How I healed my damaged and irritated skin barrier

Have dry, damaged skin and no amount of moisture is helping it? Trust me when I say I had the same problems and found some miraculous solutions.

When you have a damaged skin barrier it can be irritated, red, and flaky. One thing you would not expect is for your skin to be extra oily. You heard me correct, oily.

This happens when your skin barrier has been damaged and is in desperate need of repair. The skin barrier is the outer most layer of the skin, also known as the epidermis, and is essentially the shield of the skin below. It is important because it helps to protect against everyday dangers that can cause long-term damage to the skin.

Now, just because your skin is oily or even dry doesn’t mean your skin barrier is damaged.

When watching a video on YouTube recently about Korean skin care, I learned about our skin barriers and the importance of keeping them healthy.

Check out the video below:

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again

When I was trying to figure out what was going on with my skin, I tried everything I could to help it. But I was confused because I had two issues at once.

It wasn’t like I had an oily T-zone and dry skin outside the T-zone. I had dry skin all over that felt oily and sticky to the touch. How could I look for products if I had no idea where to start?

I listened to the advice in the video and used a Ph balanced/low Ph cleanser and I used water that was at room temperature. This was weird to me because I have always felt the need to cleanse everything off my skin and get that “squeaky clean” feeling. But this can actually be part of the reason your barrier is damaged.

My next step was making sure that I didn’t use chemicals that were too harsh on my face. I use, toners, serums, essences and moisturizers on a daily basis and I wanted to make sure they didn’t have anything that was going to irritate my skin. Some of the products I already had irritated my skin and made it red. That let me know right away they were not something I needed to use. Once I purchased and tried several products I finally found what would work for me. I thought “Great. I should be seeing a difference here soon.” But that wasn’t the case.

I got so frustrated because I didn’t start to see results right away. I thought surely these products would be helping by now. What I didn’t realize is they were helping but my skin barrier was so damaged it was taking a long time and I also needed to heal my skin from the inside out.

You are what you eat

Have you ever heard that saying “You are what you eat”? In this case, it’s so true. I would have never related what I eat to my skin but your skin is your largest organ and as we all know food fuels your organs.

If we are putting crap in our bodies then we are essentially putting crap in our skin. So by using the new skin care I got and changing up my diet to eating better cholesterols, leafy green vegetables and healthy proteins I began to see a big difference.

After three months of a better diet and using the more gentle skin care, I noticed my skin was less irritated. It wasn’t dry but it was oily. I was a little concerned about this at first but it wasn’t overly oily, it was a normal oily.

I was kind of shocked at the fact that my skin was finally producing a normal amount of oil. I had used a Korean skin care-based routine and you can refer to my earlier article for more information.

No matter how bad you think you have damaged your skin barrier there is a way you can repair it.

With the right products, patience and time you will rebuild the barrier stronger and better than before. Listening to your skin is key and knowing what is and isn’t working will help you to narrow down your choices and give you the best chance at rebuilding your skin barrier.