The world is an enormous, beautiful, but sometimes terrifying space. In your daily life, you’ll come across environmental hazards that could affect your health. Luckily, the body has a natural defense mechanism, the skin barrier. It is the epidermis, which is the outermost layer of your skin, that acts as a shield of protection.
The skin barrier protects your body from harmful elements of the environment, including pollutants and germs. But it’s important for you to be extra cautious in order to ensure its integrity. Here are four methods to safeguard and care for the skin barrier.
1. Apply Sunscreen Daily
Sunshine is vital for a healthy life. It regulates the sleep-wake cycle to ensure you get the needed sleep and boosts your mood. It also helps the skin to make vitamin D. This is crucial to bone health and an energized immune system.
It’s no secret that sun exposure has dark sides. The harsh UV rays can disrupt the skin’s cell function, which can lead to cancerous tumors. The less serious, but not as undesirable, are the first signs of ageing, such as wrinkles, dark spots, which sunlight.
This is why no matter what the weather, hot or cold, it is essential to apply sunscreen that has a minimum 15 SPF each day. Sunscreen helps protect your skin from the damaging sun’s effects and is a crucial element to any anti-aging regimen. No matter if you’re worried about crow’s feet or cancer, sunscreen is essential. Applying it regularly will keep your skin healthy and provide it with the appearance of younger.
2. Use a Barrier Cream
If you’ve encountered the term barrier cream, chances are you think it’s similar to a moisturizer. This is a commonly held mistake. Although barrier creams are able to keep the surface hydrated and supple, they accomplish this by preventing the loss of transepidermal fluid. In essence, their purpose is to ensure that the beneficial things (e.g., water, moisture) inside and the negative things (e.g, irritations to the skin as well as environmental toxic substances) are out.
With ingredients like wax, lanolin, ceramides, and petrolatum, as well as Hyaluronic acid, barrier creams provide a protective layer to protect your skin. Apart from helping retain moisture and hydration, barrier creams can assist in repairing skin damage and help prevent damage from external irritations. In essence, it creates an extra layer of protection that allows the skin to recover.
It’s not that a barrier cream does away with the need for conventional moisturizers that help to hydrate the skin’s outer layer. The ideal is to have both combined first, using the moisturizer for water retention, and the barrier cream to keep the watery goodness in. To create a sturdy, healthy skin barrier and keep the skin well-hydrated, barrier creams are vital.
3. Be Gentle With Your Skin
Your skin is exposed to a lot of external aggressors on its own; therefore, be gentle in the way you care for it. For instance, when cleaning your face, do not apply an exfoliator each day. While it’s great to scrub off old skin cells, exfoliators should be used only at least once or twice per week. If you use them more frequently, you’ll probably be prone to skin irritation.
If you wash your face with a mild cleanser to wash off any oil, makeup, dirt, and other particles, to ensure that you don’t damage the skin barrier. Make sure that the water temperature is at a minimum as well. Hot water can strip the skin oil from its natural way it works, which can cause drying and irritation. Showers that are long and hot may also cause more aggravated skin problems, such as acne, eczema, and Rosacea. Make sure to set the faucets to warm and apply a lotion after showering to seal in the moisture.
The hot water doesn’t represent the only threat from temperature to your skin barrier, either. It’s crucial to avoid long-term exposure to cold, too. The cold weather can result in extremely dry skin, and sometimes even cause it to crack or bleed. Moisturizing is crucial to keep the skin in good condition, so make sure you apply plenty of lotion and barrier cream in the winter seasons.
4. Eat a Well-Rounded Diet
Food choices can affect your appearance on the outside, from the form of your body to the shine of your hair. This is particularly true for the skin to all intents and purposes represents your exterior appearance to the world.
Your skin should appear and feel fantastic and be as healthy as it can be, like every other organ of your body. To attain this, you need to consume a healthy diet. Try to eat a balanced diet rich in healthy fats as well as foods high in antioxidants. A few of the items to include to start include fruits and vegetables with green leaves, as well as salmon and nuts.
The omega-3 fatty acids present in walnuts and salmon, as an example, help aid in keeping your skin hydrated and help reduce acne and redness-related inflammation. These are also an excellent source of zinc, which helps in the healing of wounds and improves your skin’s barrier. Food choices that are right for you can keep you looking young and keep your skin looking radiant.
Ask Not What Your Skin Barrier Can Do for You Ask What You Can Do for It
The skin barrier protects you from a variety of threats, including bacteria, the sun as well and pollutants. What are you doing to ensure your skin barrier is protected? If the answer isn’t anything, then it’s time for you to implement some adjustments to your routine.
The skin barrier is many protections, and you do not want to be the reason why it isn’t able to do its job. With just a few adjustments to your daily routine, you can relax in the knowledge you’re skin barrier is maintained and protected.
