skin, liver, & your lymph
Your liver isn’t just filtering alcohol
Your liver performs over 500 functions daily. For our purposes, the most important one is this: it processes and clears hormones that your body has already used. Think of hormones as messengers. They deliver a signal like — “build tissue,” “prepare for threat!” “calm down,” “pay attention” — and then, ideally, they leave. Your liver is the one who ushers them out through a two-step process called phase 1 and phase 2 detoxification.
In phase 1, the liver converts hormones (including estrogen) into intermediate compounds using enzymes that require B vitamins, magnesium, and antioxidants. In phase 2, those intermediates get bound to molecules like glutathione so they can be safely excreted through bile or urine. If either phase is sluggish, hormones recirculate. They keep sending signals your body didn’t ask for anymore — and your skin reflects that confusion as inflammation, congestion, or accelerated aging.
Your liver also needs protein to do this job well. Amino acids are the raw materials for glutathione — your body’s master antioxidant and the primary compound used to package spent hormones out of the body. Low protein equals slower detox. Slower detox shows up on your face, amongst other places.
What sluggish liver clearance looks like on your skin
Jaw and chin breakouts
Persistent puffiness, especially morning face
Dull, lackluster complexion
Rosacea or flushing
Thin or crepey skin texture
Sudden sensitivity or reactivity
Itchy or congested skin
Collagen loss that feels premature
While I don’t treat skin, when I see these patterns in clients, I’m always looking upstream — at their digestion, elimination, liver burden, and lymphatic flow.
Trending: Lymphatic System
Your lymphatic system is your body’s internal drainage network, like your city’s sanitation system of picking up the trash and taking it to the dump — vessels and nodes run through your face, neck, armpits, chest, belly, and groin, collecting cellular waste, used immune cells, excess fluid, and used hormones, then moving them toward elimination via sweat, pee, poop.
The crazy part, is that unlike your cardiovascular system, your lymph has no pump. Your heart pumps blood. Nothing pumps lymph. It moves through body movement, muscle contraction, deep breathing, and manual stimulation. If you’re sedentary, your lymph becomes sluggish — and when lymph doesn’t move, waste doesn’t move. Including waste that’s trying to leave your face.
This matters for your skin because your face has a dense concentration of lymphatic capillaries, especially around the eyes, jaw, and neck. When facial lymph is stagnant, you can get puffiness, dark circles, congestion, and a dull tone — even if your skincare routine is immaculate. The skin, and your body needs needs movement.
Signs your lymph might be sluggish
Morning face puffiness
Persistent under eye bags
Breast tenderness
Jaw congestion and breakouts
Swollen hands or ankles
Frequent colds, slow recovery
Heavy fatigue
Congested feeling overall
our pal tanya come by…
From Take Care Healing come in as a guest. She led us through the simplest, most invigorating little facial and body lymphatic practice for a natural glow up.
Tanya specializes in skin, beauty and wellness rituals — and she has this gift of making ancient body practices feel completely accessible.
Here’s the practice she shared with us. You can do this in the morning before you get dressed, or any time you feel stiff, puffy, foggy, or just like you need to shake something off. It takes about five minutes and it will change your face and body, you’ll feel the energy moving through you!
Gentle, grounding, and genuinely feels good. Stand in a comfortable space, feet hip-width apart even sitting works i.e. you can do this while you’re at your desk.
Chest tapping
Using relaxed, slightly cupped hands, gently tap across your chest — sternum, collarbone, the soft tissue just below. This area is rich in lymphatic activity and is often where we hold tension. Tap for about 30 seconds. Not hard — just enough to feel it. Think of it like you’re waking something up, not beating it into submission.
We’re clearing the pathways to the thoracic duct — the main lymphatic drainage trunk for the entire upper body, including the face and neck.
Neck node softening & Face Guasha
Light touch, skin level not to bypass and go into the muscle With your fingertips, lightly touch, skin level not to bypass and go into the muscle along both sides of your neck — from just under your ear down to your collarbone. Or light tapping works here too. This isn’t massage, it’s more like a soft pump. You’re encouraging lymph to drain downward. Light pressure, slow rhythm. About 30 seconds on each side. Then when working the face, you want to start in the neck and then slowly make your way up with overlapping movements that are still are soft yet firm but not deep or hard.
The tai chi sway
We love this one and do it often throughout the day at the shop. Stand with soft knees and just start swaying side to side — easy, slow, like you’re a tree in a gentle breeze. Let your arms swing naturally with your body. And you can do a light bounce at the knees. As you sway, they’ll start to gently tap your sides, your hips, the outside of your thighs. Don’t force it. The swinging is doing the work. This kind of whole-body oscillation is one of the most effective ways to get lymph moving.
This whole-body movement is a “pumping” lymph that your body can do without a machine or equipment.
Pelvic lymph node tapping
Place your hands on your inner groin — the crease where your thigh meets your pelvis. This is where a major cluster of lymph nodes lives, and it’s an area most of us never think to address. Using your fingertips, gently tap and press in this area for about 20 seconds each side. It might feel a little tender if your lymph has been stagnant. That’s information, not alarm.
End with movement
Walk around the room, shake your hands out, roll your shoulders. Even a 5-minute walk immediately after amplifies everything you just did. The whole point is circulation — getting lymph moving so waste has somewhere to go. Drink a full glass of water after.
Hydration is non-negotiable here. Lymph is largely water. Without it, you’re trying to move a thick system through narrow channels. Drink up babies.
The bigger picture
Amazing skin isn’t always about finding the right serums. It’s about supporting the systems underneath — your liver clearing hormones efficiently, your lymph moving waste out of tissue, your gut absorbing the nutrients your skin needs to rebuild collagen and regulate oil and maintain its barrier. These are inside jobs.
Topicals do matter! — they do. But they work so much better when the foundation is clear. Think of lymphatic drainage and liver support as the upstream work that makes everything downstream — including your skincare — actually land.