Science Behind Skin: The Importance of Balancing Your Skin’s pH

Did you know that maintaining the correct skin pH is essential to keeping your skin healthy and blemish-free? Learn why your skin’s pH is important, what affects it and how to balance it:

What is The Skin’s pH?

All organic substances have a pH level and humans are no exception. pH stands for potential of hydrogen and generally, it’s a way of measuring whether something is acidic, neutral or basic.

On a scale of 1-14, with 1 being the most acidic and 14 being the most basic, our body’s pH level is neutral and is around 7. However to fight off infection and other environmental stressors, the skin’s natural pH needs to be slightly lower at around 5.5 making it slightly acidic.

Acid Mantle

The skin becomes slightly acidic because of a naturally secreted film called the acid mantle. It’s a thin, protective layer on the skin’s surface that is a mix of sebum from the skin’s sebaceous glands and lactic and amino acids from our sweat.

And since it is naturally acidic, it prevents harmful contaminants such as bacteria and other microbes from penetrating and damaging your skin. The protective oils also keep moisture in, helping keep your skin cells tight, and protecting you from pollutants and other harsh elements.

Why Should I Balance My Skin’s pH?

Our skin’s pH balance is very delicate and a lot of factors can take it off kilter. Aging, skincare products, the environment, your lifestyle, and even the tap water used to clean your skin can disrupt this balance. Here are some of the consequences when your skin’s pH level becomes too alkaline (pH level greater than 7) or too acidic (pH level less than 7);

pH Level Lower than 5

If the pH level goes lower than 5, it can be very acidic and the skin can feel somewhat "burnt" with a lot of redness, inflammation and sensitivity. High acidity level can also make skin produce more oil and cause nasty breakouts.

pH Level Greater than 7

On the other hand, going higher than neutral makes skin too alkaline. Your acid mantle breaks down and your skin loses its layer of protection. When this happens, you are more prone to dryness and your skin is vulnerable to blemishes, infections, the sun’s UV rays, pollution and other harsh substances.

If you want to have healthy, beautiful skin, keeping your skin’s pH at the correct level is very important so make sure that you keep its balance.

Factors That Affect Skin’s pH

Aging

As we age, the skin adapts and responds to all things that it comes in contact with — smoke, water, sun, and pollution. When this occurs, the pH of the skin gets disrupted and it loses the ability to protect itself.

Skincare Products

A lot of skin cleansers and soaps can neutralize the acid mantle and make it too alkaline. These products can wash away our natural oils and cause unwanted dryness and irritation.

If you get that tight squeaky clean feeling right after cleansing, you have probably stripped away your acid mantle and raised your skin’s pH above 6.

Water

Build-up in your shower head means that the water you use for bathing is hard water. Aside from having high pH, hard water has a high mineral composition that can lead to skin irritation and can break down the skin’s much-needed collagen and elastin.

How Can I Balance My Skin’s pH?

To keep skin in good pH balance, you need to check how acidic or alkaline your skincare products are. Do your research, choose your products carefully and then balance them out so they come close to the skin’s 5.5 ideal pH.

Did you know that a good toner can keep your skin’s pH at its optimal level? Toners are slightly acidic and they help balance out your probably slightly alkaline skin that occurs right after washing. Applying a toner right after cleansing will fix that because they have the ability to recalibrate the skin and rev up the acid mantle, thus making skin moisturized and able to effectively protect the skin against harmful irritants and bacteria.

Try YEOUTH's Balancing Facial Toner

Give YEOUTH’s Balancing Facial Toner a try. A cool mist that moistens, soothes and preps skin for maximum absorption of skin serum, moisturizer and gels. YEOUTH's Balancing Facial Toner with Chamomile Extracts, Allantoin and Alcloxa repairs and revitalizes the skin's pH after cleansing.

Aside from restoring the skin's pH to its normal level, using a facial toner will moisten, soothe, and prepare the skin to absorb all of your other skincare products, giving you more bang for your buck.

Do you always use a toner after cleansing? Have you tried this YEOUTH product? Do you love it as much as we do? Let us know in the comments!