For so long, I’ve been catering to my skin’s pH levels, knowing just how important it is to maintain the skin’s healthy acid mantle. Through developing products that are either pH neutral (all of our oil moisturizers) or slightly acidic (our toners), I always make sure that I’m doing everything I can topically to keep my acid mantle at the ideal range of around 5.
And then it hit me. When evaluating the pH level of our most recent launch, the oil to milk cleanser (with a pH of ~5), I realized that I’ve been washing my face with an above ideal pH substance every day – water.
I was paying so much attention to creating a pH-centric skincare routine that I totally missed evaluating the one thing that reaches my skin every day. I, somehow, didn’t realize that water was impacting my skin’s pH level.
We think of water as being a totally neutral part of our routines, but it is not!
Whether it’s in the shower or in the sink, washing my face with water is something that happens every day. Many mornings, instead of washing my face, I’m used to simply cold splashing my face with water and then following that up with our toners. In addition to that, showering also means I’m spending a good amount of time washing my skin with, oftentimes hot, water.
But here’s the bad news. Water has a pH level of 7. If you've ever heard of the term "hard water", you know that sometimes, your water can be even more alkaline and thus harsher for your skin. If our skin’s ideal pH level is around 5, you’re bumping your skin’s pH at least TWO points higher than where it wants to be when you wash it with water.
[image-caption caption="our skin’s ideal pH level is around 5, so you're bumping it TWO points higher than it should be when you wash it with water." type="highlight"]
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An acid mantle that becomes too alkaline becomes weaker.
What does this mean? It means that your skin is less protected from pathogens, and more susceptible to dehydration and increased transepidermal water loss. This can lead to more skin irritations, inflammation, and dehydration. In “real” terms, this equates to less supple and bouncy skin that looks more dry with more wrinkles/fine lines. Not good! It’s pretty clear – maintaining your skin’s acidity as much as possible is very important.
Here are some signs that your skin’s pH may be too alkaline:
- Your face feels tight after cleansing or showering
- Applying a normal amount of our chlorophyll feels extremely tight on your face
- Your skin is persistently and consistently dry
- Your skin feels itchy
- You have flakiness or redness under dryness
If you are experiencing these symptoms, I definitely recommend checking out our recent post on how to nourish a healthy skin barrier and skin microbiome. Personally, even though I’ve been washing my face with water, I haven’t felt those symptoms as water is still much more gentle than harsh cleansers (which I definitely don’t use). Additionally, I can take comfort in the fact that I tone twice a day every day, bringing my skin back to the slightly acidic range.
However, in order to further prevent weakening my acid mantle or skin integrity, I’m going to make this important change to my skincare routine.
Here’s exactly how I’ll be implementing my almost water-free routine.
- I won’t be washing my face with cold water anymore in the morning. I’ll either use one of our cleansers, or I’ll skip straight to our rosewater toner (5-5.5 pH) or raspberry vinegar toner (pH of 4) on a cotton pad.
- I won’t be leaving my face unprotected in showers anymore. I’ll use our slightly acidic and microbiome-friendly oil to milk cleanser first thing in the shower. Even though this cleanser is washed off with water, it leaves a protective film on our skin to prevent moisture loss and to absorb the nutrients from the fermented oat. This film will also be acting as a physical barrier between the shower and my skin.
[image-caption caption="oil to milk cleanser, $18" type="backdrop"]
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Have you been washing your face with water? Leave a comment or email us at info@cocokind.com if you learned something new today!
-Priscilla
