How Much Water Is Enough For Your Skin?

You can only last about a week without water. This life-sustaining nutrient helps the body digest food, eliminate waste, regulate its temperature and lubricate its joints, amount other functions. A 120-pound woman has about 36 quarts of fluid in her body. In a moderate climate, she can lose 2 and a half quarts per day just through perspiration and excretion. So for the average woman, drinking eight to ten cups of water a day merely replaces the waster she's lost.

The skin needs water to maintain the body's moist internal environment. The skin reflects our general health, and the body has to get enough water.

Be can filling up on water make skin glow? Some dermatologists think so. Drinking lots and lots of water is wonderful for the skin. Water keeps the body 'flushed'.

But most dermatologists doubt that sipping a set amount of water can have a positive effect on your complexion. There's no magic number - four glasses of water a day is usually enough.

Nor can water remedy specific skin conditions. If you're a normal, healthy person and your skin's starting to look slightly wrinkled and dry, it's unlikely that you're going to correct the dryness by drinking water. If you could, the cosmetics industry would be out of business. As for blemishes, drinking water doesn't have a beneficial effect on acne.

But as mentioned, many women claim that drinking more water means fewer blemishes. One woman, for example, finds that her skin begins to break out if she's neglected to drink enough water. So for three or four days, she drinks eight eight-ounce glasses of water a day. In two or three days, her complexion has begun to clear.