Shine Bright Like A Diamond: Everything You Need To Know About The Charcoal Trend (a 3-Part series.)

Charcoal? Seriously?! It seems to be the latest craze in all things health and beauty. Smearing it on you face… brushing it all over your teeth… even chugging it by the bottle. The words “activated charcoal” are on the tips of everyone’s tongues (literally!) and we wanted to know more.

First, let’s channel our inner nerdy doll and start with a little research. What the heck is the deal with this charcoal obsession?! WHY?! We turned to NYLON magazine, one of our favorite go-to sources for all things beauty and fashion, to see what they had to say. “According to Dr. Scott Schreiber, a chiropractic physician based in Delaware, activated charcoal has most recently been used for the purpose of ‘teeth whitening, alleviating gas and bloating, treating alcohol poisoning and preventing hangovers, filtering water, detoxification, and for skin health.’ It also fights bacteria that causes acne. Inna Topiler Mooney, a clinical nutritionist and the owner of Complete Nutrition and Wellness, said that charcoal also helps to relieve headaches, sinus issues, allergies, and digestive issues caused by elevated levels of ammonia. She further explained that activated charcoal acts as a sponge by absorbing unwanted toxins, chemicals, and other debris such as ‘overgrowth of bad bacteria, yeast, parasites, and other ‘unwanted friends.’’ In short, think of activated charcoal as a magnet for all things bad.”

Well then. Judging by this synopsis, we should probably dig a big deeper. So, let’s talk about all the activated charcoal products that are really big deals.

Part One: The Drink.

Drinking the black stuff. It took us a moment to wrap our heads around drinking something this color. Admittedly, this is just a mental thing and we know that… but it’s legit BLACK. But, we did a little more research… and then we tried it out.

We turned to Dirty Lemon. TBH, we selected our charcoal cleanse the same way we choose our wine: the packaging is what did it. So instagrammable… but, when we read up about, we felt good about it. Dirty Lemon is “the original detoxifying elixir designed to improve digestion, stimulate liver function & gently cleanse your system of impurities.”

We did the Dirty Lemon Charcoal cleanse for the recommended six days… and here’s what we thought:

Drinking before bed. It’s recommended to drink after your heaviest meal. Designed to help to calm the stomach, reduce bloating, support liver/kidney function and trap impurities before they can be absorbed by the body, we figured that right before bed was our best bet. Except we worried about needing to get up in the middle of the night to pee. Luckily, there were no accidents to report.  

The flavor. Not bad. Really, it tastes mostly of ginger and lemon. It’s a tad bitter, but there’s no sugar in this… so what would you expect? Granted, we probably won’t crave this flavor. But we didn’t dread drinking it every night.

The texture. OK, this was probably where our biggest struggle was. It’s gritty. Which is weird when its in a drink. Like, it feels like finely ground sand sifting through our teeth. Yup. Our first evening chugging this down was a bit of a struggle because this texture  was completely unexpected. However, we learned how to trick ourselves: pour over ice and drink through a straw. We managed just fine, after.

The results. What’s beautiful is that there were no bathroom emergencies. There are no harsh laxatives in the formula, and it really was really gentle on our stomachs. Be forewarned, however: your poo will be pitch black. Totally normal.

Fun Fact: when consumed before crawling into bed after an evening of indulging in adult beverages, one may feel much better than expected upon waking. “Due to its strong cleansing properties, activated charcoal can help remove toxins from the liver and bloodstream after a long night of drinking,” according to an article on Eat This.

Our stomachs were flatter. Seriously. The charcoal killed the bloating and gas. Good trick. We really liked this.

Other added benefits we noticed: we had a little extra pep in our step! By Day three, we noticed for sure, that we felt like we genuinely had more energy throughout the day… and realized that we were staying awake a little later at night, because we just weren’t ready to head to bed yet. Also, our skin felt great. Clearer and softer. Maybe we were just imagining this… but, we think there’s probably something to the fact that charcoal was ridding our bodies of toxins, which shone bright like a diamond on our face!

All in all, we were really quite happily impressed with our Dirty Lemon Charcoal Cleanse. And, we will most definitely reach for it again!

(This was just Part One of our Shine Bright Like A Diamond: Everything You Need To Know About The Charcoal Trend. Be sure to check out the Dollup Blog for Parts Two and Three, coming soon!)

*all images courtesy of the Instagram account @DirtyLemon