Your skin’s pH is a measure of how acid or alkaline it is. If your skin is in good health it will maintain a gently acidic balance, and to keep your skin looking good, it’s important to use products that support its pH balance.
YOUR SKIN’S ACID MANTLE
Your skin’s secretions of sebum and perspiration, and the beneficial bacteria that live on your skin, create a gently acidic, healthy environment for your skin.
This is known as your skin’s ‘acid mantle,’ a term which captures its protective nature. Keeping your skin at this pH:
- Protects your skin from drying
- Slows down the formation of wrinkles
- Helps keep the elements at bay
- Discourages bacterial and fungal infections
- Reduces breakouts
ALKALINE THREATS TO YOUR PH
Cleansing can be taken too far! When we wash, we rinse oils from our skin and shift it in an alkaline direction.
Commercial soaps tend to be highly alkaline, and can contain free alkalis that react with your skin’s natural oils to strip away its acid mantle, leaving your skin feeling bare and tight.
Skincare that’s high in alcohol can also shift your skin away from a healthy pH. Treated this way, your skin can become dry, age faster, and end up less resilient against infection.
(Unfortunately even some organic products use quite a lot of alcohol as a preservative. We chose Ecocert as the organic certifier of our skincare specifically so we could bring you organic skincare without high levels of alcohol.)
MORE IMPORTANT OVER TIME
Your sebum production reduces as you age. After cleansing and using other treatments, it takes your body longer to restore your skin’s correct pH balance.
EXCESS ACIDITY
But of course your skin doesn’t appreciate strong acids either.
If you have sensitive skin, it may struggle with products which are formulated to be quite acidic, to provide greater exfoliation, or to encourage beneficial ingredients to penetrate deeper into your skin.
MAINTAINING A HEALTHY BALANCE
Keeping your pH where your skin wants it to be starts with gentle cleansing.
Moisturizing with natural plant oils helps to restore your acid mantle, and so do pH-balanced toners.
Well-formulated toners and moisturizers compensate for the alkalinizing effect of cleansers and soaps, keeping your skin happy skin.
