Summer is best: It’s the time to enjoy the great outdoors and it’s the season for fruits. It’s the best time to eat your rainbow. Fruits and veggies with the deepest and brightest colours are known to offer fantastic health benefits. The same compounds that make them so colourful are great for your skin and overall health. And when it comes to cherries, you’ll want them darker so they’ll taste sweeter and richer.
Thanks to brightening, revitalising, antioxidant, and moisturising properties cherries and cherry extract have exploded in the skin care world. They pop up in face masks, serums, and other skin lotions and potions. But it’s easy to see why, when you know that it contains loads and loads of goodies that fight acne and ageing, making them a true ally for your skin.
Before I go into what makes cherries so sweet let’s see how you can tell if your skin care product contains cherry.
The cherry
There are many different types of cherries, red, black, white, and yellow. It’s probably easier to group them into sweet or sour cherries.
Sweet cherries (Prunus avium) are what you find most often in your local market or in grocery store. You know, the lovely cherries with their delicious thick, sumptuous tase and almost plum-like texture.
Sour cherries are mainly used for cooking and preserves and are not usually eaten raw.
Both types need about 8 hours of sun every day to grow fruits. Cherry trees belong to the Prunus family, so they’re related to peaches, almonds, and plums. The cherry is drupe: It has a pit that is surrounded by fruit flesh.
In spring, white and pink cherry blossom delight the eyes and summer is harvest season.
So, what makes cherries such fierce allies for your skin?
All cherry types hold benefits for skin health. Red and black cherry contain anthocyanins that are potent antioxidants that double up as anti-inflammatory and anti-ageing agents. Yellow cherries are a vital source of carotenoids that your body converts into vitamin A. In contrast to sweet cherries, sour cherries have 50% more vitamin C and are also high in astringent organic acids.
Cherries contain other essential nutrients such as potassium, zinc, copper, and manganese. This help reinforce your skin’s natural barrier and speed up healing.
Clear skin
All cherries contain oodles of antioxidants. The red and black cherries have anthocyanins, while the yellow cherries contain carotenoids. Carotenoids is also often referred to as provitamin A because as soon as they hit your body, they get converted into vitamin A.
Now combine the carotenoids with zinc – as is in cherries and you get a super ally to help you clear skin. Both together boost wound healing and help regenerate new healthy skin cells helping you get clear skin, lift acne scars, scars from wounds, spots, and other minor skin imperfections.
There are also other antioxidants present such as xanthophylls, polyphenols, and vitamins C, all of which also act as anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial agents. This is good news since they help calm red and irritated skin that often appears with breakouts. Being anti-bacterial means that cherries help fight and kill bacteria that cause the breakouts in the first place.
Stave off signs of ageing
You’ll love cherries if you’re no longer in the age to be plagued by zits but want to keep a youthful appearance for longer. For one, you got the provitamin A carotenoids. These help regulate the production of new skin cells. Think skin regeneration, repair, and cell turnover.
You want provitamin A in your diet and skin care because it helps prevent and treat skin problems related to poor skin cell renewal such as dryness and poor wound healing. Of course, this translates into anti-ageing effects. Think of it like this:
The carotenoids present in cherries support skin cell renewal processes so that your skin grows healthy new skin cells. In essence, it’s the regeneration and reparative properties of cherries that contribute to anti-ageing.
Another way that the carotenoids contribute to anti-ageing is that together with vitamin C, they boost the formation of collagen in your skin. Higher levels of collagen mean your skin is firmer, has less lines and wrinkles. They help restore normal skin functions including the aforementioned collagen production in damaged skin.
The antioxidants can’t be left out. As a refresher, an antioxidant is a compound that neutralises free radicals caused by sun exposure, cigarette smoke, or pollution in general. These pesky free radicals damage the skin cells and as a consequence, you’ll see premature ageing, weakened skin barrier, loose saggy skin. The antioxidants present in cherries such as anthocyanins, xanthophylls, lutein, carotenoids, and vitamin C act at the cell level where they neutralise free radicals and so limit and prevent cell damage.
Relieve dry skin
Maybe this is obvious, but fresh, raw cherries are made up of 82% of water. This makes them naturally hydrating. They’re also rich in vitamin B complex and E. Vitamin E is fat soluble antioxidant. It helps strengthen your skin barrier. The range of vitamin Bs help with your overall health. Or put differently, a deficiency can be seen in symptoms such as dry and cracked skin.
Lift dark spots
Vitamin C is absolutely vital for your skin (and general) health. Not only is it key in wound healing and collagen production, it can help alleviate dark spots from the sun, acne, and hyperpigmentation.
Zzzzzzz
Ok, you need to eat the cherries and not make a DYI face pack to get a good night’s sleep. It’s not a myth that high-quality sleep is called beauty sleep. Having enough sleep is absolutely essential for renewal and repair of many skin processes. Cherries contain melatonin, a sleep hormone.
Not all cherries are equal though, if you’re looking for a natural way to fall asleep sooner. Sour cherries have higher amounts of melatonin.
Dangerzone
As you see, cherries can be your best ally in skin care. They can do a lot such as
- Alleviate redness and irritation
- Combat damage caused by free radicals
- Rejuvenate your skin
- Improve skin structure
- Clear zits
- Brighten up dull skin
- Moisturise
But, the cherry kernels are not good for you. If you swallow the whole cherry pit it has no complications but if you break open the hard shell, the cherry kernel is poisonous when swallowed.
That being said, there is cherry pit or cherry kernel oil. It’s a seed oil derived from the pits of the cherries.
Cherry pit oil
Cherry pit oil is a bit like sweet almond oil. It can be used for cooking, as a scent, as well as in cosmetics. If you use it as a facial oil, feels lighter and less heavy or fatty than sweet almond oil.
Tell me in the comments below if you want DYI recipes for toner, face packs, and more.
