With the right skincare, healing your skin barrier can be a smooth and simple journey. Discover which ingredients will build your skin barrier and promote its easy healing.
Step 1: Keep it Gentle
The first thing you need to do when you’re healing your skin barrier is to stay away from powerful active skincare ingredients that can be irritants to sensitive skin. Strong active ingredients include retinoids, vitamin C, and chemical exfoliants. So look through your skincare products, and if you have any harsh active ingredients, stop using that product.
Instead, implement a super-gentle skincare routine that includes the following 3 basics:
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Cleanse with lukewarm water (never hot) and a gentle cleanser. This cleanser with glycerin from Obagi fits the bill, as it strips impurities very lightly while keeping your skin’s natural moisture.
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Apply a moisturizing cream that’s specifically formulated for barrier repair. These recovery creams will have the rich lipids you need to help heal your barrier. Obagi makes a barrier-repairing cream that will help your skin stop stinging and start to restore its balance.
Dermalogica’s moisturizer cream has ceramides, an important ingredient for skin barrier repair.
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Wait until the moisturizer cream has been fully absorbed in your skin. Then, apply sunscreen as the last step in your skincare routine. It’s important to apply sunscreen daily while you’re healing your skin barrier, because otherwise harmful sun rays can cause further damage to your skin.
Look for an all-mineral sunscreen with broad spectrum SPF, such as this all-mineral tinted sunscreen that also evens out your coloring while protecting your skin from the sun.
Step 2: Watch that Ingredient List
If you’re working on healing your skin barrier, you need to become buddies with everything that goes on your face. Get to know all the ingredients that meet your skin, and get especially familiar with the guys who can help your skin’s barrier be completely restored.
Ingredient: Ceramides
You want to give your skin lots of ceramides for a healing barrier, because ceramides are one of the main building blocks of your lipid skin barrier. Dermatologic studies have shown that even in very small concentrations, ceramides can have a big impact on your skin, especially when combined with other barrier-boosting ingredients. SkinMedica makes a ceramides-rich treatment cream that’s carefully balanced so you get the maximum benefit from the ceramides.
Ingredient: Hyaluronic Acid
A damaged skin barrier can’t hold onto its moisture, and is constantly losing water. Hyaluronic acid is a powerful water-binder, holding onto 1,000 times more water than its own weight. That moisture does wonders for a dried-out skin barrier, especially when thick ceramides work as a lock on top of the water so it stays inside.
This serum from Replenix works specifically well for barrier repair, featuring hyaluronic acid combined with peptides to deeply hydrate your skin. If your skin is feeling dry as you heal your skin barrier, try this serum to rehydrate.
Ingredient: Niacinamide
It’s pretty common to see redness on your skin when the skin barrier is compromised. To help alleviate the redness, a little niacinamide can really do the trick. Niacinamide is Vitamin B3, and aside from reducing the redness, it also boosts your skin’s natural ceramide production so it heals faster.
Using a serum that has niacinamide/vitamin B3 as an active ingredient gives you that barrier boost plus calms any current irritation or reaction.
Ingredient: Squalane
Your skin barrier is made of natural lipids, but if you can find a lipid that mimics the natural ones perfectly, it can work almost as well as your natural barrier to lock in moisture. That’s what squalane does, replacing the natural lipid squalene in your skin barrier for a breathable, lightweight seal on your skin.
While your skin barrier heals, pure squalane oil can fulfill the job of keeping moisture in and irritants out.
Ingredient: Centella Asiatica (Cica)
Your skin might be feeling hot and reactive thanks to skin barrier damage. Centella Asiatica (aka Cica) is the magic cooling ingredient that relieves the burning and stinging sensations, plus it also speeds up the healing process.
This barrier repair cream features soothing cica for rough skin alongside five ceramides, peptides, and probiotics, making it a powerhouse of healing for your skin barrier.
Step 3: Keep it Consistent
Once you’ve chosen the core products for healing your skin barrier, make it your daily skincare routine consistently so that you can see real results in a short period of time. For exact timelines for healing your barrier repair, check out this guide to barrier repair timelines. If you think your barrier may have already healed, but are not sure, read this article that will give you the exact signs to look for.
What About Lactobionic Acid?
So you’ve stopped using products with strong active ingredients, and you’ve implemented a healing-first barrier repair skincare routine. But you’re wondering if lactobionic acid is one of those powerful actives that can’t be used during barrier healing, or if it’s a safe ingredient for barrier repair use. It’s a good question! Read the full guide to lactobionic acid during barrier repair to see if it’s right for you.
What’s Different About Natural Barrier Repair?
There are two approaches to skincare products: a lab-focused approach and a nature-inspired approach. Natural skincare takes its ingredients from the natural world, usually from botanical sources. These botanicals have naturally soothing and repairing properties, and many consumers like the idea of natural, clean ingredients in their skincare.
If you’re looking to heal your skin barrier using only natural ingredients, read our complete guide on natural repair methods for healing your skin barrier.
Happy healing!
