5 Tips on Dry Skin and How to Treat it

Beautiful, glowing skin.

It’s the holy grail of the skincare world.

One that has an outward glow that we perceive as a radiant, youthful complexion.

If you are a dry skin sufferer, you dont need us to tell you it can appear flaky and irritated.

It is often thought that dry skin is easy to treat.

But after treating thousands of clients in our clinic, we appreciate that dry skin is incredibly tricky.

5 Tips to Understand Your Dry Skin

1. Why is my skin so dry?

We will have to get technical to answer this, so please bear with us.

A growing body of research (1) has found that the key to skin health is in the stratum corneum – the outermost layer – which acts as a barrier between your skin and the outside world, which is made up of skin cells that are packed closely together.

Plump, healthy cells start in the lower layers of the skin – the dermis – and travel towards the surface, where they form an essential barrier, helping to keep moisture locked in and irritants out.

Occasionally, this barrier fails us, allowing bacteria and viruses to penetrate and water to evaporate much faster than usual. In return, your skin can quickly become dry and sensitive.

When your skin’s barrier is disrupted, it is no longer protected from environmental stressors and pollution and loses its ability to protect and defend itself.

2. Can my Dry Skin be Dehydrated?

Dry skin lacks oil; if it lacks water, it means it is dehydrated.

This is a common skincare mistake that manufacturers often overlook, but it must be considered.

• If your skin is oil-dry, you need a good oil-based product containing occlusives and emollients.
• If your skin is water-dry, then you will require humectant-based formulas.

Because dehydration is a vast subject, you may want to check out the article Clear Skin Difference: It Begins With Hydration.

3. How Can I Treat my Dry Skin?

We recommend using a two-pronged approach:

First, treat it from the “outside-in”. The “outside” is the stratum corneum, and the “in” is the therapeutic effects that start in the stratum corneum and work their way into the deeper layers.

Secondly, use products that contain ingredients that resemble the membrane structure of your natural skin barrier.

This makes sense when you think about how your skin contains ingredients that become compromised and deplete with age.

• squalane
• ceramides
• phospholipids
• triglycerides
• fatty Acids
• cholesterol

All of these combine to form your skin’s protective barrier; this study (2) looks at the role of ceramides in skin health.

4. What Ingredients Will Help?

The Naked Chemist range contains many active products encapsulated in liposomes, which take the active ingredients past the stratum corneum into the deeper layers of your skin.

Due to their ability to mimic the core components found in the skin, these liposomes permeate through the skin’s barrier, enabling penetration of active ingredients.

The liposomes also protect the active agents from any possible breakdown before entering your skin cells.

Both Fortify Barrier Repair Cream and Bio Lipid Complex are liposomal-rich. They contain skin-identical ingredients to restore the integrity of your protective barrier function whilst also promoting skin health.

If you feel that your skin is water dry or both, you require a combination of lipid products, as discussed above and humectant-based products.

H₂O Hydrating Complex and Quench Ultra-hydrating Water Gel act like tiny moisture magnets, fully replenishing a dehydrated, depleted skin type.

5. What Ingredients Should I Avoid?

Harsh products like soaps and cleansing agents will wash the natural fatty substances and acids from your skin, forming gaps in the structure of the barrier layers.

The following are drying ingredients that you should steer clear of:

• alcohols and astringents
• fragrances can cause dryness and irritation
• silicones appear to create a smooth superficial feeling on your skin but can become drying
• mineral oils affect the natural activity of your skin, preventing it from producing its protective substances

We like to use ingredients in our formulas that work with your skin, not against it.

Ingredients that allow the beneficial ingredients to penetrate fully, allowing for natural hydration and barrier repair – giving your skin what it needs to be healthy.

To conclude. The naked chemist

Dry skin is complex to treat.

We recommend treating your skin with products that contain ingredients that resemble the membrane structure of your skin’s natural barrier.

These include ceramides, fatty acids, cholesterol, phospholipids, triglycerides, and squalane.

These ingredients your skin fully recognises as its own, forming your protective barrier, eliminating inflammation and warding off premature ageing.

Skin-identical ingredients that will keep your skin happy, healthy and balanced for now and many years.

References

1. The Clinical Relevance of Maintaining the Functional Integrity of the Stratum Corneum in both Healthy and Disease-affected Skin

2. Ceramides and the barrier function in healthy skin