The Skin’s Protective Barrier
How We Can Keep It Functioning
By now it’s easy to say that we’ve mostly become well acquainted with our skin personally. We see and feel our skin everyday, but do we truly know what occurs below the surface? The skin is the body’s largest external organ and it’s incredibly complex.
What many of us are seemingly unaware of is that our skin itself protects our entire body and is vital to our lives. It physically protects our body from external threats such as infectious agents, the environment, UV rays, allergens and so on. Internally, our skin helps maintain homeostasis and protect from enhanced loss of water from the body.
Without the skin, our bodies and our internal organs would not last long. As our skin protects us we also need to give it the same care and protection back.
Our skin consists of several layers, making it much thicker than we can visibly see. The three main layers of the skin, the epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous layer works hard to protect us from the surrounding environment and irritants.
Epidermis
The epidermis or the external layer, is the water-resistant layer visible to us that we apply products to daily. However, what is not visible to us are the five sublayers of the epidermis consisting of closely packed cells. The epidermis is responsible for the constant shedding of dead, dry, and dull skin cells occurring on the epidermis to be replaced with new healthy cells. When we use chemical or physical exfoliants, they aid in speeding up this shedding process to give us a youthful, healthy glow. It’s also home to our pores, which allow oil and dirt to escape.
Dermis
The layer underneath the epidermis is called the dermis. This layer consists of oil glands, hair follicles, connective tissues, nerve endings, and lymph vessels. Within this dermis layer, the proteins, collagen and elastin are produced. These two proteins are responsible for the elasticity and structure of the skin that we see.
Subcutaneous
Lastly, the subcutaneous layer of the skin consists of subcutaneous fat. This layer of fat and connective tissues are responsible for insulating our body and giving cushion to injuries such as hard impact, and falls. The Adipocytes, is an important cell that stores the fat used for energy, cushioning, and insulation.
How to Protect the Protective Barrier
Now that we’re educated with the layers of the skin it’s important to understand the protective barrier. Which is basically the outermost layers of the skin, the epidermis, which altogether forms this protective barrier. The protective barrier acts as a barrier or shield between your body and your environment. While this barrier has the ability to protect us from harmful conditions, it’s vital that we in turn help it work efficiently so as to not compromise our skin.
Due to changing weather conditions or even the products we use daily, our skin can become dry and sensitive which puts our barrier at a risk. In the skin care and beauty world it’s easy to fall into a habit of wanting to buy the new trends and popular new products that are consistently coming out. However, while not all popular products are bad it’d benefit ourselves to check the product ingredients so as to not strip our skin of its natural oils and avoid irritating it with harsh ingredients.
Using the correct products that are beneficial to the skin can make it stronger in fighting external conditions attempting to irritate it. Without proper care, the skin can become dry, inflamed, and sensitized.
It’s helpful to maintain moisture in our skin, and investing in a good moisturizer can help. To the people with oily skin it can be a bit intimidating figuring out what moisturizer to use and some opt out of using a moisturizer at all! However, it’s important to moisturize oily skin just as you would for other skin types because pollution, UV rays, can heavily influence the skin therefore requiring hydration even if oily and acne prone.
When our skin experiences a freak out, we feel the need to get as many products as we can to get rid of the solution quickly. Overdoing it with products using this excessive amount of products that combine numerous harsh ingredients together can actually damage our skin more and strip its natural oils. When these freak outs occur, be gentle to your skin.
Take a look at your routine and figure out if it needs to be simplified as there may be a product(s) that are causing the irritation of your skin. Another problem may also be that you’re cleansing your face too often. You don’t necessarily need to cleans two times a day especially if you’re experiencing dryness and sensitivity. Try omitting cleanser in the morning and instead give the skin a splash of cool water and/or a bit of toner to refresh yourself and your skin.
Last but not least, sunscreen! It seems to sound repetitive but our skin barrier really does need sunscreen every day. Without wearing sunscreen daily, our skin is exposed to UV rays and the cells become damaged which can lead to dark spots, aging, and even skin cancer. Remind yourself of that long lasting healthy glow and put on some sunscreen before you head out!