Has your skin been looking red and blotchy lately? Or perhaps it has been feeling dry, tight, and irritated. Either way, there’s a good chance that skin sensitivity is your problem, and it’s only going to get worse if you don’t react now.
What, exactly, should you be doing? It’s important to take the correct approach. While you shouldn’t ignore the problem, taking things to the other extreme and subjecting your skin to products and treatments that it doesn’t need isn’t going to help either. Instead, read on as Venofye explains how to soothe the feeling of sensitivities without overdoing it.
Why is Your Skin Feeling So Sensitive?
Skin sensitivity is an extremely common problem, partly because there are so many different triggers out there that can cause the skin to react in this way. While we’ll soon be sharing some tips on how to soothe and restore your complexion, the first step that you should take is to try to figure out the root cause of your sensitivities. Once you know what your triggers are, you’ll be able to avoid them. Here are some of the most prevalent:
- Skin barrier damage – any damage to your skin barrier weakens it. This means that irritants can enter your skin more easily, triggering a reaction. Over-cleansing, over-exfoliating, and using harsh skincare products.
- The environment – from the sun’s UV rays to the wind to pollution, environmental damage takes a toll on the skin barrier. This can cause a sudden skin sensitivity.
- Products and chemicals – these can sometimes trigger a reaction in the skin. From specific skincare ingredients to certain fabrics to various plants, contact with a trigger can cause redness and irritation in the skin.
- Underlying conditions – certain skin conditions, like rosacea, eczema, and psoriasis, can cause the skin to be more prone to sensitivities.
- Lifestyle – how you live your life directly impacts your skin. High stress levels, a poor diet, hormonal changes, and certain medications can all contribute to sensitivities.
How to Calm the Feeling of Skin Sensitivity
Whenever there’s anything wrong with the skin, including sensitivities, people often feel the urge to slather their skin with layer upon layer of product in the hopes of striking it lucky and finding something that helps. Unfortunately, this only makes things worse. Here’s how to calm, balance, and restore your complexion without overdoing it:
Strip Back Your Skincare Routine
When you’re dealing with skin sensitivity, the last thing that you want to be doing is exposing your skin to unnecessary ingredients, meaning potential irritants. This means stripping back your skincare routine so that you’re using as few products as possible.
Each product in your routine should be as gentle as possible. Your cleanser, for instance, should be a moisturizing, sulfate-free formula, just like the Venofye Blossom Bee Clarifying Cream Cleanser.
Stop using any serums or targeted treatments that contain potent active ingredients. Exfoliating should be avoided too. Instead, once you’re done cleansing, moisturize your skin, apply sun protection, and then leave it at that. Once your skin begins to recover, you can begin to introduce other products back into your routine. However, until then, your skin barrier needs a break, which is exactly what your simplified routine will provide.
Protect Your Skin From the Sun
Skin sensitivity is often caused by over-exposure to the sun due to how UV rays are detrimental to the skin in a few ways. Firstly, they cause serious damage to the skin’s natural protective barrier. As we mentioned above, this gives irritants easy access to the deeper layers of the skin.
The sun also triggers an inflammatory response in the skin. Redness, irritation, a burning sensation, and other uncomfortable symptoms are all part and parcel of this.
Protect your skin from the sun, however, and you’ll be able to prevent a large amount of that. The tricky part is finding a sunscreen that isn’t going to make your skin sensitivity worse. Look for a product that contains gentle ingredients, including plenty of hydrating ingredients. An SPF moisturizer, like the Venofye Orchard Bee Brilliance Cream SPF 30, will give your skin a moisture boost with each application.
Be Gentle With Your Skin
It’s not just your skincare products that need to be gentle – you need to be physically gentle with your skin too. Many people think that they’re already doing this, not realizing that they’re making one of these common mistakes that will only heighten skin sensitivities:
- Roughly pressing, pulling, or tugging at the skin when cleansing, exfoliating, or applying other skincare products. The less you physically force your skin into movement, the better.
- Aggressively rubbing wet skin when trying to dry it.
- Scratching is a natural reaction when your skin is feeling irritated. However, this will only further compromise your skin barrier.
- Picking at your skin should be avoided at all costs.
Never Allow Your Wet Skin to Dry Out
After cleansing your face or taking a shower, does your skin ever naturally dry out before you have the chance to apply any skincare products? If your answer is yes, this is only going to make your skin sensitivity so much worse…
What’s the issue? Whenever water evaporates from the skin’s surface, it takes some of the skin’s existing moisture reserves with it. This moisture loss affects the skin barrier, weakening it to the point where it struggles to keep irritants away. This then leaves the skin feeling irritated and sensitive.
What should you do instead? Start by gently patting away excess water. Then, get started with your skincare routine before your skin dries out. The fact that applying skincare products to damp skin, which is more permeable, can boost absorption is an added bonus!
Focus on Your Skin Barrier
The skin barrier has been mentioned several times now – it plays a key role in how sensitive your skin feels. Pretty much every cause of skin sensitivity can be traced back to the skin barrier. Therefore, if your skin is currently feeling extra sensitive, giving your skin barrier some TLC could really help.
All of the tips that we’ve shared so far will support your skin barrier. However, you could take things one step further by seeking out barrier-loving skincare ingredients. The Venofye Blossom Bee Quenching Night Cream, for example, is filled with ingredients that are known for leaving the skin barrier feeling stronger and more resilient.
Another way to encourage your skin barrier to heal is by slugging. This technique, which is often recommended by dermatologists, creates an additional barrier over the skin’s own. This gives the natural barrier some time to recuperate. To give this a try, carry out your skincare routine as normal. Then, apply a layer of petroleum jelly to your skin to fully seal in moisture while providing a physical shield. In the morning, wash this off, and your skin should already feel much healthier.
Consider LED Light Therapy
If you’re looking for a way to tackle your skin sensitivity without needing to add more topical products to your routine, a skincare device could be the solution you’re seeking. LED light therapy, for example, is known for how it can calm the complexion. Yes, red light can have a stimulating effect, but blue light soothes the feeling of inflammation and irritation very effectively.
Some devices, like the Photonix-2 Eye Wand, offer multiple modes. This means that you can start by using blue LED light to work on your sensitive skin. In the future, once your skin feels balanced and healthy, you can then make the most of red light to firm, brighten, and revive the look of your skin.
Stay Away From Hot Water
As you know by now, keeping your skin barrier as healthy as possible is key if you want to gain some control over your skin sensitivity. We’ve already touched upon a few of the things that damage the skin barrier, but hot water is another one worth knowing about.
Hot water melts the sebum that comprises your skin barrier. This weakens the barrier, causing gaps that allow impurities to enter and trigger sensitivities. It doesn’t help that hot water can also lead to inflamed skin, which only makes things worse.
Whether you’re cleansing your face or taking a shower, always go for lukewarm water whenever possible. This is still warm enough to thoroughly cleanse your skin, yet not so hot that it’s going to cause any damage.
Manage Your Stress Levels
Many people don’t realize that stress has a direct impact on the skin. It can affect the skin in so many ways, from accelerating the skin aging process to interfering with skin barrier function in a way that leads to skin sensitivity.
If your skin problems have coincided with you experiencing higher-than-average stress levels, the two could be closely connected. Spending some time bringing your stress levels down, and then keeping them there, could go a long way in helping your skin.
Of course, this is always easier said than done. However, there are plenty of tried and tested stress relief methods out there that you can turn to, such as:
- Listening to some relaxing music
- Engaging in a hobby
- Getting your heart pumping by doing some exercise
- Spending time outside in nature
- Spending time with animals
- Writing in a journal
- Practicing deep breathing exercises
- Sharing your thoughts with loved ones
Summary
A skin sensitivity is never enjoyable to cope with. It may not seem like a big deal to start with if all you’ve noticed is a small amount of redness and irritation, but it usually doesn’t take long for this to worsen. If your skin has begun to feel more sensitive lately, start implementing the tips that we’ve shared above immediately so that you can restore normality to your complexion as soon as possible.
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