Hormones and Skin: How They Affect the Way Women Look

Hormones play an important role when it comes to skin and overall appearance, here are the main ones and what you can do to balance them out.

The negative effects of hormonal imbalances include skin issues as well. For instance, teenagers are usually more acne prone because of their hormones during puberty. That’s why it is important to know them and fix them as soon as possible. While the work should start from the inside (diet, stress…) it must be combined with some outside actions: choose safe and professional products for your skincare routine and be consistent.

1. High testosterone. Women need testosterone, it’s important for things like libido, skin health, muscle tone… But when it becomes too high, it’s an issue. In general, testosterone makes the skin thicker and oilier, which means more acne. It can also cause hair growth on the upper lip, chin and nipples, and even hair loss in the front and in the crown of the head (so called “female pattern balding”). Why is testosterone high in the first place? There’s typically two reasons: insulin and stress. High insulin tells the ovaries to make more testosterone, we can see this commonly in conditions like PCOS, in fact some people refer to PCOS as “diabetes of the ovary”. The cornerstone of fixing high insulin levels is rooted in nutrition: you need to have three meals a day, no snacking in between, and make sure that you have adequate protein (30 grams three times a day). Focus on whole foods and avoid ultra processed foods, make sure to eat lots of vegetables, nuts and seeds, legumes and beans. The other reason why testosterone can be high is rooted in stress, because it tells our adrenals to produce cortisol and DHEA, which is a precursor to testosterone. Look at your life and think about what you can take off your plate, get enough sleep (8 hours a night), try herbal supplements like ashwagandha.
2. Low progesterone. Progesterone can have an anti androgenic effect, meaning it helps to calm down the effect of androgens like DHEA and testosterone, which both increase the oiliness of your skin and acne. Progesterone has a very relaxing and calming effect on your mood and your body, it also helps to offset some of the negative effects of high cortisol, which we know can age the skin. But when progesterone is low, you might find yourself more stressed out and tired and your skin looks more withered overall. Progesterone also has a regulatory effect on some estrogen receptors, meaning it can modulate how estrogen functions: with low progesterone, estrogen can act stronger in some areas and promote fat gain in the hips and in the stomach. Supporting progesterone means supporting ovulation: it’s when we ovulate that we produce progesterone, and the main things that can disrupt ovulation are, again, high insulin levels and high levels of stress and cortisol.
3. Thyroid. In hypothyroidism hair becomes more dry, more brittle and tends to fall out, as well as eyebrow hairs: that’s because thyroid is involved in growth and metabolism, so everything slows down. In hypothyroidism the skin overproduces mucopolysaccharides, that is like a thick gel that makes you look puffy: you might be waking up puffy in the morning or you might have eye swelling. Acne is another effect, because the skin turnover slows down, so especially the maturation arrest type acne increases. Because the metabolism is slower, you may tend to gain weight body wide (arms, legs, face, belly). For fixing hypothyroidism, you need to make sure that you’re eating enough, because it comes with a lower appetite: 30 grams of protein, three meals a day, no intermittent fasting, remove food sensitivities (especially gluten, dairy, eggs and soy). Exercise is a great way to increase your thyroid production, just don’t work out too hard as not to spike your cortisol.