How to Strengthen Your Skin Barrier for Healthy Skin

If you’re anything like us, you’re always the first one to jump on a new skincare trend. Found a way to smooth wrinkles? Let’s do it. It helps to reduce acne? Tell us where to sign up. We can lighten hyperpigmentation? Spill. But the truth is, without the protection of a healthy skin barrier, these are nothing but temporary solutions. If you want to find out how to hold onto results by strengthening the skin’s barrier, you’re exactly where you need to be.

What Is the Skin’s Barrier?

Our skin is made up of 3 layers: the top layer (epidermis), the middle layer (dermis), and the bottom layer (hypodermis). The skin barrier is the outermost layer that protects all the inner layers from the outside world. A combo of lipids and good fats such as ceramides, cholesterol, and fatty acids make up a healthy skin barrier.

How Do You Know If Your Skin’s Barrier Needs Strengthening? 

Good question. How does your skin feel right now? If it feels anything less than pretty damn perfect, your skin’s barrier is probably compromised. Most people think that their skin needs to be in utter chaos to have a broken skin barrier, think big-time acne-flareups and rashes, but symptoms also include low-key dry skin, redness, and even singular blemishes.

5 Ways to Fix a Broken Skin Barrier:

1. Check You’re Using a Gentle Cleanser

A cleanser is to be used daily to remove dirt, sweat, and bacteria from our skin, so using a harsh cleanser every day is a fast-track ticket to a compromised skin barrier as it’ll slowly but surely break it down, leaving the skin vulnerable. If your skin feels tight and/or dry after using your current cleanser, it’s time for a change.

If you are looking for a gentle cleanser, this hypoallergenic foam cleanser gently removes all the impurities on the skin with soft creamy foam, leaving the skin feeling moisturised and smooth without feeling tight. It has a low pH of 5.5 to keep the skin's natural pH in balance, which protects it from infections and bacteria at bay.

2. Invest In a Strengthening Ampoule

If you thought serums packed a punch, ampoules leave them in the dust with an even higher concentration of ingredients. They can reach into the deeper layers of skin, repairing the skin’s barrier from the inside out for long-term results, rather than just slapping a band-aid on the upper layers until it signals SOS again in a couple of weeks.

SKIN1004 Madagascar Centella Asiatica 100 Ampoule - £18.00

Centella Asiatica is a truly multifunctional hero, helping to keep the blemishes away, hydrating, soothing, and most importantly, strengthening the skin barrier.  The SKIN1004 Madagascar Centella Asiatica 100 Ampoule contains 100% of this start-ingredient, giving your skin all the benefits this herb possess in one bottle.

3. Get a barrier-friendly moisturiser

Yup, even on the days your skin could probably get away without being smothered with moisturiser. Moisturisers help the skin’s barrier to reduce transepidermal water loss – TEWL for short. This is when water naturally evaporates through the skin and into its surroundings. If the skin loses too much water, it’ll become dry and irritated, otherwise known as a broken skin barrier.

A moisturising cream that minimises TWEL, fixes the skin's barrier and nourishes the skin? Jackpot. This vegan cream uses Rice Milk and Soybean Extract to repair, strengthen, hydrate, and calm the skin. With additional Ceramide Np, it helps to strengthen the barrier by replenishing ceramides, a vital component that makes up the skin barrier in the first place!

4. Don’t Over-Exfoliate

A healthy skin barrier needs to be exfoliated regularly to remove dead skin cells and stimulate the growth of newer, stronger ones for the utmost protection, but over-exfoliate, and you’ll take off too many and expose your skin to more environmental damage. It’s recommended we exfoliate 2-3 times a week, no more, no less.

NEOGEN Bio-Peel Gauze Peeling – Green Tea (30 Pads) - £26

When exfoliating day does come around, one of our favourite products to strengthen the skin’s barrier is these infused cotton pads. Dipped in green tea, centella asiatica, tea tree leaf, and aloe extract, they’ll gently exfoliate the skin and unclog pores without harming the skin’s barrier, even if you choose to exfoliate the max amount of 3 times a week.

5. Nourish with Probiotics

The skin’s barrier is on duty all day long, but it doesn’t quite stop there. As we sleep, our skin attempts to heal any damage that happened during the day. Applying a nighttime repairing set before you catch your Z’s will speed up the natural healing process and feed the skin – good morning to everyone except broken skin barriers!

AXIS-Y Ay&Me Biome Recharging Night Renewal Set (2 Items) - £26.00

Packed with probiotics and pre-biotics, this evening set contains a Panthenol serum to enhance the absorption of the powerful cream. As you sleep, the Special Biome Blend in the cream helps to rebuild and strengthen your skin, as well as soothe with Mugwort Extract and Centella. Get ready to wake up your skin feeling renewed and ready to take on anything!