Hydration for skin health is one of the most talked-about aspects of skincare — and if you aren’t sure why, you soon will. 

Our skin is made up of layers that rely heavily on water to stay strong, smooth, resilient, and you probably guessed it...glowing. When our skin is properly hydrated, it functions the way it’s meant to: as the quiet hero protecting us against environmental stressors, our favourite anti-ageing saviour maintaining skin elasticity, and the radiance booster supporting a healthy complexion. But when hydration levels drop, so do these benefits, as our skin barrier becomes compromised, leading to dullness, tightness, sensitivity, and rough skin.  

In this blog, we’ll delve into the importance of hydration for skin barrier health, where skincare fits into the picture, common signs of dehydrated skin to be aware of, and three simple, practical tips you can use to help improve your skin’s hydration. Let’s get started!

When you hear skin experts talk about skin hydration, essentially what they’re referring to is the water content of your skin — not just how much water is in your skin, but also how much it effectively retains.

Skin that is well hydrated is smooth and soft, feels a little plump, naturally radiant, even in complexion, feels comfortable and well balanced (no itching, flaking, or tightness), and has less visible fine lines and wrinkles.

PSA: If you’re not interested in your skin’s composition and the science behind skin hydration, skip this next section.

The skin has three primary layers:

1. The epidermis: the thin, outermost layer, which consists of five layers. This is where topical skincare is applied and where the skin barrier exists.
2. The dermis: made of strong connective tissues, oil glands, and sweat glands.
3. The hypodermis: the thick, underlying layer of skin. This one contains fat cells.

Within the epidermis’ five layers is one you may have heard of: the Stratum Corneum. This is the outermost layer of the skin and contains cells known as ‘corneocytes.’ If you’re new to the world of skincare or not overly science-minded, just think of the stratum corneum as a brick wall and the corneocytes as the individual bricks, which are surrounded by lipids that act as the mortar keeping the skin intact. Corneocytes contain something called Natural Moisturising Factors (NMFs), which include things like lactate, urea, and amino acids. These help the skin retain moisture by binding water within cells. On the other hand, the lipids (i.e., your brick wall’s mortar) are made of ceramides, cholesterol, and free fatty acids, which help seal in the moisture.

These incredible skin elements make up the skin’s barrier function, which has many important roles, including holding water inside your skin cells. When compromised (or when the mortar isn’t gluing the bricks together strongly enough, as in our analogy), this is one of the first things to go.

However, there is one caveat to the above: some Transepidermal Water Loss (TEWL) is a normal part of skin physiology. We lose water from our skin through a process in which water from deeper skin layers surfaces to the top and evaporates. While this is normal, a healthy skin barrier slows this process and prevents water from escaping too quickly.

Still following? If we’ve lost you along the way, here’s the TL;DR - All in all, a healthy skin barrier is crucial to skin hydration through three main functions:

1. It binds water inside the skin cells (thank you, NMFs).
2. It retains water (lipids help to seal the moisture in, reducing natural water evaporation).
3. It helps keep Transepidermal Water Loss in check (while a normal process, TEWL can increase when the skin barrier is compromised). 

So, if the skin barrier is doing all the hard work within the skin already, what role does skincare play in maintaining its integrity? Great question!

Simple answer: your skin barrier can become easily compromised from a range of external and internal factors such as harsh skincare ingredients, over-exfoliating, UV damage, cold weather, hot showers, allergens, and skin conditions, to name a few. When your skin barrier is compromised, it needs all the help it can get to repair and strengthen.

Enter: skincare products.

Certain skincare products essentially replicate the natural mechanisms your skin barrier uses to retain moisture. These hydrating ingredients will fall into one of three categories:

• Humectants
• Emollients
• Occlusives

If you’re wondering which is best suited to you, technically, all three should form part of most skincare routines (depending on your skin type). Rather than working against one another, they each play a role in skin hydration and skin barrier integrity. Humectants attract water into the skin cells; emollients smooth and repair the barrier; and occlusives trap water inside the skin, preventing TEWL. 

[Read Full Article: How to Determine Your Skin Type: The Ultimate Guide]

Let’s take a look at a few of the most common signs of dehydrated skin:

• Tight and itchy
• Rough and flaking
• Dull and potentially more tired-looking
• More sensitive to certain skincare or elements
• An increased appearance of fine lines.

One area people often get confused about is distinguishing between dry and dehydrated skin. While they sound similar, the solutions are actually very different. First things first — what’s the difference? Firstly, dry skin is a skin type, whereas dehydrated skin is a condition.

Dehydrated skin results from a lack of water in the skin. 
Dry skin results from a lack of lipids (oil) in the skin.

[Read Full Article: Dr Tanya’s 7 Tips for Soothing Dry or Dehydrated Skin]

Skin hydration is about more than just the products sitting on your bathroom shelf. While skincare definitely plays a role, your skin is a complex organ that’s influenced by what’s happening both on the outside and within the body. In other words, hydration isn’t a one-step fix — it's the result of a combination of intentional changes to your skin routine and lifestyle.

The good news? There are a few simple strategies that can make a real difference. Below are three ways to help support healthy, well-hydrated skin:

1. Increase Your Fluid Intake

Drinking more water is a great way to help improve your skin’s hydration. In fact, did you know the outermost layer of your skin is composed of 30% water? 

As a general rule, studies suggest that the average healthy adult needs between 2.7L and 3.7L of total fluid daily.

However, it’s important to note that this will largely depend on your body type and activity level. For example, if you experience a lot of transepidermal water loss due to factors like your environment or exercise (i.e., heat and sweating), you may require more.

A 2015 study that aimed to determine whether increasing dietary water intake improved skin physiology found that drinking more water can increase skin hydration and subtly improve skin mechanical properties, especially in people who previously drank minimal water. However, this particular study found that increased water intake didn’t change the skin barrier.

2. Add More Humectants to Your Skincare

As you’re aware by now, we love humectants, as does your skin!

Quick recap: Humectants help pull moisture into the skin from the environment and deeper levels of the skin. In doing so, it helps increase hydration in the upper layers of the skin.

A great place to start with improving skin hydration is to consider adding some of the following humectants to your skincare regimen:

• Hyaluronic Acid
• Lactic Acid
• Glycerin
• Aloe Vera Gel
• Urea

[Read Full Article: How to Build A Skincare Ritual: The AM to PM Guide to Glowing Skin]

If you skipped the lesson on skin composition, now’s a great time to scroll back up and get yourself up to speed. If you’re time-poor, we’ve got your back...keep reading!

The quick recap: Your skin is made up of several layers, with the outermost layer being your epidermis, or as many of us know it, your skin barrier. Your skin barrier plays an extremely important role in protecting your body from some environmental toxins and harmful organisms. From a skin health perspective, it’s also the quiet hero that keeps your skin hydrated and looking supple and fresh. However, when compromised, TEWL increases, and water evaporates from your skin faster than it is replenished. This results in dehydrated skin.

As such, adding humectants to your skincare regimen is one piece of the puzzle. Yet these alone won’t do enough. Once the hydration is in place (i.e., humectants), it’s important to strengthen your skin barrier with emollients and lock the moisture in with occlusives to avoid excessive TEWL.

Other important skincare tips that can help strengthen your barrier include:

• Using a gentle cleanser — harsh cleansers or over-cleansing your skin will strip it of important natural oils, compromising your barrier.
• Not over-exfoliating — we know the temptation is strong to buff away the flaking skin, but you’re further weakening your barrier. When skin is compromised, often less can be more.

[Read Full Article: Damaged Skin Barrier? Here’s How to Heal Your Skin]