Today, I wanted to share both a personal experience and the experiences of my clients regarding a beloved favorite of ours: coffee.
You see, somewhere during my skin clearing journey, I realized that coffee was making my skin worse.
The connection wasn’t easy to spot as I was breaking out all the time, and just pausing my daily coffee for a week or two didn’t result in any visible difference (yes, it often takes some time after eliminating the trigger for visible skin improvements to occur).
Eventually though (after trying several times), I gave it up for good. At first, my cystic acne started to clear, and then the residual congestion.
Not just that, my skin started to feel so supple and moisturized, I didn’t even need a moisturizer!!
Why could coffee make acne worse, you might ask?
- It amplifies the stress response in the body (mainly due to the caffeine that absorbs rapidly), raising cortisol and androgens, which clog up the skin
- It may carry mycotoxins and disrupt the gut microbiome, leading to inflammation and even higher stress response in the body
- Coffee is a diuretic, so it can dehydrate the skin too, slowing down the skin barrier repair and making it more prone to negative environmental influences. Furthermore, this dehydrating effect may eventually slow down the natural exfoliation process in the skin (desquamation), which clogs the pores
- Both caffeine and estrogen (estradiol) are metabolized by the hepatic enzyme CYP1A2 in the liver (source). The same study also shows the link between caffeine intake and estrogen levels (which will likely also impact the skin for those who are more caffeine sensitive).
Now that I have given you the standard response, I must also say that I don’t think we (or should I say, science) know all the ways in which coffee impacts us.
Firstly, caffeine is a very addictive substance, we mustn’t forget that. If you cannot function without coffee, you are hooked on caffeine and your stress hormones may be all over the place (affecting your skin, your sleep, circadian rhythm, etc).
Secondly, there are more than a thousand active substances in coffee (even if you drink the purest, mycotoxin free coffee), many of which can have beneficial effect on human health, and some of which we just don’t know enough about.
But what if you are doing it the pro-metabolic way – drinking only after meals, with cream and/or sugar?
For some of my clients, doing it this way is totally fine and they are able to clear up their skin without issue.
For others though, clearing up the skin was VERY difficult or nearly impossible while there was still coffee in the picture. I have seen this with clients who are clearly dependent on coffee (which you would expect), but also with clients who seemingly tolerated coffee well, never felt jittery or like they cannot function without coffee.
In summary, drinking coffee the “pro-metabolic” way isn’t a free pass that liberates you from the potentially negative impacts of coffee on your skin. This may depend on your current gut health, stress levels and more, but some of us eat and live well and there is still that negative effect of coffee.
No matter how many scientific studies you read that show coffee benefits, or how much a pro-metabolic educator advocates coffee, how coffee really works for you is just something you have to figure out for yourself.
You can’t outsource finding what’s optimal for your body to others or to a specific dietary approach.
Choosing a dietary philosophy that aligns with your beliefs doesn’t automatically mean you can simply “check off all the boxes” without assessing whether these actions and foods genuinely suit your individual needs.
Yes, bio individuality is a real thing!
What if you are using a high quality decaf?
I have tried this as well, and while it took longer to see negative effects, they eventually came. I am guessing this is due to still some small amounts of caffeine, or the overall dehydration effect (or some other mechanism I am not even aware of).
What is interesting is that other sources of caffeine like green tea or black tea aren’t nearly as damaging to my skin as coffee. There is just something unique about it that is unfortunately triggering.
Did I bring back coffee, years later, and what happened to my skin?
Yes, I did, multiple times.
Each time, this is what happens: I don’t break out at all if I drink it like once or twice a month.
However, since I like the taste so much, I start to drink it daily or nearly daily (I did this with both regular coffee and decaf).
After a few weeks, I begrudgingly notice that my skin is drier. It just lacks that supple glow. I promptly ignore it and think that the joy of my daily coffee is worth it.
Then after a few months (or sooner), I will see some small breakouts around my chin, on the sides of my face, between the eyebrows, temples, etc.
I will just try to fix it with skincare and succeed to an extent, but never fully. When I am at a point where I am trying too hard with my skincare, I finally decide to quit coffee for good. Instead, I use rooibos tea with honey and milk or Dandy Blend (or organic Barley cup, which is more easily available in Europe).
What happens after a month or so without coffee is that my clear skin is SO MUCH easier to maintain. I can completely forget to even wash my face in the evening and I will not break out. My skin literally doesn’t even need a moisturizer, feels almost moist to the touch.
Basically, I could even do caveman regimen and my skin will be great, with zero effort.
But isn’t there some way to circumvent the potential negative effects of coffee?
This is a trap that we all unfortunately fall into at least once. We try to fix an issue by overcompensating in another area that doesn’t need fixing.
Not only will you likely not get good results, but you will pay for it in wasted money, energy and time.
Whenever I suspect coffee may be aggravating my client’s skin, I suggest a break of at least 2 months to evaluate how the skin is doing.
What often happens is that their energy regulates itself, they feel better but may sometimes miss the taste and ritual of coffee. At that point, you have to pick your battle, what means most to you.
For me personally, even though I love coffee, I love effortlessly clear skin more.
Over time though, as your skin has been clear for a while (you have balanced your hormones, healed your gut, regulated stress levels, etc), it is absolutely possible that the initial negative effect of coffee is gone and you can enjoy it without causing breakouts (unlike me, lol). I have definitely witnessed this situation as well!
Hope you find all this helpful and don’t hesitate to reply to this email with any questions or comments you might have!
Much love,
Sara
P.S. If you want to learn more about supporting your skin barrier specifically and the common skincare pitfalls to avoid for beautiful skin, check out my ebook The Skin Barrier Fix.
