These 5 Plants Will Transform Your Skin

If you examine the ingredients list of pretty much any product from Dr. Barbara Sturm’s lineup, you’ll find the same humble herb cropping up again and again, thanks to its incredible skincare benefits – purslane. It’s the brand’s unexpected secret weapon, giving skin a mega-dose of antioxidants. Put it this way: it contains more Omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy vegetable, and more beta-carotene than carrots. A key ingredient in the brand’s Super Anti-Aging Neck and Décolleté Cream, it protects the skin against inflammation and helps strengthen cell function, so that your skin becomes stronger and healthier over time.

Bright-blue anchusa flowers pop up all over the Furtuna Skin estate in Sicily, where the brand harvests the wild ingredients for its luxury skincare. And, it turns out, it’s not just there to look pretty – it’s actually an antioxidant hero, protecting skin cells against pollution, and bringing down inflammation in imbalanced skin. Packed with fatty acids and high levels of vitamins B and C, this unassuming flower is the star of Furtuna Skin’s patented Splendore Anchusa™ Complex, which is clinically proven to block free-radical damage. The Porte Per La Vitalità Face and Eye Serum is a great way to get your anchusa fix.

Despite being a true skincare hero, you might never have heard of the superfood plant kaya. In fact, the sustainably sourced oil that is cold-pressed from the seed pods of this Amazonian wonder is exclusive to Costa Brazil skincare and is a key component of the Jungle Complex at the heart of the brand’s products. Costa Brazil’s Kaya Anti-Aging Face Oil moisturizes, firms and boosts glow, but still has a comfortably lightweight texture, despite being packed full of nourishing omegas and vitamins. As the name suggests, it is rich in kaya oil, alongside extracts of tucuma, brazil nut and pataua – a veritable Amazonian superfood extravaganza.

An Alpine flower with a rich history, edelweiss is also gaining popularity as a game-changer for skin, thanks to its multiple soothing, hydrating and antioxidant benefits. It’s a key ingredient in several of Emma Lewisham’s plant-powered products, including the cult Supernatural 72-Hour Hydration Face Crème, where stem cells extracted from a uniquely cultivated form of edelweiss strengthen the skin’s natural barrier; it also firms, lifts and plumps for a healthy and youthful glow. Put simply, this little white flower is your skin’s new best friend.

Hibiscus is a bit of a wonder plant. As well as producing beautiful blooms and delicious teas, it turns out that it can visibly reduce the appearance of wrinkles, too. Irene Forte uses a hibiscus-seed peptide complex in her eponymous line, which includes the Forte Rigenerante Hibiscus Serum, to help boost elastin and collagen in the skin. The brand notes that, in clinical trials, their hibiscus complex works in a similar way to injectables in reducing deep forehead lines, making those humble hibiscus seeds pretty impressive skin rejuvenators.

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