Did you know that blueberries not only have amazing health benefits such as Maintaining brain function, Improving your memory, Preventing heart disease and maintaining healthy bones? But, they also aid in skincare such as helping fight signs of aging AND provide haircare benefits such as facilitating hair growth??

Well if you keep reading I’ll tell you exactly how…..

First we’ll start with Skincare. Studies have shown that blueberries can help reverse the signs of aging and that is because Blueberries are a “superfood” and are rich in antioxidants. What are antioxidants right??? Antioxidants protect the body from damage caused by harmful molecules called free radicals. Free Radicals you ask…..the presence of free radicals in the skin can cause severe skin damage. It can cause early signs of aging, such as wrinkles, dry skin, and age spots.

So here’s how it works, Your skin can form free radicals that cause skin damage, antioxidants come along with molecules that causes a reaction (Totally simplifying this process) in free radicals and helps prevent them from causing more damage.  So the next question is how many blueberries are we talking here to make this happen, approx.. 1 cup a day. 1 cup of blueberries contains approx. 13K antioxidants. If you’re like me it sounds incredibly boring to just eat 1 cup of blueberries a day, but there are many ways that you can incorporate them in your daily diet and here are a few of my favorites:

• Eating them after being freshly washed

• Adding them to a smoothie

  • Frozen banana, coconut milk and blueberry smoothies sound delicious

• Adding them to oatmeal

• Smoothie bowls incorporating other fruits

• Adding them to yogurt parfaits with almond and vanilla granola

Next let’s talk about Hair…

Blueberries amongst many other things help to stimulate the growth of hair due to the presence of the chemicals proanthocyanidins.

Proanthocyanidins are known for their antioxidant activity.

Well, what is that and how does this impact my hair??
Hair is composed of dead cells called keratin. Hair growth occurs when the dead cells are pushed out by the hair follicles because of the production of new cells. This happens in 3 stages and they are growth , cessation, and rest. In other words, your hair grows, stops, takes a break and then the process starts all over again. Proanthocyanidins works in the form of stimulating hair growth by accelerating the transition from rest to growth. So essentially the period between the resting and growth “has a greater chance of being shortened” with proper care and consumption of blueberries.

As you know Blueberries have many many great benefits but I wanted to highlight some of the ones related specifically to skin and hair….now that you have a little more knowledge on this be sure to stay tuned because I may or may not have another post in the works and there may or may not be a giveaway…. Til’ next time!

xo

Ebony