Beauty

[kaydee50]

An article from the NY Times about using too many facial products.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/style/all-of-those-products-are-making-your-skin-worse.html?actio...

[Annabellethecat66]

Well, as I've said, I just use a microfiber wash cloth with warm water and a cleaning pad from Dr. Denese and Hydroshield.

That's about it.  I am totally convinced to have good skin all you need to do is cleanse your face and get all of the old skin you shed every day off of it.  

You also need to put some kind of product that provides moisture (and stay the heck out of the sun).

[JeanLouiseFinch]

Article is unreadable w/o creating an account

[butterfly123]

When customers message Nicolas Travis, the founder of the skin-care brand Allies of Skin, with questions about their sensitive skin, he asks them what other products they’re using. Ninety-nine percent of the time, he said, it’s something with drying alcohol or harsh essential oils.

“I have to tell them, ‘You’ve just spent years of using really badly formulated products, which is like years and years of eating junk food,’” said Mr. Travis, whose company is based in Singapore and is in stores in 15 countries, including the United States. “I say, ‘Your skin isn’t sensitive, your skin barrier is just really weak.’’

Ask aestheticians and dermatologists what problem they’re seeing these days, and as often as not the answer is a broken-down skin barrier. Little wonder, then, that the new beauty buzzwords are “barrier repair” (and its cousin “barrier protection”).

A broken barrier — symptoms include inflammation and patchy, flaky skin — can eventually lead to other problems since it means the skin’s defenses are compromised. Besides sensitive skin, barrier dysfunction is also partly responsible for rosacea, eczema, psoriasis and acne, all of which are on the rise, according to epidemiological studies.

What’s to blame for the mass barrier malfunction? Too many creams, serums and other hope in a jar.

“It’s largely a product of our own obsession with squeaky clean and using product upon product upon product,” said Whitney Bowe, a dermatologist in New York. Combine product overload with environmental assaults, and you have a recipe for skin barrier disaster.

Here’s how to avoid that — or to repair the damage.

What the Acid Mantle Is, and Why You Absolutely Must Protect It

The acid mantle is the protective film of natural oils, amino acids and sweat that covers your skin. Damage it with too much scrubbing or neutralize it with alkaline washes and you’re on your way to barrier problems: inflammation, allergies, breakouts 

Talk of the acid mantle (apologies!) means a lot of talk about pH, which, to the surprise of many a chemistry teacher, is the sort of thing beauty addicts love to discuss online these days. So, while alkaline water may be all the rage for health, you definitely don’t want to use it on your (acidic) face.

Cleansing your skin with anything alkaline interferes with the skin’s ability to repair itself and makes it less elastic, Dr. Bowe said. A high pH also encourages the growth of a bacteria called propionibacterium acnes that, as you may guess from the name, plays a major role in many forms of acne. That face wash that is super-foamy and lathery? There’s a fairly good chance it’s alkaline because the ingredients that give it those qualities are high pH.

“The problem is, people want lather to feel clean,” said Emily Parr, a founder of HoliFrog, a line of cleansers that is set to debut in September. “So we had to counter ours with a ton of rich oils to reinforce the barrier.” (The brand’s namesake frog is a nod to its focus on barrier protection; frogs’ skin is so permeable that they can’t survive in toxic environments

Christian Surber, a professor of dermatopharmacology at the universities of Basel and Zurich and an author of studies on the acid mantle, suggests avoiding products with a pH of more than 7. This doesn’t mean the lower the pH the better; skin pH is about 5.5 and ability to tolerate more acid depends on both your skin and how well the product is formulated.

Skin grows more alkaline as we age — activating enzymes that chew away, Pac-Man-like, at collagen — and acidic products can restore pH, protecting against droopy skin and the development of wrinkles.

This focus on acidity as the key to healthy skin is the theory behind such start-ups as Atolla, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which tests for factors including pH and sends monthly customized serums. It’s also why companies like Mr. Travis’s and Ms. Parr’s list pH on the packaging (something Dr. Surber, who is not connected with either, thinks all brands should do).

The phrase “pH balanced” is about as useful as the term “clean” or “natural” — which is to say, it means nothing. If you want a specific number, the company has to supply it. Not even a cosmetic chemist (or armchair cosmetic chemist) can guesstimate this based on ingredients, Dr. Surber said.

The bad news: When researchers tested 31 moisturizers widely available in the United States, they ranged in pH from 3.73 to a havoc-wreaking 8.19. A 2018 German study found only a little over a third of commonly available moisturizers had a pH “appropriate for barrier protective basic therapy.” (Companies constantly tweak formulations, so it’s impossible to have a complete updated list of villains.)

Dos and Don’ts of Restoring Your Skin Barrier

The first step in skin barrier protection is stepping away from the kajillion products.

“The 10-step Korean regimen is an ordeal for the skin,” Dr. Surber said

Chemical exfoliants like glycolic, lactic and salicylic acid are usually more gentle than physical exfoliants (particles in scrubs, microdermabrasion) but should be used no more than once a week for dry or sensitive skin and three times a week for oily skin. Consider a recent meme that made its way around beauty insiders: “Look, I can totally fix your acid mantle, if you could just lay off the 30 percent glycolic for 10 minutes.”

(The meme’s creator — the guy doing the death stare in the photo accompanying the text — is Jordan Samuel Pacitti, the founder of Jordan Samuel Skin, who said in an interview that it came from his company’s philosophy of “keeping the barrier and acid mantle in check.”)

Initially there was a lot of excitement among doctors about ceramides, which glue the barrier back together and help prevent the skin from drying out and wrinkling. But the skin is simply too complex for any single ingredient to do the job, said S. Tyler Hollmig, an assistant professor of dermatologic surgery at Stanford University. He still recommends ceramides, but they’re not a cure-all.

Products with ingredients like glycerin, petrolatum and hyaluronic acid can also help repair the skin barrier and replenish lost moisture. These don’t need to be fancy. Shari Marchbein, a dermatologist in New York, advises that, as basic as it sounds, moisturizer should be applied within 60 seconds of cleansing to trap in the hydration.

“If you frost a dry cake, the cake is still dry,” Dr. Marchbein said. “If you frost a moist cake, it stays moist.”

[butterfly123]

@kaydee50 @JeanLouiseFinch 

Above post has article.

 Thank you 

[geezerette]

That all sounds great to me, since I have been reducing the number of products I use on face (and body) for a while now.  And trying to get away from the fancier and higher-priced ones as well.

But I have two questions re this article:  

1–How do you tell what the ph of a product is?  Most don’t have it listed on the label.

2–Many of the milder cleansers I’ve been trying to use do not remove sunscreen efficiently.  So I end up having to use something harsher or an oil for proper removal, which I’d like to avoid.

[Porcelain]

Eh. The article content doesn't fully support the headline. The content is all about ruining your acid mantle. By using too much of the wrong products. Overexfoliation and alkaline cleansers in particular. Doesn't say using too many products is the problem.

I know CeraVe Foaming Facial Wash has a pH of 5.5. I saw a chemist lady do a pH test of it on a Youtube video. The really good cleansers that get recommended over and over have appropriate pH levels. She also said that if you are going to do a pH test of a cleanser, make sure to do the test of the cleanser mixed with water because that is how the cleanser is actually used.

[bonnielu]

Hope in a Jar and Idle promises.  And too many, too often and shown with a "younger person" who does not have wrinkles or whatever.  Snake Oil

[Katcat1]

I am all for exfoliation a once or twice a week or if you have a Leaflet you won't need a product.  I use a facial wash and my Leaflet and then apply a moisturizer for hydration.

[DBOOTS]

Thank you! I use a lot of products but I rationalize them by thinking that they all have different functions - deep wrinkle serum, serum to keep my neck and jowls from looking like my older relatives, serum for age spots, eye cream, moisturizer, sunscreen and I’m probably forgetting something. Then there’s the cleansers, masks, peels, and pore extractors. Now that I know how important pH is, it will help me a lot as I evaluate a new skincare regimen which I just started to do a few days ago.