All about the skin barrier

Care for your barrier

If the skin barrier gets impaired, the skin starts to lose water more quickly. The skin loses water all the time and the rate is impacted by the humidity and for example wheather you are awake. Our skin loses more water as we sleep. Healthy skin barrier, however, slows down the rate at which our skin loses water. This helps the skin stay moisturized on its own. The skin can also be hydrated externally and moisturized with a film forming moisturizer to aid the skin barrier.

In addition to keeping water in the skin, the skin barrier also keeps external irritants out of the skin’s deeper layers, where they could cause serious damage. Examples of these irritants include pollution, dirt and allergens. Pollution can cause DNA-damage to the skin via oxidation, dirt can cause inflammation the skin and unprotected exposure to allergens can cause skin allergies to develop.

How to identify an impaired barrier?

An impaired barrier will often show many symptoms. The skin can be more sensitive and can react to products that it usually doesn’t react to. The skin may show more blemishes, uneven skin tone, irritation and visible dryness. Healthy skin barrier is the foundation of healthy skin.

What may cause an impaired skin barrier

The skin barrier can become impaired from too harsh or frequent cleansing. High pH and strong surfactants can contribute to an impaired barrier or even remove the barrier all together. Cleansing will always strip the skin barrier, but minimizing that will let a moisturizer work as the barrier until it has recovered. Skipping morning cleansing can help a lot.

Also, using too strong active ingredients or again too often, will contribute to an impaired barrier. Exfoliating acids are a common reason for an impaired skin barrier, as many see good result with them and end up using them too frequently. Strong acids should only be used a couple times a week.

Support your barrier

Most of the time, the skin barrier is affected by factors that we cannot control. That’s why it is important to support your skin barrier with cosmetics as well. The skin barrier consists of mostly Ceramides, Cholesterol and Fatty Acids. Adding these to your routine will help to repair your barrier and affect your overall skin health.

These three ingredients are easiest to find in a moisturizer and anyone looking to improve their skin barrier should have these in their moisturizer. Ceramides can be found in the ingredient list under the name “Ceramide”. Cholesterol is also just named “Cholesterol” in the ingredients. Fatty Acids, however, are either added and named individually or are included in common oils like Shea Butter or Squalane.

How do Smuuti products support the skin barrier?

Ceramides from peaches

A good example of a barrier supporting moisturizer is the Smuuti Skin Peach Barrier Crem. This moisturizer has the Ceramides, Cholesterol and Fatty Acids. The Moisturizer also has nourishing Peach Extract and the Ceramides in the cream are also derived from Peaches. In addition, Vitamins B3 and B5 help to repair the skin and aid its barrier-function.