What is your tolerance threshold? How much skincare and how many actives, irritants and skin barrier disruptions can you tolerate before the inflammation rises too much and the skin gets worse?
Irritation and inflammation are the result of a continuously disrupted skin barrier (and skin not having enough time and raw materials to fully repair itself).
Your skincare routine can work only as long as your skin is quicker to repair itself than the skin barrier disruption occurs.
This is quite individual and while some can react instantly to harsh products (tolerance threshold is low), others can tolerate harsh routines for years (tolerance threshold is high) before it all starts to go downhill.
Sensitive skin or just a damaged skin barrier?
Modern skincare practices leave many with “sensitized” skin. This means that someone may not naturally (genetically) have sensitive skin, it’s just that the skin barrier needs some repairing.
Skin barrier is often disrupted by:
- Too much skincare and or too harsh skincare
- Lack of necessary nutrients in the diet needed for efficient skin barrier repair or other internal issues connected with inflammation (like chronic stress, lack of quality sleep, etc)
Remember, while skincare can be very helpful, it also often introduces irritation. This is especially true with skincare “actives”.
Sometimes that irritation is ok and you get a good benefit to cost ratio. Skin can also get used to it, like with retinoids, over time.
Even moisturizing products can harm the skin barrier
It isn’t just “actives” that are the problem (raising inflammation), it can also be the sheer amount of skincare used. How many products are you using at the same time, especially how many are you layering at once?
If a product has a water component (often the case), it must contain preservatives, which can harm the skin microbiome. If it contains both water and oil (often the case too, like moisturizers), it will also contain emulsifiers that blend the two phases, and some can be quite disruptive to the skin barrier.
Now, layer 4-5 different products like that twice every single day and you get a skin barrier disruption cocktail on your skin!
See the graphs below for more insight into the tolerance thresholds.
Over time, you might be seeing more breakouts, more sensitive skin, dryness, itchiness, etc, all due to the increasing levels of inflammation in the skin barrier.
As you go over your tolerance threshold, you start to face more and more skin issues, regardless of how good the products you are using are.
Strong skincare products that deliver results quickly tend to be quite overwhelming to the skin barrier, and you ultimately reach that platou where your skin isn’t improving anymore or is even getting worse.
A gentle routine can still give amazing results without overwhelming the skin barrier.
If you are well below your tolerance threshold, you can add a product or two that can speed up the acne healing process safely (when the products are used correctly).
In my practice, I apply the “Minimal Effective Dose” rule and it is what I teach in my Skin Rebalancing Protocol, too. It means using the minimal amount of (carefully selected) skincare that gives great results. This allows us to see good progress while also allowing the skin to function properly (which helps you get beautiful skin too!).
Much love and skin healing,
Sara
