Why Product Hopping Will Ruin Your Skin! | Dr Sam Bunting

– Hey guys, welcome back to The Sensitivity Series. Today, I’m tackling product hopping. Now, I’m sorry if this is one of your favorite hobbies, pastimes, and I do understand the enticing nature of newness, of shiny things, of the allure of your favorite influencers who’s recommending the latest and greatest but if you are experiencing skin sensitivity I would urge you first and foremost to look to your bathroom shelf to decide whether or not you are pushing your skin too far. So you hear the term skins barrier, barrier function, barrier disfunction and disruption so what are we talking about? Well, the outermost layer of our skin is called the epidermis and the outermost bit of it is called the stratum corneum and it’s a complex layer of dead skin cells which have this amazing ability to form this waterproof protective layer and it also generates something called the acid mantle which allows the skin to have a slightly acidic pH of around 5.5 and that allows it to play host to friendly organisms creating our microbiome and that again assists with good skin health.

So that’s what a healthy barrier should be. So what happens when the barrier is disrupted? Well, essentially that smooth protective layer which has this film that creates the acid mantle becomes disrupted. It develops cracks. So imagine shoes have been left out in the sun for too long and the leather starts to crack which allows things that you then put on the leather to seep in.

The same thing happens with our skin. So personal skincare products which on normal, healthy intact skin would be perfectly fine can now start to get into places where they’re not supposed to and that stimulates nerve endings which get unhappy and the release inflammatory cascade ingredients and the same thing happens to our immune cells. They become triggered and stimulated and again produces inflammatory proteins which make the skin start to behave in a sensitive way. Common findings are you might experience some reddening of the skin, there may be dry patches, but mainly it’s about how it feels.

Stingy, burn-y, tight, and there are those individuals who are acne prone who will also find themselves breaking out. So now’s the time to look in that big bag of products and I think that when it comes to building a sensible routine for skin that’s behaving sensitively we always have to look at cleansing. You get cleansing wrong, it’s hard to get skincare right. And certainly within the patients that I see it’s elaborate cleansing rituals that tend to underpin so much of what is going wrong with their skincare routines.

So foaming cleansers in particular which disturb skin pH because they’re often associated with an alkaline pH status will tend to cause problems due to disrupting the acid mantle and lead to barrier disruption so go low foam, low pH and your skin will thank you for it. And remember that skin pH does start to creep up and become more alkaline as we age so it’s an even more important consideration as we get older. The next thing to think about is rationalizing your leave-on products and I’m thinking specifically of the active products. No one needs a Korean 10-step routine in my opinion and particularly know if you’re experiencing sensitivity.

I do think right now that too many people are using too many different active skin rotation or on a whim or just changing it up because it kind of seems fun and I really don’t think that’s the right way to treat skin that’s behaving sensitively. You will get far more confidence in your routine if you do an active ingredient one at a time. That you build it in slowly, steadily, looking for improvement over blocks of skin cycles so reassessing skin and its response to a certain active every six to 12 weeks time before even thinking about adding in a second or a third active ingredient. I think it’s worth a special mention of individuals using both retinoids and AHAs because I see this a lot and I see a lot of questions on Instagram about this.

How do I build in Nightly Serum if I’m using a retinoid and doing an AHA in the morning? Well in the individuals who are experiencing sensitivity in that context, and they’re often using more than one retinoid and more than one AHA and are kind of chopping and changing a little bit randomly I always recommend stopping the AHA and giving the retinoid your single minded focus for at least three months and then making a calculated decision about whether or not you actually need the AHA simply because they can both stack up in terms of their effect on the skins outer layer to really create the potential for sensitivity if not used correctly, so titrate your retinoid, see what benefits you’re getting, and you may well not need the AHA at all. Then we come on to the hydration step and in sensitive skin I think it’s really important to choose your moisturizer with care. First thing, you want a product that hasn’t got too many ingredients so a simple formula will work best. Then look for ingredients like aloe vera, bisabolol, and allantoin which will help reduce the tendency for your skin to be fiery and flaming and irritable.

A most important thing to consider here is to skip any moisturizer that contains fragrance. In the context of skin sensitivity and barrier disruption fragrance is not your friend. Final consideration is sunscreen and it’s important in context of sensitivity, and I would urge you to think about mineral only sunscreen that contains zinc oxide and titanium dioxide as this just tends to be better tolerated in context of skin sensitivity where chemical filters can sometimes trigger again skin sensations like burning and stinging. So that’s the way I approach building a skincare rouine and I’ve used those principles in the Dr Sam System Routine Finder for sensitive skin so I hope that helps you start to incorporate actives in a safe but cautious way into your skincare routine.

I will do a separate video on products I like for those who are experiencing skin sensitivity or who’ve perhaps had a reaction to a skincare product and just want to go back to the beginning to heal their barrier and to start again afresh. So I hope that was helpful for you guys. Bye for now!

Source: Dr Sam Bunting