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Skin-Food: Carotenoids in your food & your skincare

Mar Galliti skin care & botanicals

So I continue the skin-food topic with the colourful carotenoids for this Autumn issue. Lets start with the basics, what are the carotenoids? They are phyto elements that play a major role in photo protection from sunlight in the cells and tissues. Carotenoids also play a large role as antioxidants in food and in the body. There are over 600 identified carotenoids and these include beta-carotene, lycopene, alpha carotene, lutein and much more. They are also the precursors of vitamin A and exclusively found in botanical sources. We, humans, can not synthesize carotenoids and need to ingest them from plant based foods. There are two forms of carotenoids, the carotenes, which often appear in the purple-red-orange colour spectrum, and xanthophylls, which have a yellow colour that contributes to the green in leaves.

Named from carrots, carotenes are found in carrot seed and root oil. Other deeply coloured oils that also contain carotenes are for example sea buckthorn, tomato, pumpkin, rosehip, pomegranate and buriti. They are often very orange in colour. The red-orange pigments aid the process of photosynthesis in plants by transmitting energy from light absorbed from chlorophyll. A naturally rich source of provitamin A, fifty of the known carotenoids are carotenes able to convert to retinol, an active form of vitamin A.

Xanthophylls are carotenoids that do not convert to vitamin A but are powerful antioxidants in their own right.

carotenoids & carotens in whole food: sweet potato, carrot, beetroot, pumpkin from the garden, local & seasonal

By choosing plant-based, carotenoids-rich skincare, which are antioxidant rich and anti-inflammatory, they help reduce wrinkles, fade pigmentation, even out skin tone and repair sun damage topically. If your carotenoids levels are good adding more probably will not do much extra for your skin. But if those levels drop even just a little below normal you are likely to notice it on your skin. That is because vitamin A, including carotenoids, is necessary for the maintenance and repair of the skin.

It is very important to look at it holistically and adding both carotenoids-rich foods and skincare to your lifestlye.

I have to emphasis the use of natural, plant ingredients in their more complete form (over isolated vitamins), because it means that they have an array of potent extra vitamin benefits supporting each other in their effects but its all hidden under their plant name.



Carotenoids in skincare:

Used topically, carotenoids can protect against free radical damage in the tissues and protect against damaging sun rays. And of course, just based on its vivivd orange colour you know that the Restorative Sea Buckthorn Cleansing Balm is a bomb of carotenoids rich little magic. But their is many more in the Mar Galliti range with impressive ingredients, so lets put the spotlight on the Treasure Gardens Serum this time. And it is the local, cold-pressed pumpkin seed and grape seed oils that both rich in carotenoids too that I want to highlight.

The local grape seed oil is a rich green and contains natural carotenoids, flavonoids, chlorophyll and antioxidants. Rich in vitamins, minerals, the oil helps strenghten collagen and maintain elastin, the proteins that make up the connective tissue. Grape seed is a light oil that penetrate the skin layers and easily absorbed. It is toning and tightening the skin.

While the local pumpkin seed oil is dark reddish-brown and high in carotenoids, it helps reduce redness and itching, acting as an anti-inflammatory. It is also high in essential fatty acids, especially linoleic acid, as well as vitamins and minerals, including zink, copper, and manganese. Pumpkin seed oil provide moisturising and protective properties with deeply nourishing compounds.

As you can see its worth take a closer look and learn more about these beautiful complete plant ingredients as they are part of our botanical skincare and food too.


Carotenoids in the kitchen:

As you can see on the photos above, all the colourful, seasonal plants like pumpkin, carrots, sweet potatoe, beetroot, grapes, and much more are rich in carotenoids. As I mentioned before we can not synthesize carotenoids and have to get our intake from plant based foods, so it is especially important to have a diverse variety in our diet. Another advise for preparing, eating caroten rich foods: because carotens are oil-soluble it is important to use, consume some kind of fat (oils, butter) with them. Also the heat of cooking or baking them can help opening up the cell walls and the release of carotens, so they can be absorbed better.

I choose one of my seasonal favourite soup too for this time. It is a simple but delicious Carrot & lentil soup, that is cozy and warming for these autumn days.

This year I was lucky with my carrot sowing in the garden too. I chose a fun, colourful type that was purple on the outside & orange on the inside, and was crunchy and sweet. By the time of the photo shoot I had only a few small ones left, so we used them only as props and did not put them in the soup.


Carrot and red lentil soup

Carrot & red lentil soup:

(2 servings)

6-8 carrots (depend on the size, about 400g peeled)

2 cloves garlic (peeled & chopped)

50g red lentil

300ml water

375ml milk or plant based milk

about 1 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp mustard seeds

salt & pepper to taste


Preheat the oven to 180 celsius. Peel the carrots and chop them into slices, place the slices on a baking tray with the chopped garlic, some olive oil, salt and pepper. Place the tray in the preheated oven and allow the carrots to cook for about 25 minutes, until they are nice and soft.

While the carrots cook, make the lentils by simply place them in a saucepan with the boiling water and a pinch of salt and simmer for about 15 minutes until they are totally soft. Set aside.

Just before the carrots and lentils finish cooking, place the olive oil in a pan with the turmeric, cumin and mustad seeds and let them cook for a few minutes until they start to release the aromas.

Place the cooked carrots and galic in a blender with the lentils and the fried spices. Add the milk and water and blend until smooth and creamy. Season to taste.

Place the blended soup in a pan and warm in up over a medium heat if needed.

We served it with some pumpkin seed oil and vegetable chips for a little crunch.

Bon appetit!


All photos: Szendeff Lőrinc


To celebrate the new skin-food topic I am giving 24% discount on both the Restorative Sea Buckthron Cleansing Balm and the Treasure Gardens Serum just use the code : CAROTENOIDS until 31st December 2024 midnight.

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