Beautiful skin is an attainable goal — and age isn’t a barrier. Whether you’re dealing with hormonal acne or trying to ward off dryness and fine lines, skin concerns come at every age — the key to overcoming them is knowing what ingredients are in your products and what exactly they do.
If you want great skin, it’s important to become familiar with skincare products and their ingredients lists. You may not be able to describe in detail what every single chemical does, but by paying attention to the first couple of ingredients you’ll be able to get a sense of which active ingredients it contains in abundance. Is hyaluronic acid one of your serum’s top ingredients? Great — that translates to more hydration and moisture on your skin. Does your moisturizer contain high amounts of vitamin C? Fantastic — you can expect excellent the benefits of an antioxidant that can prevent sun damage (among other things).
But it’s also important to be on the look-out for a few ingredients that some products sneak in that can actually have a drying, irritating effect on your skin. Dr. Jodi LoGerfo, dermatologist with the Orentreich Medical Group, sheds light on the two super-dehydrating skincare ingredients that can cause dryness and wrinkles.
Alcohol
“Our skin has a love-hate relationship with alcohol,” Dr. LoGerfo says. “Sometimes its forms and functions are grossly misunderstood. If alcohol is properly used in a skincare formulation, it can be helpful to the overall product. Alcohol can increase the penetration of other important ingredients into the skin, it has the ability to thin out a solution, it can act as a ‘slip’ agent (like an emollient or hydrator) and it may improve the product’s overall efficacy.”
However, that’s not the entire picture when it comes to alcohol, because as many of us know, it can also be extremely drying. Whether or not it will adversely affect your skin has a lot to do with whether you skin is naturally oily, dry, or combination. “If your skin is dry to begin with, this can make skincare a little more complicated,” Dr. LoGerfo says. “Alcohol can increase irritation, redness, itching and sensitivity. If you fall into this category, I recommend that you look for alcohols that are more kind to dry skin. Cetyl alcohol is an alcohol that is more emollient-acting as an emulsifier or moisturizer-preventing dry skin and making skin soft and supple.”
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate/Sodium Laureth Sulfate
You may have already heard of Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)/sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) — surfactants used in personal care items like soaps and body washes. “They are sulfates derived from coconut oil, palm kernel oil and petroleum,” Dr. LoGerfo says. “They are foaming agents that give products lots of lather. They strip the skin of their natural oils which makes skin more sensitive and dry. These 2 surfactants are similar but different. SLS binds to proteins on the skin surface more easily than SLES, which means SLS has the potential to be more irritating. Although these ingredients aren’t bad for the majority of consumers, they (especially SLS) can be irritating, especially if you have dry or sensitive skin to begin with.”
In short: depending on your skin type, you may have been using products with these two ingredients all along and not noticing any difference. But if you are drier than usual, these ingredients could be the culprit.
“If you have a sensitivity to the above ingredients or have sensitive skin to begin with, you may want to avoid both,” Dr. LoGerfo says. “You may want to use an alcohol-free product, or you may want to avoid SLS or SLES. It isn’t that these products are bad, but people can find them to be worsening to dry or sensitive skin.”
