Unfortunately, it seems like wintertime and skin concerns go hand in hand. As a recent study shared, over 60% of Americans experience trouble with their skin during the winter months.
The root of most of the negative effects on our skin this time of year is the impact that the harsh winter air has on our skin’s delicate hydrolipidic barrier.
Continue reading to learn more about how you can protect your skin this winter so you can maintain healthy, radiant skin all season long.
In this article, you’ll discover:
- What is a Hydrolipidic Barrier?
- Why Your Hydrolipidic Barrier Is Likely to Become Compromised in the Wintertime + Why You Should Care
- 3 Secrets To Strengthening Your Skin’s Protective Barrier This Winter
What Is a Hydrolipidic Barrier?
To put it simply, the hydrolipidic barrier, also known as the acid mantle, is your skin’s protective, film-like barrier. This barrier functions as your skin’s essential self-defense tool, entrusted in shielding harmful pathogenic bacteria, free radicals, toxins, and other environmental stressors. Maintaining a strong hydrolipidic barrier should be a priority for anyone who wants healthy skin that’s free of irritation, inflammation, and imperfections.
Why Your Hydrolipidic Barrier Is Likely to Become Compromised in the Wintertime + Why You Should Care
Your skin’s hydrolipidic film consists of water and lipids in the form of sebum. When this fatty barrier is weakened, it’s often the result of dryness. This is because excessive dryness means your skin is producing significantly less sebum. Without sebum, your film barrier becomes thinner, making it almost impossible for it to continue its protective functions on your skin. As a result, your skin becomes more fragile and dries out easier. Unsurprisingly, people with dry skin types are more vulnerable and sensitive to external aggressions.
During the winter season, the colder air tends to be harsh and dry. This, in turn, dries out your skin, leaving your hydrolipidic barrier weakened, disturbing your pH, and your skin feeling irritated, cracked, tight, and flaky.
Another common cause of dryness is the way we tend to compensate for the cold air outside, including indoor heating and scalding hot showers, which further dry out your skin, stripping it of its natural oils and pushing our pH further off balance.
3 Secrets To Strengthening Your Skin’s Protective Barrier This Winter
During the winter months, you might notice that your existing skincare products are no longer doing their job to properly hydrate your skin. Without adding heavier hydrating and nourishing products to your winter skincare regimen, your skin’s delicate moisture barrier is likely to be compromised, further causing inflammation, dryness, irritation, and redness.
Here are three ways to update your winter skincare routine to properly protect your hydrolipidic barrier:
1. Using a Non-Stripping Cleanser
Keeping your skin barrier intact can be a challenge during the dry winter months. To avoid increased dryness, we recommend saying goodbye to your foaming cleanser. This is because many popular foaming cleansers on the market today are formulated with overly-aggressive surfactants like sodium laureth sulfate that further reduce the protective natural oils on your skin. Stripping away too much of these precious oils can leave your skin feeling dry and uncomfortably tight while further damaging your skin’s defensive hydrolipidic barrier.
To maintain your skin’s healthy defenses, opt for a hydrating milky formula that offers a surge of moisture to dry skin. Circcell’s Mandarin Cleansing Milk offers an advanced formula that effectively removes impurities while gently cleansing the complexion from excess oil buildup and impurities.
2. Applying a pH-Perfecting Toner
There are countless complexion-enhancing benefits that make a pH-balancing toner worth incorporating into your skincare routine, regardless of the season. As tap water’s pH tends to be too acidic for our skin, many dermatologists and estheticians recommend recalibrating your skin with a toner to help repair and protect your hydrolipidic barrier. Using a toner before beginning the rest of your skincare routine can also help to prep your skin to better absorb the products you apply.
Regular use of a toner becomes even more essential for your complexion in the wintertime when your skin’s delicate pH is more likely to become unbalanced. The moment your pH is back to its ideal pH (which is on the slightly acidic side of the scale, between 5 and 7), you may notice that your skin is less sensitive when exposed to skin-damaging elements like cold air, pollution, and free radicals. A pH-perfecting toner like DEW is formulated with potent actives to restore balanced skin, effectively clearing, healing, and soothing troubled skin.
To reap the benefits of DEW, gently press it on your skin with your hands after cleansing. This allows the formula’s high-performance actives like rejuvenating amino acids, skin-renewing lactic acid, and soothing arnica to better absorb in your skin and bring you more noticeable results.
Care to know more about the high-performance pH perfecting toner? Read our blog post about it here.
3. Keeping Your Skin Hydrated
Your hydrolipidic barrier consists of lipids (aka fatty acids) that work to maintain this essential protective film on your skin, which is why keeping your skin hydrated with fatty molecules is one of the most important steps you can take to keeping your barrier in optimal health so it can continue to perform its functions.
Since serums offer help with targeted skin concerns, we recommend choosing one that’s known for increasing skin hydration and preventing moisture from evaporating from your skin cells. Circcell’s ABO +|- face serum’s innovative formula is blended with high-performance perfluorocarbons as well as Salisporene-8 which increases moisture in the skin by over 6000% after just four weeks of daily application. The ABO +|- serum is also available for the eyes and contains the same potent blend of deeply-hydrating actives that work to awaken, rejuvenate, and hydrate your under-eyes while retaining noticeably long-lasting moisture.
For an added surge of moisture during the dry winter months, we recommend topping off the hydrating serum with a face oil to help seal in deep moisture. Nancy’s Blend Extraordinary Face Oil harnesses fermentation technology to offer your skin a soothing blend that easily absorbs in the skin to heal, nourish, and appease wintertime skin concerns.