The Rise of pH in Skin-Care Products
“Your acid mantle is made up of amino and lactic acids, plus sebum, also
known as fatty free acids,” says Tiffany Masterson, the founder of the
Houston-based skin-care line Drunk Elephant, which ensures its products are
pH balanced. Self-trained on the subject of skin pH, Masterson has become
a leading voice on the topic largely through the success of her brand.
“The acid mantle just so happens to protect skin from environmental factors
that lead to aging and all-around irritation,” she says. The brand’s
Slaai Makeup-Melting Butter Cleanser has been popular with beauty insiders
for its pH-balancing powers.
Other products, like TULA Life’s Pro-Glycolic 10% Resurfacing Toner, were
so popular when they launched that they were frequently sold out.
The skin pH awareness has even gone high-tech: La Roche-Posay
(part of the L’Oréal Groupe) launched My Skin Track, a wearable sensor that
detects trace amounts of sweat from your pores and promises an accurate
skin pH reading in just 15 minutes. (The product won an innovation award
when it debuted at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show.)
Some credit the rise of pH-focused skin care in the West to the success of
South Korean skin-care worldwide. “Many people living in Korea identify with
a sensitive skin type, and some of the redness and irritation is attributed to
the high pollution levels in Korea,” says Charlotte Cho, a cofounder of the
K-Beauty website Soko Glam. “As a result, Korean beauty brands often
formulate products with low pH.”
Bestselling K-Beauty brands like Corsx and Acwell often list the pH of each
product on the labels.
But some medical experts question the extent to which this focus on
pH-balanced products matters to the average consumer. “The reason why
we don’t put too much thought into it is because the skin-care scientists have
already done that,” says New York City–based dermatologist Cheryl Karcher, MD. “They’re very smart people, these PhDs making these skin-care products. They know
that you have to have something close to the pH of the skin or else it’s not
going to be cosmetically appealing — it’s going to burn.”
The skin’s barrier is slightly acidic for a reason: to keep moisture in and
bacteria out, Dr. Karcher says. “If your pH balance is off and it’s too
alkaline, your skin is going to look flaky and red. If it’s too acidic, you’ll
increase your chances of inflammatory skin conditions like eczema and
acne.”
Masterson believes that common ingredients in products cause many of
our skin troubles. Those ingredients include fragrances, essential oils,
drying alcohols, and harsh cleansing agents such as sodium lauryl sulfate,
which can cause inflammation and disrupt the acid mantle.
“No product can make a difference in the health of your skin barrier if you’re
using another product that is actively causing it harm,” says Masterson.
“Your body doesn’t work that way. You can’t smoke a cigarette and then eat some broccoli and hope they cancel each other out. So why would your skin
be any different? This is why we are adamant about both the importance of
pH balanced formulas as well as avoiding the categories of ingredients that
can cause the acid mantle harm.”
RELATED: 6 Ways to Eat and Drink Your Way to Healthier Skin
Why pH-Balancing Products Might Matter Less
if You Have Healthy Skin
As much as the skin’s pH balance and acid mantle matter, there is no one-size
-fits-all solution. Much depends on the natural state of your skin. Karcher
explains that healthy skin is about more than pH alone. “pH is the flavor of the
month, but it has to be part of a bigger picture,” she says. “Yes, you need to
have an acidic pH to have healthy skin, but if your skin is healthy and you
use an alkaline cleanser, your skin is going to revert back in just a few minutes.”
Karcher believes that pH is one of many components that keep skin healthy,
but it’s not the only one, nor is it necessarily the primary one. “There are so
many factors that contribute to overall healthy skin that if you focus just on
pH you’re going to miss so many others that are just as important, or, in fact,
more important than pH,” she says.
Cho agrees, but notes that by keeping your skin pH at an ideal level with the
right products, you may get ahead of some common complaints. “The pH
of your cleansers matters because something that is high pH, 9 and above,
can be too drying and stripping for your skin,” says Cho. “When your acid
mantle and skin barrier are compromised, it can lead to bacteria, which
causes acne and dehydration, which leads to wrinkles. And when the pH of
your skin is normal, it should look smooth and hydrated.”
RELATED: The Skin-Care Glossary Every Woman Needs to Have
How a Growing Understanding of Gut Bacteria
Has Fueled Interest in Skin pH Imbalance
A plastic surgeon specializing in holistic beauty, Youn believes that one
reason pH balance has become so trendy in skin care may be the growing
research about the microbiome, which protects us against germs, breaks
down food to release energy, and may affect the skin.
“There’s something now called the gut-skin axis, where we’re finding that
the health of the gut also impacts the trillions of bacteria that live on our
skin, and when your pH is imbalanced, it may affect that,” says Youn,
citing a research review.
Youn says that while many in the holistic beauty world have become
obsessed with pH, the acid mantle, and the microbiome, it’s not the case
in the medical world just yet. “The real question is just how much impact
does the pH of a skin-care product have on the skin, and for how long? I
don’t think we know,” he says. “If you ask 10 plastic surgeons who are
recommending skin-care products about the pH of the skin and the acid
mantle, they probably would have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Sometimes research follows marketing, Youn adds. “It remains to be seen
what role pH balance plays in disturbing the microbiome, but if it affects
bacteria on the skin, that might explain the origins of inflammatory disease
skin problems like eczema, rosacea, and acne — which have no known
cause in science as of now.”
Trevor Cates, ND, a Park City, Utah–based naturopath who has addressed
the American Academy of Antiaging Medicine about the skin’s barrier
function, says the foods we eat can play a part. “Eating a lot of sugar or dairy
products can increase sebum production,” says Cates. “Those things can
impact the acid mantle from the inside-out. But also, what we put on the skin
can impact that. And the first thing that people do is use a cleanser, so it’s
important that it has a mild acidity.”
RELATED: 5 Nighttime Skin-Care Mistakes That Are Sabotaging Your
Beauty Goals
The Best Way to Find Out if Your Skin-Care
Products Have a Low pH
It may be that you don’t need to worry too much about the pH of your products
if you have healthy skin. But if you already suffer from inflammatory skin
conditions, such as acne or eczema, you’ll want to stick to cleansers, serums,
and moisturizers that range from 4.6 to 5.5 to avoid stripping the skin, says
Cates.
Because many skin-care products in the United States don’t list the formula’s
pH on the label, you can find out what the pH of a product is by checking the
brand’s website, or call the company and ask. If you want to be sure, you can
also purchase pH strips and test a product yourself. “If you live in a location
where the tap water is hard, that can cause your skin’s pH balance to become
more alkaline,” Cates says. (If you see white spots on your glassware, or
calcification on your showerheads, you likely have hard tap water, according to Sciencing.) One solution is to try cleansing with micellar water, which French
women have been hailing as the secret to great skin for decades, per an article
in Vogue.
On the nutrition front, one review cited research that suggested diet may have
a bigger connection to skin health than many dermatologists have believed to
date. On the basis of existing data, a plant-based diet that’s low in refined
carbohydrates is a good idea for overall skin health, the review’s authors
concluded.
And when all else fails, sometimes it’s best to remember that less is more.
“There’s something I call the ‘hospital phenomenon,’” says Masterson. “When
I was delivering my babies, I was in the hospital for several days each time
and then at home in bed recovering. I really didn’t pay much attention to my
skin then, and guess what? My skin was never happier. It’s because I allowed
it to function on its own and left the acid mantle alone to do its job, which it did
very well. If you struggle with skin issues and you don’t know what else to do,
the answer is almost always: ‘Do less.’”
0 Comments