Advice
Determine Your Correct Skin Type
Many studies show that most people are wrong about their skin type.
Skin typing systems usually classify your skin type as a dry, oily, combination, or normal skin type. This classification system is insufficient as it does not consider your barriers to skin health. Barriers to skin health include inflammation, dehydration, pigmentation, and aging.
Some skin types have just one barrier to skin health, others may have all four. The goal is to use skincare products that will eliminate these 4 issues.
Dermal Diagnosis is a free online assessment tool that will help you identify which of these 4 barriers to skin health your skin has.
Learn more about each of the barriers here, as well as what you can do to help reverse them.
Inflammation
Eight of the 16 Dermal Diagnosis results have underlying inflammation. Inflammation occurs when inflammatory factors within your body cause blood vessels to dilate, resulting in red flushing of the skin. Skin types that exhibit sensitivity are more likely to have activation of various inflammatory pathways. These pathways involve substances and cell structures such as arachidonic acid, toll-like receptors, bradykinin, cytokines, interleukins, and many others. Once these pathways are turned on, it is very difficult to turn them back off. Other cells in your body begin to produce more inflammatory factors, creating a chain reaction. As a result of inflammation, blood vessels dilate and may become leaky, causing redness and flushing.
Inflammation is the underlying cause of a wide array of skin problems, including acne, eczema, and rosacea.
Inflammation can be caused by a number of factors, including the immune system, friction, chemicals, very low or very high pH, bacteria, fungi, and more.
Anti-inflammatory ingredients such as argan oil, niacinamide, and salicylic acid can help to combat inflammation, redness, and other symptoms.
Dehydration
Dry skin has trouble holding onto moisture and easily becomes dehydrated. This occurs as a result of an impaired skin barrier. A healthy barrier contains a 1:1:1 ratio of fatty acids, ceramides, and cholesterol to seal moisture inside and keep irritants out. In dry skin types, however, this ratio is thrown off and the skin barrier is unable to function properly. This allows for moisture to escape into the atmosphere and irritants and debris to penetrate the skin.
The good news is that dry skin types can improve their skin fairly easily by using the correct skin care products. Choose non-foaming cleansers that are free of fragrance and sulfates, barrier repair moisturizers, and gentle oils like argan oil to help your skin maintain proper hydration and improve its barrier function.
Barrier repair moisturizers use MLE technology to mimic the skin’s natural lipid structure located in the outermost layer in order to strengthen barrier function and eliminate dryness, itching, and flaking.
Pigmentation
Pigmented skin types struggle with dark spots on the skin, as well as conditions like melasma and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. Overactive melanocytes – the cells that create the pigment melanin – cause too much pigment to be produced, resulting in uneven skin tone and dark spots. While some people are genetically predisposed to overactive melanocytes, external factors like sun exposure also play a significant role in pigmentation issues. In fact, “age spots” aren’t caused by aging at all, but rather years of accumulated unprotected exposure to the sun.
Thus, the first line of defense against this barrier to skin health is sunscreen. Everyone – including those with naturally dark skin tones – should wear at least SPF 30 on a daily basis.
Pigmented skin types should also use skin lightening ingredients like vitamin C, niacinamide and retinoids to achieve an evener skin tone.
Aging
Your skin is at an increased risk of developing signs of aging if you are over the age of 30 or have lifestyle habits that increase aging. These include not wearing sunscreen, eating a high-sugar diet, lack of sleep, overuse of drugs and alcohol, and others.
Aging skin produces less collagen, elastin, hyaluronic acid, and heparan sulfate and is therefore prone to wrinkles, creases, sagging, and dehydration. To reverse these effects, use anti-aging ingredients that are appropriate for your Dermal Diagnosis, such as antioxidants, retinoids, chemical exfoliators and always wear sunscreen.
Bottom Line
It should be your goal to effectively treat all your barriers to skin health on a daily basis, in order to experience healthy skin with no skin health barriers.
Want to find out what is your barriers to skin health and how to treat it effectively? Do your free online Dermal Diagnosis here.