[Misc] What dehydrated skin really entails and how to really fix it. Studies included.

Beauty Tips For Body Care
Dehydrated skin is oily, easily irritated, easily reddened, pore-ridden and tight no matter what you do.The first step to avoiding dehydrated skin is to strip your routine of all actives (exfoliants, cleansers etc).The reparation of dehydrated skin seems to be rather misrepresented on this sub so I went down a deep rabbit hole of scientific journals to get to the bottom of it, having myself nuked my "moisture barrier" with excess use of Benzoyl Peroxide and smoking.First of all - dehydrated skin doesn't necessarily mean the skin actually lacks water. Unless your body is malfunctioning in some way not relating to the functions of the lipid matrix, the amount of water transported to your skin barriers should be similar to the average person. Your skin simply can't hold onto the water it already holds. So why do some experience dehydrated skin? Because of heightened Transepidermal Water Loss.Trans-epidermal Water Loss or TEWL, according to Wikipedia, is the following: "the loss of water that passes from inside a body (animal or plant) through the epidermis (that is, either the epidermal layer of animal skin or the epidermal layer of plants)) to the surrounding atmosphere via diffusion and evaporation processes."​This means that hydration is not the solution, which also ties in with the study below suggesting that skin's exposure to water may have similar effects to that of irritating surfactants:​https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/12542533/?i=2&from=/10594737/related​The study above, titled Hydration disrupts human stratum corneum ultrastructure:Outtake: "Our confirmation that water disrupts the structure of the SC barrier lipids helps explain the known ability of water to increase skin permeability (Scheuplein, 1978). Similarly, our results strongly support the ability of prolonged water contact to facilitate irritant contact dermatitis (Renshaw, 1947;Suskind and Ishihara, 1965;Possick, 1969;Halkier-Sørensen et al, 1995;Meding, 2000)."​This means that watery serums and essences are not the solution here. By locking in hydrating serums with an occlusive, you are effectively feeding your skin water for hours on end which does nothing in aiding the reparation of a damaged skin barrier.And as this article suggests, dehydration is not due to lack of water in the skin, it occurs due to a malfunctioning lipid matrix:​http://www.beautymagonline.com/beauty-articles/1000-epidermal-dehydration-2​So what is really the issue here and how do we fix it? By feeding the skin skin-identical lipids.Among these are:Ceramides, cholesterol, fatty acides, Squalane, Urea etc with Ceramides being the major lipid constituent:​https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/12553851/?i=6&from=/10594737/related​For more on skin-identical lipids, read this: http://www.justaboutskin.com/lipids-in-skin-care/​And a study on "Leveraging the skin's ability to heal itself":​https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/repairing-a-compromised-skin-barrier-in-dermatitis-2155-6121.1000187.php?aid=29958​A disrupted skin barrier has many points of vulnerability including excessive water loss, slow/deficient lipid production, an imbalance in content and ratio of skin lipids, a dry skin barrier, an elevation of pH, susceptibility to infection and inflammation, and susceptibility to contact sensitization [16–19]. There have been many approaches to induce and enhance skin barrier repair in chronic dermatitis. Some products have focus on skin barrier protection or physiologic skin lipid replacement or inflammation. To effectively heal the skin barrier, trans-epidermal water loss (TEWL) must be minimized and the skin must be protected from further contact with irritants, allergens, and infectious organisms [20].​The barrier is disrupted, meaning TEWL is through the roof... meaning no matter how much you hydrate your skin, that water will make no difference because it will evaporate off your face anyway. The trick to fixing dehydrated skin is not adding more hydrating products, it is to topically apply skin-identical lipids to your face and sealing them in with an occlusive until the barrier's function is restored to a point where the TEWL is negligible.​So to recap this:- Cut out all actives.- Minimize your skin's exposure to water as best you can.- Buy products that contain skin-identical lipids, especially creams heavy on Ceramides. But ingredients like carbamide (Urea), triglyceride (fatty acid) and Squalane should also do the trick. The big problem here, however, is that many creams containing these ingredients are occlusive and I haven't had time to study the external permeability of occlusive ingredients such as Petrolatum.- If the above creams are not occlusive, make sure to seal with Vaseline (and do so anyway before you go to sleep).- Keep applying these every morning and every night until you have restored the functions of the Corneum Stratum and then start cutting back.- I can't tell you which products will work for you, so you would have to go the trial-and-error-route as with anything else. But at least you now know which ingredients are needed to repair a compromised skin barrier.
Girls Blog 2015
Submitted by kenanthepro