How to Restore Skin pH Balance Naturally
Having trouble getting your skin under control? Is it dry, irritated, breaking out, flaring up or showing signs of premature aging? The quality of your skin care products is absolutely essential, but it’s not the only part of the equation to achieve healthy, balanced skin.
What is your Skin’s pH?
Normal, healthy pH balanced skin should appear soft, supple, and hydrated and has an acid mantle with a pH of about 5-5.5. The acid mantle is a thin layer on the skin that acts as a protective barrier against harmful bacteria and allows the skin’s healthy microbiome to flourish. If the skin becomes too acidic, it can cause the skin to secrete too much sebum, leading to acne and breakouts. If the skin is too alkaline, it may lead to dry, sensitive, inflammation-prone skin and premature aging.
Factors that Hinder Skin’s pH Levels
Some of the main factors that can disrupt the acid mantle and hinder the pH of your skin are your personal care products, harsh detergents, sun exposure, air pollution, excessive scrubbing, eating habits, hard water, shower temperature, and your age.
How To Restore Your Skin’s pH Levels
There are many ways in which you can restore your skin’s pH levels, but we are going to focus on highlighting some of the main simple lifestyle changes you can implement for healthier, restored skin.
Balance Skin pH Through Clean Eating
Providing your body with clean, unprocessed foods is absolutely essential for pH balanced skin. You cannot feed your body garbage and expect to have clear, vibrant skin. Food truly is medicine for your body by giving it the essential nutrients it needs to reduce inflammation, heal and stay balanced. Choose organic foods whenever possible and incorporate more whole foods into your diet like vegetables, berries, avocado, olive oil, nuts, seeds, beans, chicken, and fish. Try to limit your intake of sugar, dairy, gluten, fried and processed foods– they are all pro-inflammatory and disrupt the pH of the body which can contribute to poor skin health. Many diseases, including skin diseases, are linked to poor gut health and imbalance. The Mediterranean Diet continues to be considered one of the best with its ability to help reduce inflammation and restore balance within the body. When it comes to your health, prevention is always best, but it’s never too late to implement healthy eating habits.
Sun Exposure
Excessive sun exposure can lead to disruption of the acid mantle and therefore causing your skin to become more alkaline. Avoid UV damage to the skin by keeping your skin covered or by applying an appropriate sunscreen with a broad spectrum SPF to protect your skin. Mineral based sunscreens containing zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are generally safer and gentler on the skin.
Improve your Showering Experience for Better Skin pH
Believe it or not, your daily showers can impact your overall skin health. Hard water tends to be more alkaline due to the presence of minerals, such as calcium or magnesium. If you have hard water it is recommended you invest in a water softener, which will help lower the pH of the water. It is also important to limit your shower time to 10 minutes and avoid excessively hot water or over scrubbing of the skin with harsh exfoliants or loofahs. These things can dry the skin out and disrupt the acid mantle leading to imbalanced skin pH.
Clean, Organic Skin Care
High quality, clean, organic skin care is one of the key essentials for maintaining healthy, balanced skin. Applying skin care products with unnecessary, harsh ingredients can wreak havoc on your skin. Consider eliminating products with fragrances and switching to an oil-based moisturizer, such as Soothe-X Balm, that doesn't have harsh chemicals and preservatives known for skin irritation and disruption of the skin’s microbiome. Abby Rose Soothe-X products have been clinically tested, are dermatologist recommended and are made with safe, gentle plant-based ingredients that are accepted by the National Eczema Association.
Bar Soap versus Liquid Soap
Bar soap versus liquid soap is a controversial topic and finding that perfect cleanser can be a daunting task. Liquid soap may be more pH balanced than a bar of soap, however, liquid soap is far from perfect. Liquid soap usually contains numerous ingredients, such as fragrances, preservatives, sulfates, parabens, and other synthetic ingredients that are linked to skin irritation and disruption of the skin microbiome.
Bar soap has gotten a bad rap over the years for being overly harsh and responsible for stripping of the skin’s natural oils particularly due to its alkaline nature. We agree that most store bought soap is in fact a poor option for many reasons, but not solely due to the alkaline pH. The brief amount of time soap remains on the body may or may not have a long-term effect on the pH of your skin. We believe the problem could be that bar soap found at the local grocery store is loaded with fragrances, dyes, cheap fillers and unnecessary ingredients that will easily destroy the skin pH and microbiome. Abby Rose’s Soothe-X Soap is different. It is formulated with 6 simple organic, plant-based oils and shea butter; that’s it. There are no unnecessary harsh preservatives, fragrances, sulfates, parabens, alcohol, dyes or chemicals added to our soap. Our customer feedback and reviews report that Soothe-X Soap has relieved skin dryness, eliminated rough patches and improved their overall skin health. We attribute these results to the gentle, skin-nourishing ingredients used to formulate our Soothe-X Soap. You’ll never know unless you give it a try. Your skin may love it!
How to Know if Your Skin’s pH Balance is off
As we discussed, some signs your skin pH balance may be off are increased dryness, irritation, redness, or breakouts. If you are concerned your skin may be out of balance there are pH test kits that you can purchase specifically for testing the skin.
As a recap, some of the quickest ways to restore your skin’s pH are through good quality skin care products, maintaining a healthy, antioxidant-rich diet, protecting your skin from UV exposure, and making sure your showering habits aren’t doing more harm than good. Maintaining your skin’s pH is important for achieving healthy, glowing skin. Implementing these tips on a consistent basis, should have your skin looking and feeling better. If you continue to experience ongoing skin issues, you should consult with your dermatologist.
