What are you washing your body with?
We check out the tags on the inside of our silk blouses and send them to the dry cleaners. We hang things to dry and we make sure that the iron is set right so as not to burn our favorite pair of jeans.
But do you ever wonder what kind of damage you might be doing to your face and body by using the wrong products? We probably take better care of the clothes that cover our body than we do with the skin that protects our organs.
The average adult has 1.8 to 2 meters of skin that covers our body, so there is a lot of washing to do. We really don't think of the outcome when we wash ourselves except to wash the dirt away.
We get dried out skin, it itches and sometimes it looks very raw. The skin on our face and body feel tight. When I was young we would wash with soap and our faces felt tight. We thought that it was a sign of clean skin. Now we are learning that it is not a sign of clean skin but that we are altering our bodies natural pH.
The pH scale is measured from 0 to 14. 7 is neutral, below 7 is acidic and above 7 is basic (alkaline). The average body has a pH of 4.5 to 5.5. Babies are born with a pH of around 7. Their skin is thin and therefore more fragile. We need to use products that have a pH around 5.5 in order to protect them.
Our pH changes as we become teenagers. It falls between 4.5 to 5.5 which is acidic. Skin is naturally acidic because this is our body's way to fight off harmful bacteria.
Most soaps are highly alkaline (9-11) and will raise your pH to be more alkaline. The pH in our soap is usually higher than average so the acidity is greatly reduced.
It then takes 14 hours to repair and bring it back to normal. Most people will wash before the repairing is finished so the skin is always fighting to repair itself.
Soaps contain a certain amount of lye (an alkaline substance) that removes your protective acid mantle. It also kills the bacteria (good ones) that create in part the acidic pH in your skin. Our acid mantle is a thin oily film that lays on the top of our skin and is there to protect us from the environment.
Those of you that are washing 2 or 3 times a day are actually doing more harm than good because you are stripping away your protective barrier. If there is no protective barrier then there is more chance of infection (like acne).
If the PH is at its norm of 5.5 the growth of P. acne (propionbacterium acne) is at its minimum. A slight shift towards the alkaline, and the P. acne can thrive.
There are some skin conditions that will cause a unbalanced pH such as eczema, diabetes and renal failure to name a few. These can alter the pH levels to become many times the normal range.
Dove is a 7 on the PH scale. It is the closest to normal in all the soaps. It is alright for the body but chances are the face will still have that tight feeling. Other soaps are between 9 and 10 on the scale.
If the cleansing line you are using has a toner then you should be using it. This means that the toner will adjust your pH back to normal. If it doesn't have a toner then the product is water soluble and will not have a negative affect on your skin.
The long and short of it is, you can't throw away your skin, so read the label and take good care of it.
* Lorraine Cormier is an esthetician who also has years of experience in the medical field. She now operates In Our Hands, a skin care and beauty consultation company. She can be reached at 855-4264 or nrhands@nb.sympatico.ca.
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