Exclusive: Here’s why a nutritionist is joining the Dr. Brandt Skin Advisory Board

Skin care has long started and ended at the bathroom sink, but the tide’s a ch-ch-changing. Now, if you want to nix acne, a dermatologist might suggest cutting dairy. Dealing with a dull, dry complexion? They might tell you to up the fruits and veggies. So, it’s a natural fit that the Dr. Brandt Skin Advisory Board—composed of high-profile skin-care specialists who consult on the product line from the late Dr. Brandt—recruited celebrity nutritionist Molly Rieger, RD as its latest member.

As food-forward beauty products go mainstream (probiotic-packed moisturizers! smoothie-inspired masks! vitamin-rich serums!) the ingredients that we use to strengthen the gut and the skin-care barrier are becoming more streamlined. “Think about it: We’re drinking kombucha, and that’s because our intestines have that good and bad flora,” she says. “Ingesting them helps the good guys proliferate, making less room for the bad guys. Same goes for applying them to our skin.”

Rieger, who’s worked with celebrity clients the likes Karlie Kloss and Taylor Hill, says that anytime she sees a client regarding their complexion, she asks them the oldest-question in the book: How much water do you drink?

Ideally, she tells me that you should hit a lofty three liters per day. “It helps alleviate that dull, dehydrated look that our skin gets, especially in the winter.” To kick off her daily H2O intake, Rieger mixes up her signature morning detox-water each morning. “I start with warm water and add a dropper-full of Dr. Brandt Detoxifying Antioxidant Water Booster ($39) a squeeze of fresh lemon, some freshly chopped ginger, a dash of turmeric oil, and two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar,” she says.

“Not only does it wake up the digestive tract and act as an anti-inflammatory,” she says of a.m. cocktail, “but the booster’s also rich in free-radical fighters that act as our skin’s first line of defense of the day.” According to her, ingesting antioxidants like this one (which has an impressive 15 times the amount of antioxidants as a cup of green tea), helps amplify the effects of applying an antioxidant-laced serum or cream. And within a few weeks, she tells me that clients notice a difference in their skin. Just from drinking more water, which is proof-positive that when it comes to your skin-care regimen, you’ve got to go with your gut.

Want more? Try these pollution-proof skin-care picks, editor-favorite vitamin C products, or a new beauty supplement from Nordstrom’s just-launched Well Beauty department.