Eating Right to Look and Feel Your Best - Top tips from Sarah Brown, the founder of Pai Skincare.

At Rude Health we rely on the highest quality, sustainably produced ingredients to make food you fly out of bed for. The importance of keeping our ingredients just the way they are – unprocessed, non-GM and free from refined sugars – is something we just cant stop talking about.

We’ve also been talking a lot about sugar lately. Good sugars, bad sugars, the causes for confusion and why it all really matters. We even brought the best of the health industry together to discuss their views on sugar. However different everyone’s opinion, the thing that united us was a commitment to better education and to encourage people to think harder about their sugar consumption.

One thing in particular that was mentioned at the EAT RIGHT Breakfast was the importance of not only thinking about the foods we put in our mouths, but also the ingredients we put on our skin; our largest organ of all.

There’s not enough awareness about the chemicals used in skin care products that can irritate the skin and cause allergies. These toxins can build up in the body and have been linked to wider health problems.

So who better to find out more about this issue than Sarah Brown, the founder of Pai Skincare. She quit her job as Head of International PR for a multi-national wine company and retrained for over three years in several cosmetic and natural skin care disciplines to launch Pai in 2007. Her goal was to create the cleanest plant-based skin care on the market, with a range of products formulated for people with very sensitive skin. Find out why below:

We love hearing the story behind why small brands like us get started. How did you get involved in skincare?

I got into skincare after having struggled with troublesome skin for years myself. I developed a skin condition called urticaria in my mid-twenties. It’s a lesser-known skin allergy that exacerbates from too much stress, eating refined foods and using topical cosmetic ingredients.

I cleansed my diet and turned to ‘organic’ products for help, assuming they’d be gentler. But the whole organic beauty shopping experience actually made me very disillusioned! Too often I’d get products home to discover they contained a heap of irritating synthetics. The product labelling was, at best, misleading and, at worst, plain dishonest. I experimented with so many products but still couldn’t find anything that my hyper sensitive skin could tolerate.

Instead, I took matters into my own hands and started to develop Pai. I wanted to create a range both sensitive skin sufferers and organic beauty lovers could not only trust but also fall in love with.

We know that unprocessed and organic foods are the best for our diets. But can you tell us more about the importance of using natural and organic ingredients on our skin?

Not only are organic ingredients best for soothing and strengthening the skin, they’re also better metabolised and tolerated by the body through the skin. All of our products are free from detergents, harsh preservatives and artificial fragrances that can dry out, irritate and prematurely age the skin.

We’re firm believers in eating right to look and feel our best. How closely linked is our diet to our skin’s health?

They are intrinsically linked; many skin conditions are traced back to the gut.

There are some easy adjustments you can make to your diet that can really help to keep the skin calm and balanced.

Eating an alkaline diet is a great example, as it helps to reduce inflammation in the body. The common advice is to follow an 80% alkaline, 20% acid rule. This can be hard to calculate and maintain so even just tilting the diet in more of an alkaline direction can be enough to make a difference.

Recently, we’ve been focusing a lot on sugar. Good sugars, bad sugars, the causes for confusion and why it matters. What impact does sugar have on your skin?

Refined sugar is a poison for our skin and is therefore the first thing we should aim to cut out of our diet if you’re suffering with adult acne or a skin allergy. It causes inflammation within the body and also disrupts hormone levels which cause an over production of sebum which ultimately causes breakouts. It is also believed to slow down the skin’s collagen production, which leaves the skin looking dull, loose and lacklustre.

What are your top tips for keeping our skin in rude health?

Cleansing is at the heart of a good skincare regime – get it right and everything else should fall into place.

Start by ditching foaming cleansers, which are packed with drying detergents, and opt for a gentle Cream Cleanser instead. Detergents strip away natural oils and disrupt the skin’s natural pH – both of which cause imbalances in the skin.

Restoring that balance can take time, but it truly is the secret to happy, healthy skin.

Which foods do you recommend for maintaining a glowing, healthy complexion?

Foods rich in Essential Fatty Acids – omegas are the building blocks of healthy, glowing skin. Incorporate avocadoes, oily fish, leafy greens, nuts and seeds into your diet for a natural boost of these good fats.

What’s your favourite Rude Health food?

I absolutely love the Almond Drink – it’s a staple in my fridge. I used to try and make my own but it’s a real faff and the Rude Health one tastes even better! I love the Ultimate Granola too.

Where can we get Pai Skincare products?

From our website: www.paiskincare.com.

Get a 50ml Camellia & Rose Gentle Hydrating Cleanser free when you spend £35 on the Pai website. Use the code: ‘RUDEHEALTH’. Offer ends April 2^nd 2014.