Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Woman enjoying a bath

Resveralife Live Well: Are Wine Baths Good for You

So from reading the title, you might think we’ve gone a bit crazy with our love of wine. While we do love wine, and all of its benefits, we aren’t crazy on this one. Resveralife did some research to discover whether the luxurious spa treatment known as the wine bath is indeed beneficial for your health and skin.

Red Wine
By now you know that the antioxidants in red wine provide your body with some health benefits. One of the most talked about (and our favorite!) antioxidant found in red wine is resveratrol. The resveratrol found in red wine helps lower your LDL (bad cholesterol) levels, prevents damage to you blood vessels and works to prevent blood clots.

So why red wine?  Resveratrol is found in the skin of all grapes, so there is an amount in white or blush wines. However, because the grapes are fermented longer with the skins on, there is a higher level of resveratrol in red wine.

Why a Wine Bath?
Perhaps you’ve joked before about how you would bathe in wine if you could, and now you can. But why would you want to? The practice of bathing in wine is known as vinotherapy and is said to boost circulation while healing and helping the body recovery from stress. Professional basketball player, Amar’e Stoudermire of the New York Knicks, is pretty outspoken about how beneficial vinotherapy, or red wine baths, have been for him. He gets vinotherapy at a spa in New York City weekly with a very hot red wine bath, with the red wine being diluted by water. Stoudmermire says he will continue to receive treatments because his entire body, in particular his legs, feel completely rejuvenated after soaking in the bath.

Wine glass and candles next to a bathtub.

Should You Try a Wine Bath?
Only if you really, really want to. While it is entirely possible that a red wine bath helps with feelings of rejuvenation and renewed health, you are more likely to receive the antioxidant benefits by just drinking a glass of your favorite red wine. Many of the beneficial ingredients in red wine are known as phenolic compounds. Phenolic compounds do provide great health benefits, but they do not penetrate the skin well.

If that’s the case, then why bother using any skin care containing phenolic antioxidant compounds? Phenolic compounds can penetrate the skin, but require a bit of time to do so. Chances are a red wine bath lasts about 30 minutes maximum, but when you put on a well formulated day cream or serum, you give the phenolic compounds time to fully penetrate and sink into the skin.

Red wine baths are certainly intriguing and may be a luxurious way to indulge yourself. However, they are more about relaxing than providing serious skin care or health benefits. To really experience the benefits of resveratrol and the other antioxidants present in red wine, it is best to use superior quality skin care products, or take your daily dose in the form of our capsules. And don’t forget, you can always enjoy a glass of red wine!

Resveralife Examines the Secrets of Vineotherapy

Vinotherapy bath in the barrel

Millions of people all over the world are known to love their few glasses of wine but, the way we look at wine has been quickly changing. Many among the rich and the famous are not just drinking those magnificent labels, they are actually bathing in them. One of the biggest patrons of wine bathing is Amar’e Stoudemire. Stoudemire actually created quite a furore on social media when he posted a photo in which he was covered with red wine up to his neck on his Instagram account.

The concept of bathing in red wine is nothing new either. It might seem to be a childhood prank, but the treatment has actually been used by the rich and the famous ever since the 1900s. This process is known as Vinotherapy. Vinotherapy is basically a process which requires one to immerse into wine-grape leaves, vines, branches and skin. Bathing in this mixture for about 30 minutes, once a week, can work wonders for your skin. Those who practice Vinotherapy believe that the process helps them to increase the circulation of their red blood cells and offers them with a rejuvenated feel.

Vine Vera Reviews the History of Vinotherapy

Mathilde Thomas was touring her parents’ winery in the year 1993 when she was asked a question, “What becomes of the seeds, red grape branches and vines?” The guest who actually asked this question was a professor who believed that the oils found in these red wine grape seeds were much more effective in preventing wrinkles than the popular antioxidant Vitamin E. This chance encounter led to expansions in the concepts of Vinotherapy by Bertrand and Mathilde Thomas, who later introduced the concepts in their own skin care line as well.

How does Vinotherapy work?

The objective of Vinotherapy is to treat a person with products that are rich in the polyphenols that are found in red wine grapes. These compounds are usually found in branches, vines and the skin of red grapes, items that are usually discarded during the wine manufacturing process. It is believed that when these polyphenols are applied to the person’s skin, they can help in masking free radicals and revealing youthful looking skin. One of the most powerful polyphenols found in these items is Resveratrol, a compound that has already proven to be highly effective when it comes to skin care.Vinotherapy treatments include a variety of massages, scrubs and body wraps using grape skin and barrel baths which allow people to bathe in a combination of red vine leaf stock and water.

Can Vinotherapy be backed by scientific data?

Those who believe in the wonders of Vinotherapy believe that it not only helps out with anti-aging, it also has anti-cancer benefits to offer. Dr. Edwin Frankel had released a study in the year 1993 which claimed that polyphenols actually offer powerful antioxidant properties to the human body. A study led by Richard Sinclair in the year 2006 also backed the importance of Resveratrol in the human body. His study showed that Resveratrol helped in offsetting the negative effects of high calorie diets in mice and that it also helped in increasing their lifespan. Sinclair worked on another study in the year 2013 in which he showed that the SIRT1 genes of the human body could be activated because of Resveratrol. It is believed that these genes control the aging process.

Other patrons of Vinotherapy

Stoudemire might have given Vinotherapy a lot of publicity, but he is not the only athlete or celebrity who enjoys this unique style of pampering. Some of the other popular names who are said to believe in the wonders offered by Vinotherapy include Patrice Evra (French footballer) and Tony Parker (San Antonio Spurs future Hall of Fame guard).

So will bathing in red wine actually help?

According to medical experts, alcohol in any form is never good for the skin. The only effect that alcohol has to offer is that it dries out the skin. If one is really looking to enjoy the wonders of Vinotherapy, one needs the items that get discarded in the process of making wine – the branches, vines and the skins. Moreover, one also needs fine mini-jets like the ones found in a Jacuzzi so as to allow the mixture to work with the muscles and improve the blood circulation. A simpler alternative would be to use a Resveratrol based skin care product. It might not be able to give you the purported health benefits that Vinotherapy supposedly has to offer, but it can definitely help you rejuvenate your skin and boast of a younger and firmer looking skin.

logo

UNLOCK
20% OFF

Sign up and get 20% off your first purchase!

No thanks, I'll pay full price