By Gallagher Flinn
Caring for sensitive skin is a pain in the neck. For whatever reason,
having sensitive skin means that the epidermis, the layer of dead cells and
glands that forms a protective barrier between your dermis and the outside
world, has been damaged. There are tons of potential factors that contribute to
sensitive skin. You may have inherited it from your parents. It may be a
problem in your diet or fluid intake (drink more water and eat more veggies!).
Or, the issue could be environmental -- there are probably a lot more
cases of dry skin in the plains of Mongolia than in the swamps of Florida.
People with sensitive skin are more vulnerable to acne, rosacea, eczema and
contact allergens, not to mention all the stinging and itchy dryness that
accompany the condition. In a lot of cases, sensitive skin is something you'll
have to deal with your whole life, but that doesn't mean there aren't proper
practices to alleviate the problem. Here are 10 tips for cleansing sensitive
skin.
1: Shower Carefully
Limit your skin cleansing regimen to as little exposure to hot water as
possible. Hot water softens up the natural oils on your skin to wash them away,
but it also leaches out moisture from your skin. If your skin is extremely
sensitive or dry, take your showers and baths as cool as you can stand it, and
limit yourself to only five or 10 minutes in the water. Be sparing with soap,
too. There's usually no reason to wash everywhere and expose your entire body to chemicals that will dry it out or
irritate it. On an average day, washing just your genitals, armpits and
feet is usually fine.
After your shower, pat yourself dry. Every moment, you're losing
moisture as water evaporates off your skin, but rubbing will only make skin
irritation worse.
2: Tailor Your Skin Regimen for
the Season
Your skin changes with the seasons, and what may have worked in the
bonny springtime won't necessarily be effective when the humidity drops and
winter starts to take its toll. In winter, not only does cold air chap and dry
out skin, but you also spend much more time indoors, where the air is even
drier. You may need to increase the amount of moisturizer you use.
Getting too much vitamin A in winter can also be a problem, as it's linked
to decreased oil production. While this can be a boon for people with oily
skin, it can also exacerbate problems with flaking and redness during cold
weather. If winter makes your skin dry out, and you use a topical ointment
containing vitamin A (it shows up in acne, psoriasis and skin rejuvenation
products), you might want to ease up.
3: What Else Besides Soap?
Many people mistakenly assume that when they're done cleansing
sensitive skin, the work is done. But you've got to moisturize! Moisturizers
sit on clean skin to form a protective barrier that traps water to keep your
skin from dehydrating. People with acne or oily skin can opt for non-oily
moisturizers and gels that better suits their skin type. Most moisturizers also
serve double-duty as a UV blocker or an anti-inflammatory, protecting you from
the sun and cooling skin cells damaged by inflammation to give them a chance to
recover.
One ingredient to look for is ursolic acid, a chemical that's found in
rosemary, sage and apple skin. In lab tests, ursolic acid was found to help
rebuild the outer layers of damaged skin [source: Yarosh]. Be careful, though,
when you're shopping for these products. Just because a moisturizer has
rosemary or sage extracts in it doesn't meant that the ursolic acid content is
going to be powerful enough to do any good. Make sure to look for moisturizers
and anti-inflammatories that specifically mention ursolic acid in the list of
ingredients.
4: Never Mind the Lather
You may have heard that working up a rich lather is the best way to
thoroughly cleanse your skin. The truth of the matter is that you don't need a
cleanser with a foamy lather to get good and clean. In fact, the materials used
to make soap sudsy are often just detergents and surfactants, which break up
the oil that dry, sensitive skin desperately needs.
If you've got very oily skin, this might seem like a nonissue. That
cool, clean polish you get after lathering up can feel wonderful after a day of
dealing with a greasy face. But when you overuse these cleansers, they will
ultimately hurt your skin's ability to defend itself.
And what about the classic sudsy soak? Sorry, bubble bath lovers.
Bubble bath formula is mostly just detergent and scent -- it's designed to foam
up prettily, not to go easy on sensitive skin.
5: Avoid Fragrances and
Colorings
Fragrances and colorings are part of what makes soaps attractive, but
they're also a potential hazard for people with sensitive skin -- even when
they come from natural plant extracts and essential oils. Because it doesn't
have the same protection that normal skin does, sensitive skin can also be more
vulnerable to certain allergens in fragrance. Where the epidermis and lipid
coatings (the layer of dead cells and the oil that protect you) are thin, it's
easier for foreign substances to enter the body. Since many allergies can be
created through repeated exposure to certain irritants, problems may develop
from using cleansers that contain them. Here are a few to watch out for:
Camphor
Cinnamon
Citrus
Eucalyptus
Fragrance
Lavender
Menthol
Peppermint
Rosewater
Soaps with fragrances also can be more of a problem in geographical
areas with higher mineral content in the water, which makes it harder to build
up and rinse off lather. Soap residue on the skin can then leach into the body
over a long period of time, increasing sensitivity to allergens.
6: Know What's Going into Your
Skin
Always read the labels on the back of skin-care products. Knowing what
the ingredients are means knowing what to avoid. It can be overwhelming to sift
through a list of unpronounceable chemicals on the back of a bottle, but it's
absolutely necessary. Some ingredients are good for normal and combination
skins, but terribly harsh for cleansing sensitive skin. Here's a list of some
of the more common chemicals that can irritate, sting and dry out sensitive
skin:
Acetone
Alcohol
Witch hazel
Alpha hydroxy acids (glycolic acid)
Benzoic acid
Bronopol
Cinnamic acid compounds
Dowicil 200
Formaldehyde
Lactic acid
Propylene glycol
Quaternary ammonium compounds
Sodium lauryl sulfate
Sorbic acid
Urea
Vitamin C
7: Limit How Often You Wash Your
Face
Whether you do it at night or morning, noon and night, cleansing your
skin means drying it out. Period. Even when you get out of the shower, as the
water evaporates from your body, it's taking moisture from your cells with it.
Wash your face once in the morning with a gentle soap, and then cleanse it
again at night before you apply a moisturizer. The most important thing for
cleansing sensitive skin is to strike a balance between keeping your skin free
of dirt and grime and giving your body a fighting chance to create and retain
as strong a barrier as possible between your dermis and the outside world.
8: Don't Be Fooled by
Antimicrobial Cleansers
Germs -- they're everywhere. But that's OK! While it's hard not to
think of bacteria as nasty, disease-causing germs, some of the bacteria on your
skin actually help protect you by keeping more dangerous strains at bay. And
while it's important to keep the bacteria on your body under control, you don't
need to go overboard. In a Columbia University study, one group washed their
hands with antimicrobial cleansers while another washed theirs with
conventional hand soaps. As it turned out, both groups had the same reduction
in bacteria on their hands -- what mattered most wasn't the cleanser they used,
but the attention and time paid to scrubbing.
It's one thing to use antimicrobial hand soap, but never use these
cleansers for your face. Though sensitive skin is vulnerable to acne, and it
might seem like a good idea to annihilate all those germs with a good
antiseptic, remember that antimicrobials are comprised of harsh chemicals that
dry out and damage your skin. Plus, research shows that antimicrobial cleansers
actually help breed stronger bacteria. Don't believe the hype. There's no
reason to use antimicrobial cleansers unless you're a health care professional.
9: Gentle Is Best
It feels great to scrub your skin until it shines, but keep in mind
that the oils you're scrubbing off your body are part of what keeps your skin
healthy. While it's true that exfoliating dead skin cells and oil is important,
there's a reason your body produces them. Dead skin cells form the barrier
between your dermis (the under part of your skin) and the outside world. And
sebum, the oil your skin produces, guards against skin cells' dehydration.
If you do have sensitive skin, you may have found that gentle skin
cleansers don't really leave your skin feeling all that clean. While it usually
isn't necessary (and is sometimes counterproductive) to get that ultra-fresh,
scrubbed, shiny feeling, try starting with the gentlest skin cleansers and
working your way up to harder stuff. Gauge your cleanser's effectiveness by
asking yourself these two questions:
Do I have to wash my face twice to remove all my makeup?
Do I have to rub my skin so hard that it hurts?
If the answer to either of these is yes, you're washing your face too
roughly and should choose a more potent cleanser.
10: Have Only a Few Go-to
Products
It's easy to be tempted into buying products with exotic plant
extracts, but a simple, regular cleansing regimen will do your sensitive skin
much more good than sporadic blasts of anti-aging toner and the latest
expensive goops. Unless a dermatologist advises otherwise, try to limit what you
use to cleanse your skin to only two or three products at a time -- a gentle
soap, sunscreen, and a moisturizer once or twice a day is plenty for most
people. Your sensitive skin comes into contact with a terrible range of
chemicals every day, from air pollution to bacteria and plain old dirt. Soaps
and body washes are often complicated cocktails, and the more diverse the
chemicals you're putting on your skin, the greater the chance that you're
introducing an irritant. Also, if you use only a few products and a condition
develops, you and your dermatologist will be able to quickly narrow down which
ingredient is causing the problem.
Source: http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/cleansing/tips/10-tips-for-cleansing-sensitive-skin.htm
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