Skin pH is something you should think about if you want to keep your skin healthy and normal. Many people don’t think about this, but different things can change your skin’s pH and throw it out of balance, which can cause a lot of common skin problems.
A skin pH that is out of balance can cause itching, breakouts, sensitivity, and dryness. Luckily, there are ways to keep your skin’s pH in check. Find out everything you need to know about pH to keep your face looking and feeling great.
What Is Your Skin’s PH?
When a material is dissolved in water, pH (potential of hydrogen) tells you where its hydrogen content goes, ranging to fourteen. Anything below seven is acidic, and anything above seven is essential.
The pH number of different things is different. Water has a pH of seven which is balanced. A pH of 8.3 means that baking soda is alkaline while a pH of 23 means that lemon juice is acidic. This indicates the skin is acidic with a pH of about five or slightly less. This pH is crucial for keeping the bacteria of the skin stable and ensuring it works correctly.
Other things can also change skin pH. For example people with more male hormones like more testosterone or whose skin is oilier and makes more sebum tend to be a little more acidic.
People going through menopause often notice their skin becoming more alkaline as they age. This change in pH can make people more sensitive and irritated. The pH of our skin can also be changed by things like skincare items and even the water we use to wash our faces.
Your skin pH can be changed by either more acidic or more essential things. Even though our skin is firm and quickly restores its balance constant changes can seriously upset irritate and make it sensitive.
The Acid Mantle
The acid mantle is a film of acidity on the skin’s surface. It’s important to talk about the skin’s pH balance when you talk about it. The acid mantle is made up of grease and sweat. It guards the skin by preventing germs from growing because bacteria improve in more acidic environments.
How Can You Detect A Ph Imbalance In Your Skin?
A pH level that is too high or too low can cause many of the most common skin problems and diseases. If this happens to you, here are some things that might occur.
Tight And Dry Skin
If your skin is more on the acidic (base) side of the pH scale, above seven, it may be harder to hold on to water. Transepidermal water loss (TEWL) can happen if your skin barrier is damaged. This is because the skin barrier keeps wetness inside the skin. When you have TEWL, water leaves your skin through the epidermis and into the air. This makes your skin feel dry, tight, and uncomfortable.
Irritation
Skin inflammation is directly linked to a lot of common skin problems. When itching in the skin happens constantly, it can worsen skin problems. This can change your skin’s bacteria and make it a lot more vulnerable, no matter how acidic or alkaline your skin is.
Sensitivity
pH can also change how well your skin’s protection works. The layer on your skin might also not work if your pH is off. When your pH level is off, your skin can become sensitive. Even the mildest soaps, serums, and creams can burn your skin when you use them.
Breakouts
If your skin is oily and breaks out often, consider looking at its pH level as a possible reason. Your skin’s natural oils can clean and moisturize it better than any lotion or cream, but they also make it easy for bacteria that cause acne to grow. If your skin’s pH isn’t correct, the microbiome on your skin might be unable to fight off these germs that cause acne.
What Can You Do To Keep PH Balance for Skin And Safe?
You can do some things to help bring your skin’s pH back into balance if you think it is too acidic or too basic. One of those things is the temperature of the water. Too hot water can damage the oils that protect your skin, leaving it open to damage. The normal pH of water is also higher than the skin’s pH.
Things like hyaluronic acid vitamin C squalene and ceramides that help your skin layer can also make it look and feel healthy and balanced. Youth Serum is an excellent example of an antioxidant serum that can help keep your pH level in check and create a healthy environment for your essential skin bacteria.
Skin care items with kaolin clay like our Clay Time cleaning charcoal mask have a pH level of about five which is quite close to the skin. By gently scrubbing whitening and cleansing the skin these items can help keep the pH level of your skin in balance. These kinds of skin care items might be good for you to use a few times a week.
Also, avoid skincare items that are too rough on your face. This can include solid soaps, cleaners, toners, and hard detergents that dry out the skin,
When you do it softly and safely, exfoliating your skin is excellent, but if you do it too much, you can hurt your acid layer, remove your oil, and change your pH. In general, don’t scrub more than a few times a week. Also, pay attention to your skin. If it feels scorched, take a break and focus on moisturizing it more to calm it down.
Conclusion
Healthy skin is fair. The pH level of your skin should be around five. If it’s too high or too low, you could get acne, fine lines, and wrinkles that look worse, or your skin could lose moisture. Awareness of how each product affects your pH level will help keep your skin healthy and normal.
