How to Protect and Strengthen your Skin Barrier for your Healthiest Skin
How sensitive or dehydrated is your skin right now? If you experience redness, spots, tightness, flaky or itchy skin, then your skin barrier is compromised. Your skin barrier is crucial to healthy, radiant skin so if yours is suffering, keep reading to discover how GERnetic’s newest innovation could be your new best friend.
What is the Skin Barrier?
Your skin barrier is your natural defence against the outside world. As the body’s largest organ, the skin is complex and fascinating. With the rise in inflammatory skin conditions, taking care of the skin barrier is vital.
The outermost layer of the epidermis, the stratum corneum, is a specialised layer that protects the body from the harsh aspects of our environment; UV, pollution, toxic chemicals, and infection, to name a few.
The lipid matrix holds this outermost layer of skin cells, composed of ceramides, cholesterols, and fatty acids. The skin barrier is often described as the ‘bricks and mortar’, which acts as a security guard for your skin, preventing potential problems from passing through.
If this barrier is weakened or damaged, irritants can penetrate, and skin becomes sensitised, leading to a host of skin issues.
One of the skin barrier’s most critical functions is protecting it from trans-epidermal water loss. As this term suggests, it locks in moisture to keep skin soft, supple and firm. When the skin barrier is damaged, the quick water loss leaves the skin feeling tight and dehydrated. As a result, you may suddenly experience irritation, and the skin becomes red and inflamed.
A strong and healthy skin barrier is paramount if you want healthy skin.
Signs of an unhealthy skin barrier
If you have atopic skin, then your skin barrier is likely impaired.
Atopic skin is a delicate, fragile type of skin that is characterised by a weak skin barrier. As a result, the skin appears extremely dry and irritated with red patches and is very vulnerable to external aggressions.
The basic understanding of atopic skin is that inflammation and flare-ups occur due to an excessive number of inflammatory cells in the skin.
Those dealing with atopic skin typically have a compromised skin barrier. Therefore, replenishing lipids to strengthen the skin barrier is essential to managing irritated, dry, or atopic skin.
These conditions are partly caused by a genetic defect in the skin barrier. However, additional outside damage to the skin barrier can cause these conditions to flare up.
If you experience any of these conditions, then it’s time to address your skin barrier health:
- Rosacea and eczema.
- Chronic skin irritation
- Itchy skin
- Dehydrated, dull skin
- Hyperpigmentation
- Skin infections
- Delayed wound healing
How does the barrier function become impaired?
There are many reasons why the skin barrier may become compromised, including:
- Over-cleansing the skin (particularly with strong cleansers and foaming agents)
- Over-exfoliating the skin (especially with harsh physical exfoliants and acids)
- Nutrient-light diet – in particular, those low in fats resulting in an EFA (Essential fatty acid) deficiency
- Long-term emotional stress and anxiety
- Lack of sleep
- Smoking
- Overuse of AHAs and Retinol
- Topical moisturisers containing irritants such as synthetic fragrance, colours etc
- Incorrect ph. of products (too acidic or too alkaline)
- UV damage (sun damage)
- Environmental damage (pollution)
Once you understand what is causing your impaired barrier function, you can start to address it and slowly begin the healing process.
Traditional moisturisers provide a band-aid solution for highly sensitive, damaged skin. Unfortunately, they don’t contain the nourishing ingredients needed for the skin barrier to repair itself and instead, your skin gets caught in a downward spiral of damaging effects. Understanding your skin barrier and how best to nurture it is the key. Now, it’s time to create your daily skin care routine that strengthens the vital surface layer by rebuilding it from a cellular level.
GERnetic Skincare for Skin Barrier Repair
Here at GERnetic, we believe treating the skin holistically is the key to long-term skin health. This means we treat the external skin with nutrients and healthy natural ingredients to nourish and heal. But we also understand the need to maintain a lifestyle that meets the skin’s needs. This includes eating well, sleeping, exercising, removing anything toxic to the skin, and managing stress.
GERnetic is often referred to as the healthy food pyramid for your skin. Dr Albert Laporte, who created the innovative skin care range, based the concept on the ability of the body to restore its health and harmony when its cells receive accurately measured essential active ingredients. He established that many skin complaints are the result of nutritional deficiencies at a cellular level. GERnetic was created to replace those missing nutrients and help the skin to regenerate and repair itself. Packed with vitamins, trace elements and amino acids, GERnetic skin care is a superfood for your skin.
Meet Cold Cream Mousse
GERnetic’s newest innovation is Cold Cream Mousse, created with the most fragile skins in mind. It can reinforce the natural immunity of damaged or atopic skin and improves the skin barrier to restore health to sensitive skin.
The intensely nourishing properties of Cold Cream Mousse restore lipids to the skin to rebalance it. An ultra-sensorial cream, its airy, unctuous texture transforms into a silky cream when applied to the skin. It melts into the skin, leaving a protective film while soothing feelings of tightness and irritation. The result is superior comfort and skin that is supple and soft.
Let’s take a look at some of the key ingredients in Cold Cream Mousse:
- Squalane; a multi-functional sebum-like active ingredient that is an exceptional moisturiser, softener and soother. It helps limit water loss and restores suppleness and softness to the skin.
- Beta Glucan; soothes irritation and strengthens the skin barrier. It relieves discomfort by calming itchy skin.
- Small cushions of modified starch gorged with water, for a foamy and velvety texture.
The Benefits of Cold Cream Mousse
There are so many reasons why Cold Cream Mousse is perfect for fragile skins; here are a few:
- Reinforces the skin barrier
- Strengthens skin immunity
- Suitable for all skin types but incredibly fragile skin with an atopic tendency, suffering from intense dryness, irritation, redness, itching or flaking
- Protects the skin from free radicals
- Intensely nourishing to restore lipids in the skin
- Soothes tightness and irritation
- The innovative foamy texture melts into the skin, leaving a protective film
Pair a healthy lifestyle and a nourishing diet with innovative skin care products, and you have the answer to healthy, radiant, age-defying skin.
Discover GERnetic’s Cold Cream Mousse today and restore your skin to total health.
We advise you to seek professional advice from a skin specialist who will be able to identify the exact needs of your unique skin and prescribe the perfect combination of GERnetic products.