Vanity Fare

There might not be a magic pill to swallow for a smooth, radiant complexion, but what about kimchi, mustard greens and oysters? Karen Tee tucks into the latest diet trends to find out if your skin is indeed what you eat.

- Karen Tee

Next to superfoods (Kale? Please, it’s now cauliflower) and all sorts of trendy diets that reflect our increasingly wellness obsessed society, your mother’s call to drink her painstakingly brewed tonics for beautiful skin might seem somewhat old school and superficial. There could, however, be some truth to eating one’s way to glowing skin, and it could lie in some of today’s hottest eating trends. (What this also means: It’s likely to taste a lot friendlier than, say, turtle soup with angelica root and more bitter herbs.)

Wellness and lifestyle cafe Frunatics, which opened end June at Palais Renaissance after an over three-year-long hiatus, serves “therapeutic meals” including a nine-course skin detox set that includes an antioxidant-rich salad, and a vitamin- and fibre-packed strawberry, grapefruit and baby spinach smoothie. At the two Michelin-starred Restaurant Andre on Bukit Pasoh Road, its namesake founder and Asia’s culinary golden boy Andre Chiang recently began offering fermented fruit juices as part of the establishment’s pairing menu.

It might seem like a given that eating well ought to naturally lead to better overall health, including that of your complexion, but that hasn’t stopped more and more of beauty’s most respected insiders from joining in the movement of diet care for skin care.

In April this year, American cosmetics guru Bobbi Brown released Beauty From The Inside Out, a 224page tome filled not with makeup tips but recipes including her version of an ultra refreshing, Insta-worthy power bowl (kale, quinoa, sweet potato, lentils, avocado and watermelon radish).