Water Water Everywhere...

In my 10 years as a Beauty Educator, the one thing that I’ve found is that people have a very complex relationship with their skin. The number one ask that they have for their skin is that it be less oily, shiny, slick, etc.  When I evaluate my client’s skin care regimen there tends to be a common denominator: over exfoliation.

We have this idea that in order to have “good skin” we need to take something away from it. Take away oil. Take away texture. Take away wrinkles. So we tend to choose the absolute most aggressive ingredients that we can find and pray for the best.  What if I told you that to have healthy skin, you should add nutrients instead of focusing on taking away the bad stuff? Your skin is the largest organ on your body.  It’s your body’s first line of defense against environmental aggressors and it’s often the first place that signals that we are having a negative reaction to a product. People tend to layer treatments not realizing that the active ingredients are often exfoliating in nature.  When overused the skin may become dry and irritated.  Your skin, being the wonderful organ that it is, will try to normalize and soothe itself by creating more oil. It’s a *slippery slope*.

How do we end this terrible cycle of irritation and oiliness? We introduce water. Your skin has a delicate balance of water and oil. The more oil present on the skin, the less water can be present. Conversely, the more water present, the less oil the skin needs to produce to feel hydrated and comfortable. There’s a misconception that drinking a lot of water will hydrate the skin.  While it won’t hurt the skin, the amount of water that reaches the surface of the skin through ingestion is negligible. You need hydrating products. So, the next time you consider loading your skin up with aggressive actives, exfoliants and treatments, try injecting some hydration to your routine.

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