Dear Fave,
How are you? I hope you're enjoying beautiful skin.
Today, as usual, I will be adding to the beauty fountain we've been tending to.
Previously, we discussed flu and how it has a lot to do with the body’s immunity. So many researchers have tried to make an impact in this field as many more will, my joy in medicine is the fact that such an impact from ancient time in immunity is not just limited to a particular aspect but broadly can be used in various aspects as I will further explain soon.
In this article, you will understand what immunity means, how to regain your skin's immunity, how to know what you’re doing wrong to your skin and correct this for good.
IMMUNITY DEFINITION I’ll not assume you know what immunity means, so here goes; Immunity is the ability of an organism to resist a particular infection or toxin by the action of specific antibodies or sensitized white blood cells (the body's defense system located in the blood). Also used in place of immunity can be resistance to, resilience to, non-susceptible to, protection from, ability to fight off and so on. As a matter of fact, the skin is the largest organ in the human body and consists of a great line of the defense system. When we grow older and are exposed to so many nothings like the environmental pollutants, radiation, ultraviolet radiation from the sun, chemicals in products we use daily, chemicals in foodstuffs and drinks we consume. Basically agree we are exposed to some sort of bad guys every day, which is why the body was created with immunity that helps us fight. But there are limitations to what the body’s immune system can ward off, which is why most times we try to help it, by vaccination which is a direct or indirect exposure surely to the organisms which act as the bad guys. I’m glad we now know what immunity means, but before you start wondering why I’m discussing about immunity in a beauty and skincare diary, I will simply give you a brief happening that occurred concurrently. Growing up, like a number of teenagers I experienced hormonal changes which caused me some acne that left scars, then some more pimples, suffered blackheads and more, while underneath I had very beautiful skin with no problem whatsoever healing just fine.
I dreaded a breakout badly so I fought back harshly and that’s where the mistake started, constant facial extractions, daily use of products recommended and liked, without actual education on all the pros and cons on using them all. My new found knowledge not that it’s anything new in medicine, according to the definition is to passively control my skin than actively. There was a time that my skin itched so badly, immediately after having my showers. This could have been partly due to the water temperature (avoid hot showers) over drying my skin while reducing the moisture of my skin in the process or me just having a reaction to the micro-organisms in the water making my skin uncomfortable. Would the itching cause me not to take a shower any longer? Of course not, but what I was sure of was I needed to do something about the itching. I took antihistamines, a drug to help against allergic reactions.
I introduced liquid antiseptic solutions into the bath water to kill most of the microorganisms, changed my sponge, soap none of which worked. With time my skin adjusted and got used to this change of water, environment and got over causing me to itch after every bath. The truth is after the use of so many products regularly which most of contained harsh chemicals, alcohol (stripping my skin of its natural glow), or bad oils, all of which worsened the condition of my skin, not that daily care of the skin is bad but it’s wise to know when to use what, what to use, and when to avoid creating a new problem of adding a sensitive skin to an acne prone skin, a sensitive skin to a normal skin or an acne prone skin to a normal skin. My skin's immunity realization process all started when I noticed that wearing most makeups and removing them made my skin appear better than before I had it on (at least non-comedogenic makeup without being stressed and proper moisturizer or treatment underneath without a makeup base/primer).
The idea that over-cleansing the skin and leaving it super clean leaves your skin without problems is a myth because the skin has natural defense factors and should be activated once in a while. For healthy immune reactions, the skin should be exposed to what it needs to fight off, you can’t be training a boxer or a wrestler in a clean ring always and expect him to jump as effective in a mud pond when the bell rings for round 1. He will lose if his opponent prepared better, which as the factors mentioned above obviously have an upper hand. If not the skin losses it’s sense to fight even environmental factors when necessary and when this happens even the slightest dirt, probably from a pat on the cheeks from a friend or a peck could trigger a breakout on the skin, common sweat from a workout can expose a skin which enjoys being clean from too many cleansing processes.
Cleaning the skin helps the pores breath, but moisturizing right after is a wise decision to prevent oversecretion of oils from the insufficient amount on the surface and twice a day cleansing is enough, before bed and when you wake up in the morning, also after a long day of wearing makeup. Do not be scared to expose your skin to some dirt here and there and, once in a while.
Love, F.P.
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