A Discussion on Dehydration
There is a commonality that I see with a vast majority of my clients – who happen to have very different lifestyles.
Everyone seems to be dehydrated whether they are 34, 26 or 55 years old.
I started to ask myself why?
We have been taught that we should know our skin type.
If you are oily, to stay away from oils and use ingredients like salicylic acid to strip away the oil. And if you have dry skin, to use really heavy creams. The truth is, you can be both oily or dry and still be dehydrated, which creates a third set of skin conditions. That being said, they can show up differently on the skin.
So, what are the signs of dehydration?
OILY SKIN
If you have oily skin (which has EXCESS oil) and your skin is dehydrated, you are going to see a lot of clogged pores such as closed comedones. These are raised bumps in the skin that don’t seem to have an open pore. When you don’t have enough water on the surface of your skin, your body gets an alert to send more oil (which, you guessed it, makes your skin even more oily!). But in reality, you need more water, not oil. If there is excess oil and not enough water, that oil gets trapped under the skin, causing congestion. This is considered nonbacterial acne and cannot be solved by using products that dry the skin out – in fact, this will only make the condition worse.
- If the clogged pore is not cleaned out and bacteria enters it, this can now become an inflamed pimple. Sometimes people confuse these with actual cystic and hormonal breakouts which are much deeper. I love to tell my clients, that the good news is, it’s a much easier and quicker solve to improve hydration than hormonal cysts.
You can be really good about getting facials with extractions, but if you don’t solve the hydration issue, you will continue to get clogged pores.
DRY SKIN
If you have dry skin (which LACKS oil) and your skin is dehydrated, you might be experiencing dry patches, flakey/peeling skin, redness, irritation and in some cases closed comedones and clogged pores.
- The other reason we are trying to avoid dehydrated skin is because this condition speeds up the aging process. We begin to see the aging signs when the skin starts producing less collagen, elastin and ceramides. Which means the skin is getting thinner, so water is evaporating much quicker. If the skin is thin and water is evaporating, this makes your skin dry/dehydrated which causes fine lines to start to form and those eventually turn into wrinkles.
We can absolutely slow the aging process by trying to keep our skin as juicy as possible.
REPERCUSSIONS OF DEHYDRATION
We need to be unclogging the pores regardless if your skin is oily or dry.
When the pore is clogged, this means dead skin cells are going to continue to build up inside, which is stretching the pore out (yikes!). We also aren’t able to get proper hydration into the skin when those dead skin cells are blocking the way.
Often, I will have clients come to me with dehydrated skin and tons of congestion. Unfortunately, when the skin is lacking water, the sebum build up is incredibly dry, which means it is hard and becomes very difficult to remove. Once we start to improve the topical hydration on the skin, it makes extractions much easier!
HOW DO WE IMPROVE HYDRATION?
Hydration is achieved in two ways: topically and internally. You are likely only hearing about the first way, which is your skincare routine. Unfortunately, you can be using some great hydrating serums, but if you are internally dehydrated, your skin will not achieve that dewy, plumpness you are looking for.
This is where electrolytes come in.
Our body requires various different vitamins and minerals to be able to absorb water and properly hydrate our cells. If we are lacking in these nutrients, the water hydrates all necessary organs, but the skin takes a backseat.
Ideally, we should be able to receive these nutrients from our food and water, but from what I have seen, people still need to be supplementing in their electrolytes. Taking a daily multivitamin is also recommended along with drinking at least 60oz of water a day and trying your best to eat the rainbow (lots of colorful fruits and veggies).
Dehydration perpetuates any other skin condition. When we increase hydration - oil production tends to balance out, redness and inflammation calm down and the skin overall looks much healthier.
I recommend drinking electrolytes every day for internal hydration. You’re looking for sodium, potassium, magnesium and little to zero added sugar.
Using a hyaluronic acid serum on damp skin every day morning and night as well as exfoliating with an AHA 1-2 times a week will help with topical hydration.
In summary, every skin type, age and ethnicity benefits from focusing on hydration in their daily skincare and lifestyle routines. Your skin will thank you.
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Photo by Amanda Dalbjörn on Unsplash
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