter eggs (which was amazing considering the circumstances), they were gone within a few days. I didn’t exercise as much and had quite a lot of dairy and sugar throughout. My skin changed, quite a lot in my eyes. Maybe not that noticeable to other people, but I got at least 5 new little friends pop up and I was quite red and inflamed at times. Now all the chocolate has been demolished and I’ve tried to be better this week, my skin is slowly starting to calm again. Now maybe this is all a coincidence, but it would have to be a very big one right?
Now down to the nitty gritty, science’y part… I’ve read up about this a lot in the past (but I’m far off an expert in this matter and I’m not a qualified doctor/scientist may I add). Like lots of things, cows produce hormones, to make baby cows grow and then often farmers pump in artificial ones to stimulate milk production. Then guess what? They end up in dairy products, which can then confuse our own hormones and cause breakouts. I know it sounds a lot worse (and a bit gross really) than it probably actually is, but it does make sense.
Now I don’t want to make any wild claims to say ‘this will completely clear your skin’ etc. but its worth a try right? Especially if your diet is fairly high is dairy produce. It’s hard, trust me, but I honestly do think that it does make a difference. However it’s not all bad, as I discovered the new Ben and Jerrys vegan ice cream the other day, and trust me I COULD NOT tell the difference. Also, Alpro do amazing milks and yogurt which makes it all a little but more bearable. The only thing that can be slightly challenging is most peoples fave, cheese! But I did find one to be amazing – Koko cheddar cheese alternative, ok it’s not exactly the same if you slice and eat it when your a little bit peckish (I may or may not have used to do this…) but melted on/into something it tastes amazing (it does have a strong coconut flavour, so if your not a fan of that I would maybe give it a swerve). Overall, there are other options and it’s actually quite nice having a little shop around and to break the habit of the same route around Sainsbury’s week after week haha!
All in all, It’s definitely worth a try! Even if you don’t cut it out completely, cutting down may make a difference. Please try not to be hard on yourself though, it’s not the end of the world if it says on the back of the packet ‘may contain traces of MILK’, rest assured it probably won’t kill you if you have eaten up until before you cut it out and haven’t touched it for a while (please only panic if you are allergic, in that case please ignore me!). Oh and please have chocolate if you love it like me, occasionally, especially if you’re having a bad day and really fancy it. It won’t do any harm on your mental health, and it will taste amaze! (Just try not to go OTT, as then all your hard work will maybe go down the drain…).
Anyway, I hope this helps a little and would love to hear peoples stories on this subject if anyone else has any. Equally, it may be placebo to me and/or you may disagree, so please if so eat your heart out! I won’t be too offended, I promise.
Lots of love, Ella x
(Disclaimer – this is not a sponsored/ad post, the products I have mentioned above are products I have bought, tried, tested and highly rate.)
Ella May Beauty 