Why Is Your Hyaluronic Acid Skincare Drying You Out? Troubleshooting This Buzzy Ingredient
Skin: Quenched
If you’ve had issues getting into the well-established hyaluronic acid craze, fret not—we’re here to troubleshoot your beauty routine.
Let’s paint a mental picture: You’re sitting at your vanity, excited to give your brand-new serum a whirl. It’s infused with hyaluronic acid, one of the beauty industry’s most coveted and well-proven ingredients. In fact, the promise of bouncy, hydrated skin is the only reason you decided to purchase it at all!
All is going well at first—your skin looks glowy, feels plump, and, as far as you can tell, is more hydrated. Unfortunately, though, looks can be deceiving. When you wake up, your skin is a desert. In other words, it’s completely void of moisture of any kind. Why?
To understand that, we’ll have to first delve into the science behind hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid is a naturally occurring substance within the body. It’s everywhere, from your connective tissue to your eyes, and plays a crucial part in countless bodily processes. As a skincare ingredient, in particular, it acts as a humectant, which essentially means that it can bind water to itself (up to 1000 times its weight, to be exact). This function makes it such a must-have in any skincare regimen. Essentially, when used topically, it draws water into the skin and keeps it well-hydrated.
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Sounds promising, right? There’s a reason why this ingredient has been on the tips of everybody’s tongues in the last ten years, but it doesn’t come without its drawbacks. With this in mind, it may come as a shock to hear that hyaluronic acid may also cause dryness. Now, it seems antithetical given what we’ve just asserted, but in low humidity conditions, it can cause dryness by drawing moisture out from the skin instead of into the skin, increasing transepidermal water loss.
Fortunately, the solution is simple. To avoid transepidermal water loss and dryness, seal your hyaluronic acid step in with an occlusive moisturiser—a product that creates a physical barrier on the skin to prevent water loss.
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A few moisturising ingredients to look out for include glycerin, shea butter, petrolatum, lanolin and plant oils like rosehip or squalene oil. Alternatively, ceramides are another great option, strengthening your skin’s barrier to help prevent moisture loss.
In addition to the ingredients you use, the order and technique of your skincare routine are also important things to consider. For instance, when layering up your routine, make sure to start with your hyaluronic acid serum (or product) and finish off with your occlusive to “seal it all in”, so to speak.
READ: Our guide to layering your skincare in the correct order
Better yet, when applying your hyaluronic acid step, make sure that you’re applying it to damp skin. Hyaluronic acid doesn’t actually contain water, so if you apply it over dry skin, it may end up pulling moisture out of the deeper layers of your skin to hydrate the surface layers, leaving you more dehydrated overall.
So, in order to reap the benefits and get your skin looking deliciously plump and glowy, you’ll need to give it some moisture to hold on to. Whether you’re straight out of the shower or you’re using a facial mist before your hyaluronic acid treatment, damp skin is an absolute necessity.
If you’ve tried all of the above and still can’t get the ingredient to work for you, fret not—this is not the end. You can always give polyglutamic acid a try—not only is it thought to hold more water than hyaluronic acid, but it also helps the skin produce more of the good stuff. Neat!
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Find more skincare tips like this here.
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