Green tea has been consumed from ages in China and have we ever noticed that Chinese tend to have clear and healthy skin. That is why it is difficult to guess the age of a Chinese. Is it because of the green tea that they consume that helps to keep their skin radiating and young? Whether green tea does help the skin retain its youthfulness or not has yet to be proved beyond doubt. But its usefulness in skin care is attributed to it containing polyphenols that protect against free radicals. In case one has forgotten what are free radicals one would need to revisit their high school chemistry. Simply stating 'free radicals' can be described as an unpaired electron in the outer shell of a molecule. Studies have shown that a compound in green tea called polyphenols removes free radicals. So green tea may actually help the skin to stay healthy and may reduce the process of skin cell replacement. However it is going to take a long time to prove that green tea is actually beneficial to health and helps in preventing a number of physical issues. But switching to green tea from other beverages may not be such a bad idea.

Skin care and green tea may not be proven as yet but if one wants to protect themselves from the sun the benefits in this regard are well documented and one can get sunscreen that have green tea in them. What is important to remember is that green tea like other antioxidants also looses their effectiveness when exposed to oxygen. Consuming three or four cups of green tea may be helpful in protecting the body from free radicals. Does green tea help in anti aging is yet to be proven and may take a while. Some people have switched to consuming green tea hoping that it helps in the anti aging process and will delay the formation of lines and wrinkles on the face. Some women have switched to using green tea based creams to restore their skin. These may or may not be helping the skin as there is a lack of concrete evidence to support this. Also a one off study has reported that green tea helps in prevention of acne. But this again is a one off study and is not enough to support that it is correct.

When one is buying green tea based creams as an anti aging cream be sure to know the other contents in the cream as it is unclear if off the shelf green tea creams retain their activity or not. There are two ways of making green tea extract skincare products, one is to brew green tea and then freeze it in cubes. Rub the cubes after thawing them slightly as don’t try applying a cold cube of ice on the skin as this could cause a freeze burn. The other way is to prepare your own green tea cleansing skin care cream by using a standardized extract.

Green tea polyphenols skin care can perhaps be achieved by the consumption of green tea and one may not need to apply it on one's skin. If green tea skin care can be achieved by its consumption and if it helps in cleansing the blood then it would also be indirectly helping the skin as if the blood is healthy the skin will also be healthy.

It maybe some time before green tea skincare benefits are studied and proved but there is ample proof that green tea does have compounds that help the body better protect itself and whether this is achieved by applying green tea extract to the skin or by its consumption has yet to be ascertained.