Skin Concierge
A sensitive topic: Care for sensitive skin
Sensitive skin not only reacts to external influences but also lifestyle and wrong care habits can further increase this tendency. We will show you how you can strengthen your skin barrier in the long term and prevent excessive reactions.
People with sensitive skin don’t have it easy. Their skin reacts quickly irritated and sensitive: reddening, a feeling of tension and itching are on the daily schedule. External influences such as sun rays, aggressive care products, cold or environmental pollution are an additional stress factor and create a reddened, sometimes dry or spotty skin with pimples. Furthermore, sensitive skin is resentful. It does not only react to external influences, but lifestyle and wrong care habits can additionally strengthen this tendency. Lack of fluids, unbalanced nutrition, hormone fluctuations, medication, lack of sleep and last but not least, the psyche significantly affects the skin condition.
Typical characteristics
- very fair and dry, freckle-prone skin with translucent blood vessels
- often light eye color or red hair
- increased sensitivity to aggressive ingredients
- skin that is prone to irritation and redness
- often also “flaky skin” and with a tendency to swellings
- mental imbalances often influence the complexion of the skin
Causes of sensitive skin
The causes of sensitive skin are based on the interaction of various factors: besides, hereditary predisposition and allergies, mainly dry skin types tend to have sensitive skin. Even with increasing age, the skin can produce less and less moisture and store lipids, making it more dehydrated and, therefore, more delicate. Delicate skin can occur chronically as a characteristic of the sensitive skin type, but also in phases and at any time as a reaction to a specific cause for the normal skin types. More rarely, skin diseases like psoriasis or rosacea are also underlying.
Without a doubt, sensitive skin is the consequence of a disturbed skin barrier. However, this barrier can be strengthened with the help of skin-affine cosmetics and brought back into its natural balance. Find out more about natural cosmetics without …
Disturbed skin barrier
Barrier-disturbed skin reacts very delicately, even to relatively minor strains. Due to the affected barrier and the damaged double lipid layer, the skin is increasingly exposed to external influences. The natural water content of the skin cannot be maintained and it increasingly dries up. Sensitive skin often shows small cracks in the horny layer, allowing germs to enter and cause inflammation. The skin reacts with itching, inflammation, a feeling of tension and irritation.
What can I do about it?
Our skin is a truly complex system, which not only serves as boundary and protection for our innards but also as a communication organ between inside and outside. The skin barrier as our uppermost skin layer fulfills two essential functions: on the one hand, it acts as a protective barrier against harmful environmental influences from outside, and on the other hand, it prevents dehydration from inside. A resistant and intact skin barrier is the key to healthy and beautiful skin.
How do I protect my skin barrier?
Avoid paraffin-containing and aggressive care products as well as mineral oils, silicones and artificial emulsifiers.
Artificial emulsifiers can dissolve the skin’s natural lipid layer, so that the skin’s lipids combine with the water during the next cleansing by the emulsifiers and are washed out. Mineral oils and silicones indeed form a pleasant film on the skin, but they cannot integrate into the natural skin structure because the body cannot digest artificial substances and, in the long run, lead to a decline of the skin barrier functions. Moreover, mineral oils have an occlusive effect (they close the pores), which literally suffocates the lower skin layers and stops their activity. The skin produces fewer essential lipids and increasingly loses its ability to retain moisture.
The ideal solution for a resistant and intact skin barrier is to use skin-affine cosmetics, which means skincare products that imitate the skin barrier in their composition. This includes jojoba oil, shea butter and other natural waxes. Furthermore, the skin barrier should be strengthened and supported in its function by valuable ceramides and natural fatty acids, which can be integrated as building blocks into the skin barrier. Among the vegetable oils rich in natural fatty acids are argan oil, avocado oil, evening primrose oil, shea butter and sea buckthorn.
Tips for the care of sensitive skin
Gentle cleansing
To cleanse the body and face, you should use the most gentle cleansing products possible, which maintain the skin’s acid mantle. Use products that correspond to the skin’s pH value.
Toner
As sensitive skin tends to be dry, it is recommended to moisten the face with a toner after cleansing. Skin calming and moisturizing ingredients are blueberries, aloe vera, chamomile and rosewater.
Intensive treatment
Highly concentrated serums with special functional ingredients can penetrate deeper skin layers due to their light texture to develop their effect there. In this way, the skin’s resistance to external stress factors can be sustainably improved and the blood vessels can be strengthened.
Daily skincare
As sensitive skin tends to be dry, a moisturizing cream should be an indispensable part of the skincare routine. Also, always make sure that the skin is sufficiently nourished. Suitable are skin type-specific face and body creams that are free of possibly irritating ingredients and support the skin’s barrier function in a natural way. Natural oils like almond, jojoba and evening primrose oil noticeably calm irritated skin.
Cream masks
A cream mask is a real pleasure for sensitive skin. It is best to use a skin type-specific mask. The ingredients are specially adapted to the skin type and contain selective functional ingredients that strengthen the skin barrier and soothe irritations.
Caution peeling
Avoid mechanical peelings. The fine micro-particles which remove the skin scales by friction can excessively irritate sensitive skin. The best thing to do here is to use an enzyme peeling. This is particularly gentle in contrast to mechanical peelings as the enzymes dissolve dead skin cells without harming the active skin cells.
Better shower instead of a bath
Bathing for too long in hot water removes valuable lipids from the skin, which are essential for an intact skin barrier. A supposedly relaxing bath can become a stressful affair for sensitive skin.
Lymph-stimulating massage
Through an improved lymphatic flow, “congestions” can be prevented, i.e., redness, heat, etc. rarely occur. At the same time, the gentle touch calms the vegetative nervous system and is therefore ideal for the often nervous type of constitution.
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