Skin: The Largest Organ
How to protect your Body’s Natural Protector:
Did you know that your skin is your body’s largest organ? Your skin acts as a barrier to keep germs and bacteria from getting in your body, but it also provides protection by reducing surface water loss with a combination of sebum, lipids, and water. Your skin also helps you to maintain a constant body temperature through the regulation of moisture loss (perspiration and evaporation).
Your skin also controls sensation, like pain, cold, pressure, heat, etc., through its sensory nerve endings. Imagine the tremendous damage that can be done to our largest organ every time we suffer from a sun burn injury, which can happen in as little as 15 minutes of sun exposure. 1 in every 5 people will develop skin cancer in their lifetime due to sun exposure. Any time our skin is exposed to sunburn the barrier that protects us from germs and bacteria is disrupted, our protective lipid barrier is disrupted, and our ability to control a constant body temperature is disrupted.
Additionally, 90% of aging in our skin is caused by ultraviolet radiation from the sun, which destroys proteins in our skin and causes laxity and wrinkling. Sun exposure also increases your risk of developing skin cancer. The good news is that you can control 90% of the aging in your skin just by applying and reapplying sunscreen every 2 hours.
The good news is that you can control 90% of the aging in your skin just by applying and reapplying sunscreen every 2 hours.
If you do happen to get sunburned, make sure that you apply cooling anti-inflammatory ingredients to your skin as soon as possible, and avoid any additional sun exposure and heat. Our June Customized Calming Facial is an excellent treatment after any sun exposure. Some of the at-home remedies that work well on red or inflamed skin are cold compresses applied to the burned areas (a cool, wet washcloth applied gently to the skin can help), aloe vera pulp (many over-the-counter formulas do not contain any actual aloe, so make sure the main ingredient of any topical product is aloe), making a paste with mashed cucumber and applying that to the skin can help calm burned skin, applying raw honey to burns can also help hydrate the skin while killing germs, soaking in a cool bath with oatmeal or green tea, or applying cool oatmeal paste or cool green tea soaked cloths to burns can help.
You can also take oral over-the-counter anti-inflammatory and pain reducing medicines to help relieve pain from a burn (Tylenol, Advil, or Benedryl to help reduce itchiness caused by sunburn). Make sure to drink plenty of water after a sunburn event so that your skin can re-hydrate. After the heat in your skin has decreased, you can very temporarily use a topical corticosteroid ointment, like Cortizone 10, to help reduce inflammation and calm burned skin. Do not applying vinegar, oils, and products with fragrance or alcohol to burned skin, as they can irritate the skin or trap heat in the skin. Once the skin is less inflamed, you can apply a soothing hydrator with no alcohol or fragrance. We carry several amazing skin hydrators, so if you need any product recommendations, please let us know.
Thank you for trusting us with all of your skincare needs. We hope to see you this month so that we can help you to look at feel your absolute best!