3 Natural Ways to Keep Your Skin Hydrated and Glowing All Year Round

Reference Lab

JUN 07, 2023

Skin care can feel complicated, but one thing rings true: in order to have healthy looking and feeling skin, it should be adequately hydrated. A combination of factors, including your skin type, environment, and the products you use, can contribute or detract from skin hydration. Continue reading to help take the mystery out of skin care and learn a few ways to hydrate your skin and keep it glowing all year round.

A core pillar to healthy skin is hydration. Hydration refers to the water content in your skin cells, which allows for proper cell function and promotes skin elasticity and strength. Skin cells have a robust capacity to regenerate, but they require water to work optimally. That’s why it’s important to keep skin hydrated 24/7. Skin is your body’s largest organ and serves numerous essential functions, including limiting internal water loss and regulating your immune system.¹ Like your other vital organs, access to an adequate amount of water is crucial to optimize the function of your skin.

If your skin can’t stay hydrated, it can’t serve your health and wellness. Simple lifestyle changes to promote the functional integrity of your skin health can revolutionize how you feel every day. By understanding the difference between hydrating vs moisturizing as well as integrating simple and effective skin hydrating habits into your routine, you can begin to hydrate your skin in a sustainable way. For most healthy adults, daily habits have everything to do with their hydration levels. While you can boost your skin’s hydration with topical skin care products, hydration is primarily derived from the inside-out. And the same can be true for dehydration. If you consistently make choices that limit your water intake, such as opting for soda over water on a daily basis or eating a sodium-rich diet, you may be fueling skin dehydration.

Skin’s thickness and barrier function plays an essential role in the amount of transepidermal water loss that you experience. If your skin barrier is compromised, you may experience dehydration. Factors that can compromise a skin’s moisture barrier include poor diet and inadequate daily water intake.

Illnesses can also cause dehydrated skin. Losing bodily fluids through vomiting or diarrhea drains the body of water. You may not feel up to drinking extra water while feeling sick, leading to dehydration that affects your entire body.² Going for a prolonged period without enough water in your system means your body becomes less efficient at delivering nutrients to your organs and systems, which can have a downstream effect on skin, including flaking and breakouts.

Anyone who exercises intensely or sweats daily may also struggle with dehydrated skin. Sweating uses your internal fluids to cool your body, but it also means depleting essential water and electrolytes in your organs. Without replenishing your body during exercise, you may experience increased challenges due to dehydration. Though most of us can feel when our body’s are dehydrated, it can help to analyze your skin’s hydration levels specifically. What you find may surprise you and can inform a more effective skincare routine.

You can easily test your skin hydration levels at home by pinching the skin on your cheek or the back of your hand. If it slowly goes back into place, you’re likely dehydrated. You could also need more water if your skin feels too tight to pinch.

If you want to get a more detailed story of your skin’s hydration, your dermatologist can use instruments such as a spectroscopic machine, which provides a skin structure analysis and information about hydration, among other skin health parameters.³ Other techniques like capacitance and Raman are also available in some offices. If you feel like you provide your body with enough water through your diet, the next best way to hydrate your skin may be by rethinking your skin care routine. Consider the following changes or additions to your skin care routine to achieve more hydrated skin. Providing your skin cells with ingredients that will give them an extra health boost may be the key to achieving optimal skin hydration. Ingredients like OneSkin’s OS-01 peptide is scientifically proven to improve key skin health markers, such as epidermal thickness and skin barrier function, along with increasing markers associated with collagen and hyaluronic acid production, as shown in lab studies on human skin samples (Zonari, et al).

When your skin cells are healthier and able to produce more hyaluronic acid naturally, your skin will become better equipped to retain moisture. When developing a skin care routine, we often think about topical products, but there are other tools that can help influence our skin’s environment and keep skin hydrated. One tried and true method to maintain proper moisture levels in your environment is through a humidifier. Humidifiers are especially useful in areas with strong four seasons, as moisture levels in the air can vary throughout the year. Investing in a humidifier will ease your skin’s hydration challenges throughout dry skin periods. A recent study found that when participants used a humidifier to increase environmental humidity, their skin functioned better.⁴ Turning a humidifier on while working from home or sleeping could be an easy way to keep your skin glowing all year round. Though skin naturally exfoliates itself to get rid of older cells and replaces them with younger healthier ones, dead skin cells can stick to the top layer of skin,causing dry and flaky skin on the outer layer. Gently exfoliating two to three times weekly can help remove dead skin cells and encourage cellular turnover, which inturn allows skin to retain hydration more efficiently.⁵ Consistency is key in maintaining skin hydration, which is why the next three ways about how to keep skin hydrated involve your habits and routines. You wouldn’t start your day without breakfast or a cup of coffee, so treat your skin to what it needs too. If you take steps to restore and nourish your skin through a morning skin care routine, you can set your skin cells up for success for the rest of the day.

Start by cleansing your face, or simply rinse it with water if your skin is clean from the night before. If you’re looking for a daily gel cleanser that gently exfoliates skin without disrupting its natural lipid barrier and microbiome, consider using OneSkin’s PREP. Once your skin is clean and ready to absorb hydrating products, apply a daily peptide body lotion or moisturizer to help lock in moisture. Consider using a peptide moisturizer with added benefits, such as OS-01 FACE, powered OneSkin’s proprietary OS-01 peptide. In a 12-week clinical study, OS-01 FACE improved the skin’s hydration and barrier function by 15% on average.

Do you notice dry skin around the eyes? Because the skin in the eye area is thinner than the rest of the face, and it may require a little extra TLC to stay hydrated. You may consider incorporating a daily moisturizer specifically designed for the eye area skin to bolster its lipid barrier and help prevent water loss around the eyes. OneSkin’s OS-01 EYE was specifically designed to address the ultra-delicate skin around the eyes. With their highest concentration of the OS-01 peptide yet, the peptide eye cream is equipped to maintain eye skin hydration throughout the day.

Be sure to finish your morning with an SPF to prevent sun damage, which can accelerate skin aging and worsen dehydration.

You and your skin go through a lot throughout the day. The evening is the perfect time to show yourself and your skin the love it deserves, and set it up for a restorative night.

Start by removing any makeup and sunscreen you may have worn during the day. Then remove excess dirt, oils, and impurities with a gentle cleanser. If you choose to exfoliate, this is a good time to work that step in. Once your skin is cleansed and prepared to absorb the rest of your routine, apply a moisturizer to your face. If you use the same moisturizer as your morning routine, such as OS-01 FACE, you may choose to layer on a heavier nighttime moisturizer as well. Just be sure to wait one or two minutes between steps so that your skin can fully experience the benefits of each product at a time. Finally, you may choose to use a moisturizer specifically formulated for the eyes, such as OS-01 EYE. Hydration is primarily an inside job. By drinking enough water and engaging in a healthy diet, you can adequately nourish your skin and keep it hydrated from the inside-out. Skin repair foods, such as a diet high in protein and healthy fats is essential to maintaining optimal collagen and elastin levels for a healthy skin barrier. Plants also provide the necessary phytochemicals for your skin to detox and function optimally.

When you start a routine that includes water-based foods and plenty of hydrating beverages, you’ll see a healthy glow return to your appearance. Once you’ve locked in a healthy diet, you should look into finding the right products for your skin type. Understanding what products work best for your skin type requires diligence and some trial and error. Be sure to research all skin care products and opt for data-validated ingredients and formulas. Introduce one product at a time, with a few days in between each new product, to assess what works, what you can go without, and what may be irritating your skin.

Keep an eye out for hydrating ingredients that tend to be less irritating, such as hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, glycerin, and Tremella Fuciformis. Also, consider choosing skin care products that will put in the work on behalf of your skin cells. OneSkin’s OS-01 peptide is scientifically proven to increase a key marker associated with hyaluronic acid, shown in lab studies on human skin samples (Zonari, et al., 2023). That means your skin cells may produce more hyaluronic acid on their own, equipping them with the right tools to retain moisture better on their own.

• Skin hydration is an inside job - It starts with a healthy diet and adequate water intake.
• Developing a healthy and consistent skin care routine for the morning and evening will set your skin up for lasting hydration.
• OneSkin’s OS-01 peptide may enhance skin’s natural hydration capacity by increasing a key marker associated with hyaluronic acid production, shown in lab studies on human skin samples (Zonari, et al)

Sources:

1. https://www.spandidos-publications.com/10.3892/etm.2020.8619
2. https://www.upmc.com/health-library/article?hwid=dehyd
3. https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9284/6/1/19
4. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.30.362822v2.full
5. https://www.ijcspub.org/papers/IJCSP22B1150.pdf