Soothe your Skin with Skinceuticals

Does your skin ever get angry for no apparent reason? I know that if I over-exfoliate and if I use a certain brand of retinol, my skin gets agitated. A reaction can be anything from redness and blotchiness to dullness or tightness and dehydration and if you pay close attention to your skin, you’ll see it happening.

WHAT’S THE CAUSE?

There’s no such thing as perfect skin if you live in a city with modern stresses. From external aggressors to post-procedure downtime, your skin can become temporarily reactive from a host of factors including sun exposure, chlorine/salt water, facial extractions, retinols/astringents, dry weather or pollution.

Sun exposure

I don’t have to tell you about the ageing effects that the sun can have on your skin. Being in the sun causes also your DNA to break down.

Pollution

If you live in a busy city like Jozi, you smoke 12-15 cigarettes a day! How gross is that? Pollutants create free radicals that strip the skin of barrier lipids, which help retain moisture and keep out dirt and other impurities. A compromised skin barrier can lead to increased skin sensitivity, discomfort and premature signs of skin aging, especially pigmentation issues.

Chlorine

A nice swim in a chlorinated pool can break down the surface layer of the skin making it susceptible to other aggressors.

Dryness

Dry climates suck moisture out of skin rendering it dehydrated and sensitive.

Basically, just living life can cause your skin to become sensitive. The good news is that skin reactivity is caused by external elements. The bad news is that reactive skin means that you have a compromised skin barrier. Your regular products might work wonders when your skin is calm and happy but may not be the best for your reactive skin. Irritated skin doesn’t like products containing active ingredients, as they can further irritate the skin.

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So, what to do when skin becomes reactive? Calm and soothe it with Skinceuticals’ Phyto Corrective Masque. This delightfully green masque has a silky smooth gel texture and is infused with botanical extracts of cucumber, sage and olive for comfort, a calming dipeptide to reduce heat sensitivity and hyaluronic acid for moisturisation. It delivers cooling comfort, reduces heat sensitivity, boosts hydration and gives immediate radiance.

After my recent Dermapen facial, I felt uncomfortable and a bit sore. Dr Ludick from Skin Renewal encouraged me to try the masque out after the facial, and I’m really glad he did. Immediately upon application, I felt soothing relief via its cooling action and can really attest to the fact that it has a cooling effect. It did tingle for 5 seconds, but is gentle on skin. I continued to use it over the next 48 hours as a healing, moisturising and soothing treatment and it worked brilliantly! I would recommend this to anyone who has Dermapen facials.

One interesting fact is that while anaesthetic masks pain, it doesn’t surpress heat or pressure. After you’ve had a Fraxel laser treatment, the skin burns and tingles. This mask helps to cool, as you can see below. A dermatologist-controlled split-face clinical study on was conducted on 30 female subjects where the Phyto Corrective Masque was applied to half of the face after a non-ablative fractional laser procedure. Overall, there was a 2.8° difference in skin surface temperature. That might not sound like a major difference but you can definitely feel the effects.

Because this masque is so genius and so gentle, there are a number of different ways you could use it. You can use it daily as an oil-free moisturizer that really hydrates and soothes or as an overnight masque/moisturizer to provide 24 hour calming to sensitive skin. You could use it seasonally or weekly as an intensely hydrating soothing treatment masque, for sun burn, hormonal changes or cold weather exposure. You could also use it after any peels, extractions, radio frequency or Ultrasound.

I use it after my Dermapen treatments, when my skin looks a bit harassed or as a weekly leave-on overnight hydrating treatment. When I wake up my skin is seriously glowing! You gotta love a product that delivers what it says it will. Did I mention that a little goes a long way? There’s no way your 60ml pot will run out any time soon. The gel spreads so easily all over my face, and I literally need an amount no bigger than a size of a pea.

All in all I really love the fact that I have a product that cares for, soothes and hydrates my face all at the same time, and that I can use it for just about any skin irritation.

Available here from 1 November 2016 for a RRSP of R995 for 60ml.