Managing sensitive skin can be somewhat tricky. Not only can sensitive skin be cranky-pants and changeable, but finding skincare products that won’t strip your skin, irritate it, or leave it red and itchy can be challenging.
But hey, there’s good news! There are an ever-growing number of natural moisturisers on the market specifically designed with sensitive skin in mind.
Moisturising is insanely important for sensitive skin. It not only helps to calm and hydrate your skin, but it also protects your skin’s barrier function. A healthy skin barrier is made up of oils and keeps moisture in and irritants out – so moisture is a must!
The trick is to clue up on which ingredients to steer clear of and which skin-loving ingredients to look out for.
Here at Woohoo Body, we avoid common skin irritants such as synthetic fragrances, artificial colours, certain chemical preservatives and parabens.
We just love the goodness of natural ingredients (no surprise there!), but we’re also mindful that even natural ingredients can infuriate sensitive skin.
Take essential oils for example – while they can make your products smell aaahhhhh-mazing, they are often the culprit when it comes to irritation. That’s why our range limits essential oils to a maximum of 1% in our formulas and we prefer to use them in wash-off products like cleansers, leaving most of our serums and moisturisers essential oil free for maximum skin happiness.
Gel, Cream, or Oil – what’s best?
It’s important to choose the right moisturising formula style for sensitive skin as there are a few options and each has its own perks.
Water-based gels are the lightestproduct, and they’re bombdiggity for sensitive skin. They are easy-breezy to apply, quick to absorb and allow active ingredients to penetrate easily.
Anoil is waterless and is the heaviestout of our 3 moisturiser styles. It is more limited in its ability to deliver active ingredients than water-based formulas because there are less oil-solluble actives available to us skincare formulators. However it does do the essential jobs of restoring your skin’s barrier and nourishing your skin extremely well.
Acream is in the middle– it’s made of both water-based AND oil-based ingredients. This means you get the best of both worlds! It can penetrate deeply, effectively delivering nutrients, hydration and actives, and at the same time help keep your skin’s barrier healthy and strong.
Do you have DRY, sensitive skin?
Sensitive skin so often goes hand in hand with dry skin.
Sensitive skin tends to have a thinner or ‘compromised’ skin barrier (AKA acid mantle) which allows moisture to escape easily and for your skin to become dry. Dry skin can then in turn exacerbate sensitive skin concerns like flakiness and irritation. It can be a vicious cycle!
Combining ingredients that are fabulous at strengthening and repairing your skin barrier with a formula that’s kind on sensitive skin is a must, whilst avoiding ingredients that will aggravate or sensitise you further. Gentle is the key.
When choosing your moisturiser style, creams and oils are your go-to. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use a gel – you just need to pair it with an oil. By applying an oil AFTER your gel you’ll give yourself a protective oily barrier that will seal all the gel goodness in.
Or have you got OILY, sensitive skin?
On the flip side, we also meet lots of folk who have oily skin that is sensitive. If your skin is oily and sensitive it’s a bit more difficult to understand the cause and we’re still researching this. However, we’ve noticed that it tends to be because your skin is sensitised by something internal (diet, hormones, gut health) rather than external (the environment around you).
If you have oily sensitive skin, you’ll most likely want to avoid heavy oils, aggressive cleansers and exfoliators, and serums that have excessive levels of actives such as retinol (remember, more is not always better!).
The ideal products for you will hydrate, calm and protect your skin but without aggravating it or suffocating it with too much oil and clogging your pores. You don’t necessarily need oil-free products – just choose your oils carefully (but we’ll save that for another blog post) :)
The Woohoo range of skin-loving moisturisers (andserums) are absolutely perfect for sensitive souls of all skin types, and we have gels, creams and oils to choose from.
And, rest assured when we say sensitive-skin friendly, we really mean it. Here are a few of our faves and why.
For your body: ‘Serenity’ Hyaluronic Gel
OurSerenity Hyaluronic Gelis particularly wondrous on sensitive skin because it’s powered by Hyaluronic acid, which is intensely hydrating.
We've teamed Hyaluronic Acid up with Vitamin B5, one of the heroes of sensitive skincare. Vitamin B5 has the smarts to prop up skin cell production, which boosts the barrier function. This increases cell turnover also works wonders on dry skin, improves skin tone, and reduces inflammation.
Add Aloe Vera into the mix and you have a match made in skin heaven. The cooling benefits of Aloe Vera help reduce redness and irritation—two common pitfalls of sensitive skin.
To go next-level with your body moisturising, apply an oil-based moisturiser like theTLC Intensive Repair OilorWoohoo Solid Moisturising Body Barover the top of the gel. This oily layer on top will seal in all the goodness for longer lasting hydration.
Light facial moisturiser for oily and combination skin: Butterfly Kisses Probiotic Gel Cream
The Butterfly Kisses Probiotic Gel Cream is super-duper light and halfway between a gel and a cream. So we call it a “gel cream”!
Butterfly Kisses calls on the amazing power of the Ayurvedic Moth Bean plant - a nifty natural Retinol alternative (we refer to it as a Bio-Retinol) – to create a gently renewing and oil-balancing moisturiser with the optimal amount of active ingredients.
It’s a wonderful alternative to Retinol-based products which are popular for anti-ageing and acne. Whereas Retinol can cause irritation and peeling, and decrease the skin barrier function, Moth Bean delivers Vitamin-A-like skin magic without the skin sensitising drawbacks.
Butterfly Kisses is also sensational under makeup for all skin types.
Rich facial moisturiser for normal, combination and dry skin: ‘Over the Moon’ Rich Repair Cream
The Over the Moon Rich Repair Cream is our best-selling moisturiser and loved for its skin repairing powers as it does such an incredible job at keeping your skin barrier strong and healthy.
One of the Over the Moon’s star ingredients is Vitamin B3, which does a lovely job at boosting the production of ceramides and fatty acids, which help keep your skin’s protective barrier (acid mantle) happy.
The native Australian super-fruit Quandong adds extra oomph to the Over the Moon Rich Repair Cream’s formula by reducing the appearance of redness with its natural anti-inflammatory properties.
Vitamin B3 and Quandong are backed up my MSM (a bio-available form of sulphur). MSM amplifies the other active ingredients in this gentle formula to help them penetrate your skin more effectively and do their job better.
Facial oil for dry skin: Laugh Out Loud Nourishing Facial Oil
The Laugh Out Loud Nourishing Facial Oil brings gentle joy to unhappy skin, thanks to its beautiful blend of jojoba oil and other sensitive skin saviours (there are too many to name them all here!).
To help repair and reduce the appearance of redness we’ve included the beautiful Buriti Oil, which hails from the Amazon. It’s high in beta carotene which your skin turns it into Vitamin A to help repair and reduce the appearance of redness.
Thanks to the wonderfully gentle anti-irritant properties of Bisabolol (which is extracted from the Chamomile plant), the Laugh Out Loud is like giving your skin a big hug, promoting your skin’s natural healing process, lessening visible redness, and calming your skin.
Finding the best moisturiser for sensitive skin is really all about choosing the right combination of gentle, skin-caring ingredients that bring about glowing, rather than grouchy, skin. If you still have questions, we'd love to help out. :) Just contact us or request a free skin consultation.
