A beauty regimen that starts at the dinner table

Skin is an organ, not a surface. It is fed by blood, repaired during sleep, and it reports fairly accurately on what the rest of the body has been up to. This is why a regimen built only on what goes on top of it can only do so much.

The part that happens before the shelf

Water. Dehydrated skin looks dull and creases more readily. This is the cheapest improvement available.

Sleep. Skin repair is concentrated in the night. Chronic short sleep is legible on a face and no cream corrects it.

Food. Vitamin C for collagen, vitamin E, zinc, and the fats found in nuts and seeds. Fruit and vegetables again, doing the same work they do everywhere else.

Not smoking. Smoking ages skin visibly and by a considerable margin, through reduced blood supply and direct damage to collagen.

The regimen itself

Clean, moisturise, protect. That is the whole of it for most people.

Sun protection is the single highest-value step and the most commonly skipped in India, where sun exposure is year-round. Most visible ageing of skin is sun damage rather than time passing, which means a great deal of it is preventable rather than inevitable.

Herbal preparations

Neem, turmeric, aloe, besan and multani mitti have long traditions behind them and are gentle on most skin. Patch-test anything new on your inner forearm before it goes near your face - herbal does not mean non-reactive, and a reaction on the arm is a nuisance where the same reaction on the face is a fortnight of regret.

What a regimen cannot do

A mole that changes shape or colour, a sore that does not heal, persistent severe acne, or a rash that spreads are dermatology, not cosmetics. See a doctor.