Treating fine lines, sagging, hyperpigmentation, and acne are obvious skin care goals, but many people don’t realize the importance of giving your skin’s natural barrier daily attention. The skin’s top layers are the absolute first line of defense against the sun, weather, pollution, irritants, harsh ingredients, and aging.
Treating fine lines, sagging, hyperpigmentation, and acne are obvious skin care goals, but many people don’t realize the importance of giving your skin’s natural barrier daily attention. The skin’s top layers are the absolute first line of defense against the sun, weather, pollution, irritants, harsh ingredients, and aging.
Signs of a compromised skin barrier include:
- Acne
- Dryness
- Dullness
- Hyperpigmentation
- Inflammation
No matter what concerns you want to correct through your skin care routine, maintaining a healthy, strong, and protected skin barrier is essential to achieving a youthful, dewy, luminous glow.
In K-Beauty, taking proper care of the skin barrier is actually the foundation of the Korean skin care philosophy! Here are 4 ways K-Beauty repairs and protects your skin barrier:
- By Layering Products: Whether you follow every step or take a customized approach, each step of K-Beauty’s world-famous 10-step skin care routine is intentionally ordered to meet the ultimate goal of preventing and protecting your skin barrier against future damage. It starts with the double-cleanse, which includes an oil-based cleanser followed by a water-based cleanser to ensure your face is thoroughly clean and primed to amplify the benefits of the products used in following steps. They are layered from the thinnest to thickest weights to seal in all the ingredients so they can work their magic, prevent moisture loss, and shield your skin.
- By Balancing Your pH: Balancing your skin’s acid mantle is a key component to strengthening your skin barrier – it locks in moisture and blocks out pollutants and bacteria. Cleansers are major pH disruptors, so many K-Beauty brands take special care that their cleansing formulations boast a balance of 4.5pH to 6.4pH (our REFRESH Jade Purifying Cleanser has a pH of 5.4), to help you avoid disturbing your acid mantle and weakening your skin barrier.
- By Curating Clean Ingredients: Harsh or unhealthy ingredients are some of the biggest culprits for damaging the epidermis. K-Beauty relies on clean ingredients from nature and science that are gentle on your skin, but powerful in results (many of them have been used in centuries for skin care). To prevent your skin barrier from being compromised, K-Beauty formulations often include ingredients like fruit enzymes instead of acids to exfoliate, Niacinamide and Licorice Root in lieu of Hydroquinone to fade discoloration and brighten skin tone, and Ginseng instead of retinol for anti-aging benefits. Clean also means the formulations don’t include known irritants like synthetic fragrances and alcohol.
- By Focusing On Moisture Retention: Thirsty skin is an invitation for invaders like bacteria or outside elements like pollutants and the weather to deteriorate its barrier. K-Beauty is known for putting an emphasis on ultra-moisturizing ingredients to help keep your skin super-hydrated, nourished, protected, and functioning at an optimal level. Our favorites include Ceramides, which are rich in fatty acids and help retain water; moisture-boosting Deep Sea Water, found in our Aqua Collagen Mask; and Polyglutamic Acid (PGA), an amino acid even more powerful than Hyaluronic Acid (HA) that has shown to absorb moisture up to 5,000x its own weight. PGA is an active ingredient in many of our products, such as our Ultra-Nourishing Moisture Mask.
Now that you know more about the role your skin barrier plays in your overall quest for a healthy, youthful, and glowing complexion, we’re excited for you to start repairing, strengthening, and protecting it the K-Beauty way!
-The Aloisia Beauty Team
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