Delicate skin needs extraordinary care. Sometimes a small mistake makes it go red and irritated. What should reactive skin sufferers do? Get down to customized skin care!
Owners of sensitive skin know how tricky skin care can be. Gentleness and suitable products are essential. It might happen that the skin doesn’t tolerate one of the several ingredients in a cosmetic, and consequently redness, pimples or itchiness occur in the blink of an eye.
How to care for sensitive skin?
What to remember when your skin is sensitive and reactive?
The key thing: irritation-prone skin is way different from all other types. Lots of products and treatments are on the blacklist e.g. scrubs.
Finding the right products for sensitive skin can be tricky too. It might react to numerous commonly-used ingredients (alcohols, washing agents, aromas, some hydrosols, essential oils, etc.). Natural hypoallergenic cosmetics might be helpful. To be honest, each and every product you buy must be tried and tested on your own skin to make sure it doesn’t cause irritations.
Still, you must give most attention to the top skin care mistakes. You make some of them unconsciously, irritating and ruining the skin.
Top sensitive skin care mistakes
Sensitive skin overreacts to stimuli that reach it both from the outside (cosmetic products, air pollution, sun) and from within (diet, medication).
Sometimes all you need to do is eliminate a couple of things to restore skin’s balance and calm it down. You must be aware of the most common mistakes in sensitive skin care – maybe your skin is covered in pimples, dark spots or red veins because you persistently make one of them.
1) Changing products too often
Sensitive skin doesn’t like frequent changes. If it gets used to a product, you’d better not treat it to innovations too fast. Every change might end up in allergic reaction – it’s a popular mistake in sensitive skin care. I don’t mean that people with reactive skin can’t test novelties. They can but they should do it in moderation, choose products wisely and not introduce too many changes at once.
2) Not doing a patch test before using a new product
Before spending money on a cosmetic, order or ask for a sample in a store to do a test. You need to do it before applying every new product even when it’s advertised as hypoallergenic. You can e.g. test it on the forearm. If no irritations occur after 48 hours, feel free to buy the product and introduce it to your daily skin care.
3) Mineral oil-based products
The ingredient that often triggers irritations in sensitive skin is mineral oil. You can find it many skin care products (lotions, creams, serums), cleanser gels and bubble baths. It’s worthwhile to take a closer look at cosmetics and check them for mineral oil, paraffin, vaseline, etc.
4) Over-exfoliation of epidermis
It’s advised to exfoliate every type of skin to stimulate its repair and cell renewal but it turns out to be a serious mistake when caring for reactive skin – exfoliation (especially physical exfoliators) is an enemy of sensitive skin. If you really want to help exfoliate the epidermis, reach for mild enzyme scrubs. Otherwise you treat your skin to irritations.
5) Washing the face with water and soap
It turns out that even a face wash might be a thing making your skin overreact! Sensitive skin easily loses moisture especially when we wash it with water and soap. It’s an unforgivable mistake no matter your skin type because soaps dry out the skin. If you additionally use tap water, then you surely end up with red, very dry and irritated skin.
6) Baths/showers using too hot water
Another factor which makes skin lose water at an alarming rate is heat. Baths and showers using hot water don’t make a good idea if your skin is reactive – it stimulates blood flow, causing blood vessels to widen and break which results in unwanted redness.
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