Signs That Your Skin Barrier Is Damaged
If your skin gets sunburned while you’re on vacation,
then your skin has clearly sustained damage.
Naturally, you can consider the skin barrier to have been temporarily damaged as well.
But damage to the skin barrier does not only refer to such special emergency situations.
When the skin barrier becomes weakened, it means that
the skin’s ability to retain moisture has declined,
and the function of the skin barrier as the body’s first line of defense against damage is beginning to weaken.
This can be accompanied by the following symptoms.
If Two or More Apply to You, You May Want to Take Notice.
First, your skin feels tighter or stings more than usual after cleansing.
Second, even products you have used regularly cause a sensitive reaction after application.
Third, the surface of your skin has become rougher.
Fourth, you experience a feeling of heat or frequent flaking.
Fifth, skin breakouts keep occurring repeatedly.
Do you see how these symptoms might be connected to a lack of moisture?
What Happens If You Leave a Damaged Skin Barrier Untreated?
As I mentioned earlier, damage to the skin barrier is a sign that the outer layer of your skin has become less capable of retaining moisture.
Let’s imagine the outer layer of your skin as a faucet.
Not the ground.
And let’s imagine the moisture inside your skin as groundwater.
Under normal conditions, the faucet is properly regulated, allowing a small amount of moisture from the groundwater to move outward.
At the same time, moisture is continuously supplied from within the body, so a certain balance is maintained between the amount of moisture leaving and the amount being replenished.
But when the outer layer of your skin, or skin barrier, becomes damaged, it doesn’t mean that the faucet has been turned off and no water can get out.
It’s more like the faucet has become damaged and started leaking more water.
As a result, the moisture in the groundwater begins moving outward at a faster rate than before.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that water is literally pouring out of the faucet like sweat.
The moisture moves through the skin to the surface,
and then evaporates into the surrounding air as water vapor.
As more and more moisture continues to escape,
the outer layer of the skin gradually becomes dry and weakened.
And as the skin barrier becomes weaker,
moisture loss increases again.
Eventually,
Skin barrier damage → Increased moisture loss → Dry skin → Further barrier damage → Increased moisture loss
From this point on,
you may begin to experience a skin condition that goes beyond simply whether your skin looks good or bad.
Of course, this does not mean cancer or any specific disease, so please don’t misunderstand.
