New Year's Resolution #1: Drink Your Way To Healthier Skin

Fruit and Vegetable Smoothies

A study conducted by Ross Whitehead at the University of St. Andrew's has confirmed what your mama always told you: eat more fruit and vegetables. The study found that people who get a lot of fresh produce in their diet develop a healthier-looking skin tone — one that other subjects found more attractive. If it's hard for you to get a bunch of kale into your everyday diet, try popping big handfuls in a blender with some carrots and some apples — you'll drink up all the skin-enhancing nutrients you need in record time.

Red Wine

Proanthocyanidins — antioxidants found in red grapes — prevent skin reactions that lead to everything from sunburn to wrinkles. These powerful antioxidants don't occur in white wine, however, so tippling champagne on New Year's Eve won't kick off your resolution. Still, a switch from white to red is hardly something to boo-hoo — especially over the winter months. 

Water

I can't find a way to liquor this beverage up for you, but I can tell you that it is absolutely critical to maintaining skin health. Your skin is an organ like any other, and it — like all your organs — needs water to function healthily. Underhydrated skin can get flaky and tight, leading to dull skin in the short-term and wrinkles down the line. You can jazz up your glass of the universal solvent with rounds of lemon, lime, or orange, but you should be guzzling at least eight glasses — or a little more than three of those 20-ounce bottles — a day.  

Green Tea

With flavors that range from subtly floral to deeply smoky, there's undoubtedly a green tea out there that you will enjoy  — you just might not have found it yet. "Green tea is helpful not just when you sip a hot cup, but also when you drink it in through your skin via products like Replenix serum," Dr. Lin tells us.

Even better? A smoky gunpowder green mixes beautifully with Jameson's. Seriously, try it. 

Bloody Marys

January 1st is National Bloody Mary Day, and what a way to ring in the New Year: packed with lycopene, tomatoes are fantastic for your skin. A study conducted at the University of Newcastle in England found that tomato and olive oil consumption improved the skin's ability to protect itself against UV  – the light that produces wrinkles and sun damage in your skin. Slap on some sunscreen, don a pair of giant Jackie O shades, and get ready to drink in 2014 in a far healthier way.