22 Anti-Aging Treatments You’ll Find in Your Kitchen

There are tons of products on the market aimed at keeping you and your skin looking young. But for quick fixes or a more natural (and tasty) anti-aging regimen, all you need to do is walk to the kitchen. Fridge and pantry ingredients often contain essential elements in more expensive (and chemical-adjacent) beauty products.

Honey is a great one to note. Dab a little on the late-in-life acne or mix it into a mask. It gets right on the pimples and also leaves the skin plump and moisturized. Just be sure to use raw honey, or you won't get the antibacterial effect for the zits.

Distilled water is cleaner than tap water (not that tap water is dirty!) and is less harsh on your skin. Mix it with witch hazel and a little almond oil, and you've got a gentle makeup remover that won't accelerate the aging going on underneath your eyes.

Don't throw away the coffee grounds from your morning caffeine infusion. They still contain enough of the good stuff to benefit your skin either as a facial scrub (mixed with a little coconut or olive oil) or as a scalp scrub to clean off hair product buildup and leave your hair with more volume and shine, which makes you look younger.

Olives are loaded with the good fats, vitamin E and antioxidants, which keep you healthy and are keys to slowing down aging. Olive oil is all of this in concentrated form and can be applied directly to skin as a moisturizer. You don't have to buy expensive face serums, you can simply dab a high-quality olive oil on fine wrinkles around your eyes, mouth and along your forehead or wherever you notice the signs of aging have begun to appear. Choose a refined olive oil so you don't smell like salad all day.

Turmeric, also called curcumin, is the darling of skincare these days with its powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties. Mix the intense, yellow-orange powder into a paste with olive or coconut oil and apply as a facial mask to get at acne, reduce inflammation from breakouts, and leave skin feeling plump and soft. Use the mild-tasting spice anywhere you can in cooking or mix up a nightly batch of Golden Milk.

Cucumbers are a cliché kitchen beauty treatment for good reason—they work. Cucumbers have astringent properties, but are gentle and nonacidic. This makes them easy to use: Apply directly to skin and or around the eye area to reduce eye puffiness (a huge sign of aging), reduce redness and leave the skin moisturized. They're also super healthy for snacking.

Baking soda is your all-around pantry beauty product. Soak in it for softer skin and to reduce calluses or use it as a scrub in the shower. You can also mix it into a paste with your favorite facial oil—olive, coconut—and apply to acne for spot treatments. Allow it to dry and then rinse off. Baking soda reduces the red, dries out the whitehead, but doesn't cause your skin to dry out and look old.

Mayo is like a spa facial in a jar. If you've got the real stuff in the fridge (whole egg and oil, not a whole lot of other ingredients), grab the jar and apply some on your face. Wait 20 minutes and rinse off. The egg yolk means lots of vitamin E, the oil means moisture for days. Both are excellent at minimizing the signs of aging.

Cinnamon is one of nature's great anti-inflammatories, which is good for overall health. If you've got puffy skin or redness from acne, fatigue or stress, finding ways to apply cinnamon topically can be a quick, anti-aging fix. Mix cinnamon with antioxidant and antibacterial raw honey, a little lemon if you have it and turmeric and apply as a face mask. Or dab a cinnamon and honey paste onto adult acne for spot treatment.

Coconut oil is another pantry beauty product with a bunch of anti-aging uses. Try it as a lip balm to keep your mouth from looking wrinkled and prematurely old or as an overall face and body moisturizer. It's also a great under-eye cream, which helps reduces puffiness and fine lines. It's also a gentle conditioner, it may reduce stretch marks and it's a great eyelash conditioner.

Lemons are loaded with antioxidants and vitamin C, which is responsible for kickstarting the body's collagen production. Collagen is what makes the skin elastic—the more elasticity, the less sagging. To get the collagen boost, find ways to get more lemon in your diet like adding some to your drinking water. Topically, you can mix lemon in with honey and turmeric or cinnamon in a routine face mask or mix with glycerin and rose water to use as a toner before bed.

Nuts, like certain fishes, contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are great for your health and brain. A healthy brain and body can keep you feeling young, which may also help you look younger. Nuts also contain lots of vitamin E (especially almonds), which is great for your skin. Ground up and mixed with honey or oil makes for a gentle DIY scrub.

Eat chocolate, look amazing? Sign up all dark chocolate lovers! Bars with at least 70 percent cocoa (sorry, milk chocolate fans) have the best antioxidants-to-sugar ratio, meaning tons of anti-aging antioxidants and the least amount of sugar, which is inflammatory and can cause breakouts and weight gain.

Blueberries, like dark chocolate, are packed with antioxidants, making them great for all the same reasons as an anti-ager. They have more than any other fruit or vegetable, which means eating them helps clean up your system of free radicals, which accumulate and break down, and cause the aging process to appear to have accelerated.

Pineapples are high in vitamins B and C, enzymes that aid digestion and alpha-hydroxy acids that keep skin looking younger. Eating pineapple also has lots of other health benefits. Smashed up and applied as a face mask, pineapples reduce redness and puffiness, and hydrate like crazy.

Pomegranates have been a superfood darling for its concentration of antioxidants, especially when sold as a drinkable juice. But this jewel-red fruit has other anti-aging benefits, too. Apparently, science has found that pomegranate seeds contain a molecule that interacts in our guts in a way that protects muscle cells against one of the major causes of aging.

Avocados are another great all-around health and beauty food. They contain a lot of great monounsaturated fats which, as Elle describes it, are so tiny they slip through cell membranes and protect them from free radical damage. Avocado oil may also be even healthier for the heart than olive oil. So, point 1 about avocados: Eat them and look young. Point 2: You can also mash the fatty green into a simple face mask, which will plump skin and leave it soft and moisturized. And point 3: Rub avocado oil on dry patches of skin, or on your hands, and keep the rest of your body from looking old, too.

Sesame seeds, and the oil derived from them, are rich in linoleic acid, which makes them great for antibacterial and anti-inflammatory uses. It absorbs easily into skin so it won't leave you feeling greasy and passes along antioxidants, which help clear up free radicals that are partly responsible for aging us.

Mushrooms contain more of the ergothioneine and glutathione antioxidants than most other foods. Among mushrooms, wild porcini appear to contain the most. This makes mushrooms an unassuming, but great go-to in the kitchen for maintaining a youthful look. Even better, cooking appears not to alter these compounds. So, bring on the mushroom swiss burgers!

One glass of red for women, two for men, appears to be an effective anti-aging strategy, according to lots of research. A good bottle contains loads of polyphenols, including resveratrol, which have been found to also soak up free radicals that are a normal bodily process, but which are believed to contribute to premature aging and also age-related diseases.

Though for a while, those seeking anti-inflammatory diets were told to avoid beans and lentils, evidence shows the opposite: Eating a diet rich in legumes is helpful in reducing inflammation. They're rich in magnesium, which has been shown to reduce inflammation and also aid in better sleep—both key in looking young.

Green teas contain caffeine and loads of antioxidants, and have been found promote good health and longevity. The anti-inflammatory properties in green tea, plus its ability to bind with free radicals, helps increase your chances of living longer and keeps you looking and feeling young.