If I could pick the most popular question I get asked by friends as a skin specialist, it would have to be this: “My skin is so red and sensitive right now! What can I do to fix it?”
My first response is always with a question.
If your skin could talk, what would it tell me?
The answers generally flow fast; I am not sleeping, I feel stressed, I have no time to exercise, and my diet needs an overhaul. From here we look at supporting our body's ecosystem by using a full circle approach, our skin, body & mind are all interconnected like our gut & skin microbiome.
When your skin is sensitive, certain product ingredients can suddenly become a problem and compromise the strength of the skin barrier and its ability to do its job. Symptoms of sensitive skin include redness, inflammation, irritation, sensitised skin or allergic reactions.
Let’s talk about our best friends that live on us and in us; our microbes. They help to protect, retore and maintain the skin barrier.
The skin microbiome is made up of both bad and good bacteria. When the number of bad bacteria overpowers the good, it throws off the delicate balance of the microbiome and can contribute to skin conditions like facial redness. The primary cause of facial redness is believed to be associated with the skin barrier. The skin barrier plays a crucial role in our health. Skin inflammations such as itching, stinging and redness are on the rise in modern urban society. These conditions are thought to be the result of air-pollution and exhaust gases, diesel particulates, highly allergenic environments and other modern factors.
Creams and emollient moisturisers are often used as a first response, but recent studies indicate that the condition of the microbiome - our skin’s population of good bacteria - is a more important measure of skin distress.
It seems that the balance of good to bad bacteria is critical in deciding whether redness and irritation of our skins occur. The use of post-biotic ingredients, such as Ectoin, allows this balance to be restored, resulting in a reduction in skin redness, itchiness and irritation.
Sásta Microbiome Serum includes Ectoin, which especially targets skin redness and irritation, in addition to soothing aloe vera and hyaluronic acid. These three ingredients, in combination, target the problem head-on and provide a very effective skin repair and maintenance cocktail for your skin barrier.
Michelle McDonald