What Is Your Skin Barrier and How Can You Care For It?

If you haven’t heard of the skin barrier, it’s about time to get acquainted with it, because it turns out it’s vital. Your skin barrier helps protect your skin from the external environment, and if it becomes damaged, that can leave you with irritated, sensitive skin, as well as an older-looking complexion. Here, learn more about your skin barrier, including how to put together a skin care routine to repair it and our best skin care product (a skin repair cream) to help you do just that.

WHAT IS YOUR SKIN BARRIER?

Before we get into what you can do to repair your skin’s moisture barrier, it’s important to understand exactly what it is. Your skin barrier, also known as your moisture barrier, is the top layer of your skin. It keeps moisture in and irritants out, and is responsible for the appearance of beautiful skin. But certain factors can cause damage to your skin barrier, which leads us to our next point.

WHAT CAN DAMAGE YOUR SKIN BARRIER?

Your skin barrier can be damaged by external factors like pollution and dirt, as well as internal factors like stress and dehydration. These culprits can break down your skin barrier. What’s more, skin’s moisture barrier weakens with age, resulting in less hydration, more prominent fine lines and wrinkles, and loss of firmness. 

HOW CAN YOU STRENGTHEN AND REPAIR YOUR SKIN BARRIER?

Our best skin care product to help repair your skin barrier is the L’Oréal Paris Revitalift Cicacream Face Moisturizer Pro-Retinol & Centella Asiatica, which is formulated with Pro-Retinol and Centella Asiatica, an herb, also known as tiger grass, used in traditional Chinese medicine. Formulated for the face, our cica cream helps repair the skin barrier to resist visible signs of aging. This lightweight cream helps strengthen and repair the skin barrier to help resist visible signs of aging that a weakened barrier can accentuate.

Immediately, skin feels softer, smoother, and more supple, and firmness and tone look improved. With continued use, skin looks rejuvenated, the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles is reduced, and clarity improves. As the skin barrier gets stronger, it helps resist signs of aging over time as well. Every morning and evening, smooth our skin barrier cream over your face until thoroughly absorbed. For best results, use in conjunction with other Revitalift products.

WHAT’S THE BEST SKIN CARE ROUTINE TO STRENGTHEN YOUR SKIN BARRIER?

If you're concerned about your skin barrier, here’s a skin care routine you can follow.

Step 1: Gently cleanse your face. Reach for a facial cleanser that will gently remove makeup and other impurities from the surface of your skin, like the L’Oréal Paris Revitalift Radiant Smoothing Cream Cleanser. This facial cleanser helps remove all traces of impurities and makeup and helps make skin appear more radiant. Wet your face, then massage the facial cleanser onto your skin and rinse thoroughly with lukewarm water. (Pro tip: Hot water can strip your skin of essential oils, making it feel drier, so lukewarm water is a better option for your skin.) 

Step 2: Apply cica cream. The next step in your skin care routine should be applying your cica cream. Remember, cica cream is the skin care product that can help strengthen and repair your skin barrier. Smooth it over your face until thoroughly absorbed. 

Step 3: Dab on an eye cream. Don’t forget about the delicate skin around your eyes. Use an eye cream that can help minimize the appearance of dark circles, fine lines, and wrinkles with continued use over time, like the L’Oréal Paris Revitalift Anti-Wrinkle + Firming Eye Cream. Lightly pat the eye cream onto your under-eye area—don’t tug!

Step 4: Smooth on moisturizer. After eye cream, it’s time to apply moisturizer, like the L’Oréal Paris Revitalift Triple Power™ Intensive Anti-Aging Day Cream Moisturizer, which is formulated with hyaluronic acid and Pro-Xylane. This lightweight yet intensely moisturizing formula absorbs quickly and leaves skin feeling velvety soft.

Immediately, skin is deeply hydrated, while skin texture looks smoother, skin feels firmer, and the appearance of wrinkles is reduced with continued use. Every morning and evening, smooth the moisturizer over your face, neck, and jawline until thoroughly absorbed. For best results, use in conjunction with other L’Oréal Paris Revitalift skin care products.

Step 5: Use sun protection in the morning. At night, you can end your skin care routine with moisturizer—but in the morning, you should think about sun protection. That’s because spending time in the sun without protection can contribute to the breakdown of your skin barrier, as well as visible signs of aging like dark spots, fine lines, and wrinkles showing up down the road.

Look for a broad-spectrum sunscreen—that means it protects against both UVA and UVB rays—with an SPF of 30 or higher and apply it as directed, making sure to reapply every two hours. If you’re in a time crunch and want to pare down the number of steps in your skin care routine, you can do so by using a moisturizer with SPF, like the L’Oréal Paris Revitalift Triple Power Day Lotion SPF 30. This moisturizer with SPF is also formulated with hyaluronic acid, Pro-Retinol, and vitamin C—all gold standards in anti-aging skin care.

There are other sun protection measures you should take, too. Limit your amount of time in the sun (especially between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., which are the sun’s peak hours), seek shade when you’re outside, and cover up exposed areas in long sleeves, pants, a broad-brimmed hat, and UV-blocking sunglasses.

Ready for more skin care advice? If you’re interested in putting together an anti-aging skin care routine, head on over to our article, How to Start an Anti-Aging Skin Care Routine, for skin care tips and product recommendations that can help you maintain a beautiful, healthy-looking complexion.