There are many reasons for facial redness: perhaps you over exfoliated, have had an allergic reaction, or overdone it in the sun. A stint of erythema could even signal an underlying skin condition.
Rosacea is a common inflammatory skin disorder that affects a massive 1 out of 10 people in Australia. Typical symptoms? Facial flushing and redness; alongside other red-hued skin ailments like dilated capillaries and acne.
Those who suffer with atopic dermatitis, aka the most common type of eczema, cite red rashes as a symptom of the skin condition, as well as dryness and the urge to itch. It’s super common for children but you can suffer from the disorder at any age.
Your redness could even signify that you have skin sensitization, this is when the skin barrier become weakened by triggers such as the weather, stress, or skincare products. But don’t worry it’s a skin condition that passes as quickly as it crops up when you’re equipped with the right skincare know how.
While identifying the cause of your redness will help to prevent further flare ups, it does little to soothe the present inflammation.
But how do you care for redness? I’m of the opinion that you’ll need an arsenal of protective, soothing, and replenishing ingredients to reduce facial redness and calm irritation.
Cleansing
Keep it gentle, keep it simple.
Bombarding your red skin with a treatment cleanser won’t alleviate the redness but instead will make it more inflamed. Instead, strip your skincare regimen back and reach for a gentle, nourishing cleanser that will remove any makeup, sebum, pollutant particles and SPF without upsetting the delicate PH balance of your skin.
Extra Tip: Don’t have the water temperature too high when you’re in the shower or bath! The humidity in the air will draw moisture from skin through a process called trans-epidermal water loss. In essence, this means hot showers (no matter how satisfying they are) can exacerbate any redness and cause dehydration.
Soothe, Restore & Protect
A compromised skin barrier could be the underlying cause of your redness.
Many triggers, like stress, over-exfoliation, the weather, airborne allergens can all weaken our lipid bilayer (aka the Skin Barrier) to the point that it becomes permeable.
In fact, humans with rosacea and acne often struggle with a weakened skin barrier function, too. In essence, a permeable skin barrier makes it much easier for irritants to penetrate the skin and wreak havoc which causes inflammation (hello redness!).
That’s why a soothing skin regimen that’s made up of barrier repairing, hydrating, and anti-inflammatory ingredients is the key to calming redness. Our Sea Buckthorn Oil and Watermelon Sorbet Moisturiser are perfect for soothing the above ailments.
Ceramides
Ceramides are naturally occurring lipids (aka fatty molecules) that make up our skin barrier.
I like to think of ceramides as the skin’s “superglue” that holds dead skin cells in place for healthy skin barrier function. Put simply, ceramides are essential for retaining moisture and preventing irritants from entering and aggravating skin.
Our ceramide supply depletes with age and unfortunately, those with acne, rosacea, and dry skin (to name a few) are said to have a ceramide deficiency.
The good news? You can top-up your existing store of ceramides with skincare that’s rich in the fatty lipids.
A night oil like our Seabuckthorn Oil is ideal as it protects skin from losing moisture overnight through a process called trans epidermal water loss. It contains a skin-native ceramide NP to bolster lipid supplies and fortify the skin barrier to prevent dehydration.
SPF
I highly doubt that I’ll ever publish a blog post without this very important addition: broad-spectrum SPF! While applying your daily SPF won’t ease any existing redness, it’ll protect your skin from UVB rays that can cause sunburn and the skin damage that comes from UVA rays.
Notably, some super sensitive skin types can find chemical SPFs irritating to their skin which is why we would recommend using a physical SPF filter instead.
Physical SPF filters like titanium dioxide and zinc oxide sit on the surface of the skin and reflect UV rays away from the skin. They’re not absorbed by skin like a chemical SPF filter which means they’re non-irritating to sensitive or acne-prone skin.
Treatments for Redness
Naturally, there’s only so much our skincare can achieve. I would advise that you turn to more invasive skin treatments if your redness isn’t improving with the help of soothing, restorative, skin-protective ingredients. That’s only if you choose to address any redness, of course – skin in all its forms is beautiful.
There are many treatments available which are suited to different skin conditions. For example, an Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) treatment is fabulous for treating diffused redness, pigmentation, and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, aka the dark marks left behind once acne heals.
IPL treatments use one wavelength of pulsating light to target the red colour in your skin. They work because the pigment cells in your skin absorbs the light energy which is converted into heat – it's the heat which fades the pigment.
Whereas a pulsed dye laser treatment works at specific wavelengths and addresses skin that has vascular lesions, red acne scars, background redness, spider veins and birthmarks. It has a dynamic cooling device protecting the upper epidermis, outermost layer of skin.
If you need a little extra guidance in the skincare department, feel free to send us an email or a DM on Facebook or Instagram.
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