pH and Skincare
Have you noticed how more and more brands are starting to let us know of the pH level of their products? I first saw it on Korean products, but then I noticed that some Western brands have started doing it too.
Remember your high school chemistry class when you got to dig a piece of paper into a particular liquid and that paper changed colour? I am sure you remember that. That was litmus paper, and you were effectively testing the pH level. Let me remind you: the scale goes from 1 to 14, with 7 being “neutral”. 1 to 6 being the acidity scale, and the 8 to 14 was the alkaline scale.
Guess what? Your uppermost layer of skin is actually acidic, with researchers not being able to give you one concrete number, but it is generally somewhere between 4.7 to 5.5. Our skin has a protective layer called the “acidic mantle”, which keeps us save from external aggressors and allows for a proper functioning of our microbiome.
Have you ever washed your face with soap and had very tight dry skin after? Well, this is likely because the soap was not very “skin friendly”, i.e. probably with a pH higher than 6.5. If you do use such products constantly, this can have a negative impact on your acidic mantle, and hence, of your skin health as a whole.
The skincare industry has been aware of that, so what they now produce is “pH balanced skincare” – with a pH somewhere between 4.5 and 7, usually (but most times, they don´t actually tell you the real pH, so they leave you guessing and trusting their word). But worry not, litmus paper still exists for everyone to purchase and find out for themselves what the pH level of a particular product is. This is exciting, science-y, investigatory, and kind of just fun. Try it. I did, and I have no regrets. I will keep testing my products, I will keep testing the companies´ “word”.