The Other Downside of Constant Moisturizing – It Crowds Out Good Stuff
As consumers we’ve been trained by the media and many well-meaning people to regard a daily dose of moisturizer as indispensible for healthy skin. But it turns out this is not such a great idea.
The reason is simple: Slathering on a moisturizer product every day gets the skin hooked on an external source, and it responds by giving up the ability to hydrate itself. Scientists would say that an oversimplified skincare regime runs the risk of overstimulating certain metabolic pathways to which the body becomes tolerant. In other words, it gets addicted.
And there’s another reason to take the opposite approach. When your skin is naturally moisturizing itself (as opposed to having moisturizer delivered from a jar), it develops additional capabilities.
For instance, in the process of self-moisturizing, the skin also produces growth factors and immunological defence molecules. It’s a complex mix of triggers and responses, but you might summarise it by saying that the skin becomes better at looking after itself. At Ao, we call this ‘returning your skin to its native state of health.’
Does this mean you should leave skin alone? No – but try an alternative philosophy.
Instead of a daily moisturizing ritual, use a treatment that promotes your skin’s wellbeing from within. With ingredients that switch on the skin’s natural metabolic pathways, you can enjoy the benefits of self-moisturizing as well as boosting defence against oxidative stress, toxins, ultraviolet radiation and age-related degenerative changes.
Ao treatments are formulated with natural ingredients, such as New Zealand Red Algae, that trigger these beneficial effects. We’ll cover this in more detail in a future blog post.
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