What is dehydrated skin?
It’s understandable to mistake dehydrated skin for dry skin; they sound like that they would be the same — or, at least, similar. However, dehydrated skin is different from dry skin, and the key difference is simple: dry skin is a skin type while dehydrated skin is a skin concern. That means that all skin types can get dehydrated, including oily skin.
A few key symptoms of dehydrated skin are tightness, flakiness, increased sensitivity, and redness. Your skin might be feeling parched or itchy. Your skin might even feel oilier than usual, which sounds counterintuitive, until you think of it this way — when your skin thinks it’s dehydrated, it’s going to try to compensate for it in some way possible, so your skin starts producing more oil.
So, if you suspect your skin is dehydrated, what should you do? How do you get hydration back into your skin? Is it just about drinking a lot of water and using a thicker moisturizer?
Here are five easy ways to treat dehydrated skin:
Use a gentle cleanser.
You might be tempted to think of cleansing as a pre-step to a skincare routine because the role of a cleanser is to, well, cleanse skin. You use a cleanser, after all, to dissolve away impurities, oil, sweat, dirt, and whatever else that may have accumulated on your skin, and it’s not like beneficial ingredients in a cleanser are going to have much time to absorb into your skin — you’re going to rinse the cleanser off right away.
However! That doesn’t mean the ingredients in a cleanser are ineffective and pointless, and cleansers are still able to help soothe and hydrate skin as they remove impurities. That’s why cleansing correctly is a crucial step to helping dehydrated skin. We highly recommend calming, hydrating cleansers because they’re effective and gentle on skin, cleansing deeply without also sweeping away the good oils and moisture that keep your skin healthy and hydrated. That, in turn, helps keep your natural skin barrier (also known as the lipid barrier) intact, which helps maintain skin health and reduce transepidermal water loss, so hydration stays in skin.
Recommended product: we highly recommend the double cleanse because it’s gentle, hydrating, and effective! Start with the Be the Skin Daily Complete Cleansing Oil to dissolve away oil-based impurities (because oil attracts oil!), including waterproof makeup. Follow that with a gentle, hydrating water-based cleanser like the Peach & Lily Power Calm Hydrating Gel Cleanser, which is packed with soothing ingredients like chamomile, camellia, and centella asiatica extracts. Even better? The Power Calm Cleanser is sulfate-free!
Don’t forget your essence.
The primary thing an essence does is drench skin with hydration. We’ve made this analogy before, but think about a sponge. When it’s dry and hardened, it can’t absorb much at all, unable to sop up much moisture. However, when you soak the sponge in hydration, the sponge plumps up and is able to absorb moisture; you can then use it, for example, to wipe up spills on counters.
The analogy translates over to skin. When your skin is dry, it is more difficult for it to absorb and hold onto as much hydration as it potentially can. An essence helps with that by drenching your skin with hydration, so your skin is then prepped and able to absorb more moisture. Your skin, then, is also better able to absorb all the beneficial ingredients in the serums, ampoules, and moisturizers that may follow in your routine.
Recommended product: the Peach & Lily Wild Dew Treatment Essence contains both deeply hydrating ingredients like hyaluronic acid and glycerin as well as nourishing ingredients like lotus root extract, niacinamide, and yeast ferment to help nourish skin and fight off free radical damage.
