Skin
In Elemental. More on Medium.
The Nuance
Exploring the science — and lack thereof — behind sunscreen safety
For a 2019 study, researchers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had healthy people apply common, commercially available sunscreens.
For four days — and four times each day — the people in the study sprayed or rubbed sunscreen onto their bodies. Most sunscreen labels advise people to reapply “at least every two hours,” so the study was designed to assess what would happen inside the body if people followed this guidance. For example, if someone went on a beach vacation and slathered on sunscreen throughout the day, as directed, what, if anything, might show up in their blood?
To…
If you have to do it, here’s how to do it right
There are plenty of very good reasons to be wearing a mask. As we slowly emerge from pandemic lockdowns, face masks, even simple fabric ones, can drastically reduce the spread of Covid-19.
But wearing a tight-fitting covering over your nose, mouth, and chin has its drawbacks, especially as temperatures and humidity rise and we all start sweating behind our masks. Even when washed regularly, a mask can act a bit like a petri dish against the skin. Enter “maskne,” the newest pandemic side effect.
Skin care companies have begun peddling maskne-specific offerings, dermatologists report that calls about breakouts are skyrocketing…
How to take care of your skin during Covid-19
Experiencing your worst wave of breakouts since junior high? It’s not you — it’s Covid-19. The combination of skyrocketing levels of stress, occlusive protective masks, and upended routines can have negative consequences for skin, dermatologists say.
What’s Causing Acne Right Now
Pandemic-related or not, stress is a major contributor to acne. It creates a domino effect: Our bodies respond to stress by producing more cortisol, aka the stress hormone, which in turn increases the levels of androgen, which ramps up oil production in skin. “Bacteria on the skin feeds on this oil,” explains Sonia Batra, MD, a dermatologist in Santa Monica, CA. …
Why your face looks tired when you’re tired
Everyone knows what a tired face looks like. Hanging eyelids, dark circles under the eyes, pale skin, droopy mouth corners, wrinkles, and fine lines—these were some of the cues a group of volunteers interviewed during a study associated with tiredness. The participants were shown photos of 10 individuals, each photographed while well-rested and while sleep-deprived, and were able to judge with a fair amount of precision the level of fatigue of the people in the headshots.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that lack of sleep has such a visible impact on one’s face—more specifically on the skin. “Sleep is…
The Nuance
How skin ages and what you can do about it
It happens to everyone sooner or later. A casual glance in a mirror turns into a lengthy self-examination. Is that a new mole? Old photographs and the internet are consulted. Visions of skin biopsies dance in one’s head.
Even those who take meticulous care of their skin are likely to develop age- or sun-related imperfections as they grow older. And for many, any new mark or mole kindles skin-cancer concerns. For good reason: Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the U.S. While the majority of skin cancers are basal cell or squamous cell carcinomas (types that…
Optimize Me
The skin microbiome is having a moment
Optimize Me is an Elemental column exploring (and fact-checking) the weirdest self-improvement trends. It comes out every Tuesday.
Do you really need to shower every day or at all? And could showering actually be bad for your skin? Scientists and skin care companies are becoming increasingly aware of the billions of bacteria that live in and on our skin and the potential roles they play there, including eating our natural oils and sweat. Modern hygiene habits may be wiping out these good bugs, leaving us greasier, flakier, and at a greater risk of skin infections than if we just left…
The exhausted person’s guide to skin care
Makeup wipes are high on the list of bestselling beauty and personal care products on Amazon — that’s before lip balm, makeup brushes, and teeth-whitening kits. Made from materials such as cotton, wood pulp, and polyester, these disposable cleaning cloths usually contain ingredients similar to those found in face cleansers. Similar to cleansers, makeup wipes contain ingredients like surfactants, which are compounds that help remove excessive oil, dirt, and makeup. The wipes may also contain humectants — compounds that help draw water to the surface of the skin — as well as emollients, which form a protective film to trap…
Researchers are trying to find out if moisturizing your skin could have systemic health benefits
To prevent chronic disease, eat well, sleep seven to nine hours a night, exercise… and perhaps you should also moisturize your skin. Yes, moisturize. According to ongoing research at the University of California, San Francisco, certain moisturizers could be unexpected allies in the prevention of chronic disease after middle age.
To understand the mechanism of this potential protective effect, we have to look at the relatively recent concept of “inflammaging” (a combination of inflammation and aging). As people get older, they experience an increase in the levels of certain molecules, called pro-inflammatory cytokines, which amplify inflammation in the body. This…
New science underlines how to find one that actually soothes
Certain moisturizers might be doing more harm than good for people with sensitive skin, according to new research by dermatology professor Dr. Peter Elias and his team at the University of California, San Francisco.
Moisturizers are supposed to work by forming a film over the skin to trap water inside, by sponging water from the environment into the skin or by filling in the spaces between the cells in the skin surface with certain lipids. All of these are strategies meant to increase the skin’s water content.
For people who don’t have sensitive skin, chances are that any drugstore moisturizer…
The pros and cons of sun exposure don’t start and end with vitamin D and skin cancer
It was around 15 years ago that Dr. Matt Zirwas, an Ohio-based dermatologist, first noticed something curious about the people he was treating at his clinic.
“The older patients I was seeing [who had] lots of sun damage and lots of skin cancer would be very robust, very energetic people,” he says. These were people who, apart from their skin cancers, tended to be in excellent health and taking very few prescription drugs.
“But then I’d see these people who had beautiful skin and no cancers, and they were very low-energy and taking medications for all these different health problems,”…
