10 Tips for Sensitive Skin

If you have sensitive skin, normally or just at this very moment, here is everything you need to know.

All skin is sensitive, even yours will be at some point. We’ve all experienced skin sensitivity, whether that was when we overdid our skincare routine, got too much sun, or we were going through hormonal changes. Sensitive skin is dry, red, flaky and reactive, and it is the consequence of a damaged skin barrier. Here are the best tips to treat it, but the main one is to always choose safe and professional tools and products to apply on our face.

1. Look for fragrance free products. Not unscented products, because they can contain fragrances, but completely fragrance and essential oils free (even if they have a natural fragrance).
2. Take a pause from using strong active ingredients such as all retinoids, AHAs, BHA, L-ascorbic acid, kojic acid, 15–20% azelaic acid, benzoyl peroxide, hydroquinone, physical exfoliants. They can potentially worsen the situation, especially if you sometimes exfoliate your skin.
3. Opt for gentle exfoliants such as mandelic acid, PHA or enzymes, or even the formulas that use encapsulated technology (where an active ingredient gets slowly released minimizing possible side effects).
4. Skip the morning cleanse. Only refresh your skin with water to remove the residue from the skincare you’ve applied the previous night. Just by doing this, you will strengthen the lipid barrier and improve your skin’s resilience like nothing else. But make sure to cleanse every evening, and use warm or tepid water when washing your face, not boiling hot water (absolutely never put your face under a boiling hot shower!).
5. Only use very gentle and hydrating cleansers without any actives (AHA, BHA, benzoyl peroxide). If your skin feels tight after the wash, there is a good chance your cleanser is too stripping for you.
6. Never try more than one new product at a time and always patch test if you don’t know how your skin will react to it: try it on your forehead for a few days before trying it on your cheeks and then on your chin, instead of putting it on your whole face in one go.
7. Minimise your skincare to maximum two products (not including cleansers and SPF): a hydrating and soothing toner/essence/serum, preferably with some antioxidants (which help to reduce irritations and inflammations), and a ceramide moisturizer in the morning will allow your skin to regroup and start working on restoring its function.
8. Instead of classic hyaluronic acid for hydration, switch to glycerin, betaine, amino acids, tremella mushrooms, hydrolyzed protein, sodium lactate, or sodium PCA. These are all superior in providing long lasting hydration. When choosing a product to use before you moisturize, like a serum, toner, or essence, ensure it contains a few of the mentioned ingredients. If you decide to go with a hydrating toner or essence instead of a serum, try layering two or three layers of that product followed by your moisturizer.
9. Moisturizers with ceramides and essential lipids like cholesterol, squalane and sphingosine must be occlusive enough to reduce transepidermal water loss, especially in the evening. Unless you live in a high humidity environment, a gel mosturizer won’t give you the same effects, because it isn’t sufficient enough to seal the moisture in. A moisturiser application smooths the skin surface by filling spaces between partially desquamated skin flakes and restores the ability of the intracellular bilayers to absorb, retain and redistribute water.
10. If you’re not prone to clogs, slugging with Vaseline or other petrolatum products would be ideal. Increased hydration facilitates corneodesmosome degradation, that is the natural exfoliation of the skin.