Self-Induced Skin Sensitivity and What You Need to Know for Help With Skin Issues

We all want to stay young and beautiful. In the process, we are always slathering on a hoard of different creams, serums, lotions to cleanse, exfoliate to hydrate and repair our skin. However, the slew of chemicals cannot always react well together from the traces they can leave behind to irritate skin. Therefore, unless you have a dry complexion with skin that gets upset from other factors such as the environment, clothing, weather like effects of cold and wind, chances are the suddenly sensitive skin problems that you may be having are self-induced skin sensitivity. If what I’m describing sounds all too familiar with what’s going on with your skin, then let me show you some simple steps to help desensitize your skin from self-induced skin sensitivity.

Help the skin recover from self-induced skin sensitivity by gathering all the products that you are currently using on your face and body. I’m talking about your facial skin care, body lotions, scrubs, hand creams and lotions, makeup, soaps, sunscreens, hair products like shampoos and conditioners. Give those items a rest for a while along with the laundry detergent that you are now using.  This can alert you to any skin allergies.

Instead, you want only to use purer forms of what your skin and body may come in contact with that has a minimum of ingredients. Ones with fragrance can be culprits. Did you know that artificial fragrance can harbor some 200 chemicals to fragments of botanicals? Yet, understand that seeing a label that says unscented is not the same as fragrance-free. Unscented products may contain other ingredients to hide the fragrance. Prime examples are botanicals like cinnamon and menthol to preservatives like methylisothiazolinone.

Another likely skin irritant that could be lurking among those suspect products are sunscreens. If you have been using a chemical sunscreen, ingredients like oxybenzone, avobenzone, octisalate, octocrylene, homosalate and octinoxate could be a part of your self-induced skin sensitivity. The fix may be switching a mineral sunscreen that has zinc oxide or titanium dioxide or a combination of those two.

The fewer ingredients that your skin and body needs to deal with, the sooner they can recover from the ones that set them off in the first place. When you start noticing the skin feeling less irritated, then gradually introduce one of your old products at a time. You don’t want to rush this after your skin has been suffering. Try sampling another one of your retired products at the end of that week, but never the next day. In doing so, you will be giving your skin time to adjust to the ingredients that lodged in the pores and better able to find the source of any reaction if it occurs.

Ways to Fortify the Skin Against Future Self-Induced Skin Sensitivity

Fortifying the skin’s barrier can be your best defense when it comes to self-induced skin sensitivity. Try to limit exfoliation to once a week or every other week can be to your benefit because you could naturally have tiny cracks in the skin or caused them through overstimulating, especially if you already are prone to dry skin. Look for ingredients like fatty acids, lipids and ceramides in a moisturizer that can help fill in those cracks and humectants like glycerin and honey to seal the water in.

The types of facial cleansers that you use need to be reconsidered. Products with high pH or some foaming cleansers can be too aggressive for your skin. Even if you have oily skin and have a few breakouts, products with benzoyl peroxide may be too strong for what your skin can take. To avoid self-induced skin sensitivity in the future may be as simple as changing out your cleansers to gentler formulations such as using oil-based or micellar versions.

Anti-aging skin care products are often harsher than we give them credit for when used regularly for some of us. The ones that can give your skin the most trouble usually are ingredients like retinoids and alpha hydroxy and beta hydroxy acids. This doesn’t mean that you need to give those products up, but maybe rotate them by giving your skin a break from daily use can be effective. Another suggestion is using a more delicate form of the retinoid such as retinol or a lower concentration of your alpha hydroxy or beta hydroxy acids such as 2% compared to 5% or 10%.

Something else that can help keep sensitive skin happy is turning to peptides for anti-aging. Peptides are usually less likely to irritate while helping collagen production for a younger appearance.

As one with allergies and skin that has a tendency to react, what I have passed along to you is what has helped make a difference for me. After all, we often can be sabotaging our complexions without even knowing. Hopefully, this post will help you as much as it did me.