Have you been suffering with skin that isn't quite matching up to the glow you feel on the inside? You've been eating more fruit and vegetables, drinking more water, getting more sleep, but you can't yet see the benefits reflected in your skin.
Great skin is a 2-pronged attack.
Step 1. Treat yourself well from the inside-out.
Step 2. Treat yourself well from the outside-in.
Today we will talk about the biggest mistake you can make when treating skin well from the outside-in; over-cleansing.
Ryan McGuire via Gratisography
Over cleansing is as much a skincare sin as not cleansing at all. Reaching for face wash both morning and night quickly takes you down dull, dry and dehydrated street.
Moisturisers are designed to give. Face wash is designed to take away.
But the science goes much deeper than this. Take these three reasons for example, they'll definitely have you rethinking a twice daily cleanse.
Your skin is a matrix of skin cells and skin cell glue. Dermatologists often refer to skin's structure as brick and mortar. Your mortar or 'skin glue' is nothing without bricks and your skin cells or 'bricks' are nothing without mortar.
One cannot work without the other.
Face washes contain skincare ingredients called surfactants. You might of heard these called detergents, you may even have heard of a specific surfactant called Sodium Lauryl Sulphate. All are hungry little molecules that like eating oil.
Your skin glue is oil based.
Every time you cleanse, especially when not wearing makeup, a little of your skin cell glue is washed away.
Can you imagine the result? Skin is left feeling tight, dry and 'squeaky clean'.
This is a not very well known fact. Your skin is naturally acidic. It's not as acidic as a lemon but it is paralleling of an orange.
The pH ruler goes all the way from 0-14. 7 marks water and is neutral, whereas anything below is acidic and anything above is alkaline. Healthy skin has a pH between 4.2-5.5.
When skin's pH strays from optimal, skin becomes prone to irritation, invasion from allergens and vulnerable to dryness. It's like trying to cook a cake with the oven turned to 50 degrees.
A recent market analysis concluded over 82% of tested cleansing products had a pH over 7, some even registered a pH above 12.
Can you imagine the result? Each time a high pH face wash cleanses your skin, its pH is upset and skin becomes irritated, dry and sensitive.
Every brick wall relies on bricks and mortar staying the same size. If one expands or shrivels a whole wall could come falling down.
The surfactant ingredients found in face wash are able to bind to your skin cells, when they do this they initiate a process called denaturation. The result is a skin cell with a swollen and changed shape.
With a brick wall that now has 'holes' in, skin is less able to lock in hydration.
Can you imagine the result? Skin becomes dry, dehydrated and dull.
So how do you achieve glowing skin from the outside-in? The answer is very simple, stop washing your face so much.