What’s in your skincare products? Chances are, you can name one or two of the top active ingredients. But what else is in there, and what is it doing to your skin? Here’s what’s really going on with your skincare ingredients, and why customized skincare just works better.
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Your Skin Is Delicately Balanced
Whether or not your skin is sensitive or easygoing depends on a complicated balance of different factors. These include environmental pollutants, hormones, genetics, and lifestyle factors like your diet. Any changes you make to your lifestyle or skincare regimen can affect this balance. Sometimes for the better, like when you use a product to treat a skincare concern. But sometimes for the worse.
Have you ever used a mass market skincare product, only to get unexpected results? Maybe it promised to cure your acne, but left your skin tight and shiny. Or cured your dryness but left your skin oily instead. That’s because it upset the delicate balance of your skin, and your skin is trying to compensate and undo the damage.
Customized skincare products don’t just consider the problem you want to address. They also consider the unique needs and balance of your skin. That’s critical to getting skincare results that match your expectations and don’t produce unwanted side effects.
More Isn’t Always Better For Skincare Ingredients
When it comes to top skincare concerns, many products fall back on the same tried and tested ingredients. Retinol, a form of Vitamin A, is incredibly effective at treating acne and signs of premature aging. But overuse can cause itchy, scaly patches on your skin or trigger acne breakouts. Alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) can improve skin appearance and texture by increasing cell shedding. But using the wrong acids, or too high a concentration, can cause irritation and make your symptoms worse.
It’s tempting to search the shelves for the product with the highest possible amount of the most effective ingredients, but more isn’t always better. Instead, the active ingredients in skincare should match your skin’s natural or desired balance.
If you’ve ever used an off-the-shelf skincare product that made your problems worse, not better, chances are the ingredients were out of balance with your skin’s unique needs. Customized products don’t just select the best ingredients for your skin concerns, they also adjust the concentration of those products to match your skin’s needs. That means you get maximum effectiveness, with minimum irritation.
Some Skincare Ingredients Aren’t Biocompatible
Another common problem with off-the-shelf skincare products is how they interact with each other. What happens to your skin if you use a cleanser designed for oil control, a serum for antiaging, and a moisturizer that tackles hyperpigmentation?
At best, nothing. Some of the ingredients in those products will probably cancel each other out, but without harming your skin. But worst case, you end up creating the effects you wanted to treat.
You shouldn’t mix retinol with AHAs. Or niacinamide with Vitamin C. Or dapsone and benzoyl peroxide. If you’re not a dermatologist, it can be hard to know what to avoid — especially as so many products have different names. For example, you might find retinoids listed as retinol, retinaldehyde, retinyl esters, tretinoin, adapalene, tazarotene, or trifarotene. None of these should be used with hydroxy acids, Vitamin C, or each other. But with so many different names and ingredients and interactions to watch out for, mistakes are inevitable.
Trying to mix and match off-the-shelf products is a sure way to get unexpected skincare results. Customized skincare solves this by reducing the need for all those different products to begin with. A customized formulation can treat all your concerns at once, and always includes biocompatible ingredients to minimize unwanted interactions.
It Isn’t All About The Ingredients In Your Skincare
We know that retinol is a powerful skincare ingredient, but it’s more effective in some formulations than others. Why? Because the concentration and pH of the formulation matter almost as much as the ingredients they contain. That’s why customized skincare brand Qyral has taken their products a step further, adjusting the concentration and pH of the ingredients in each of their formulations.
Your skin is naturally acidic. This acid mantle helps protect your skin from bacteria and environmental pollutants. The least irritating skincare formulations are also acidic at the same pH as your skin. That’s why skincare formulations often contain pH adjusters to give them the right level of acidity.
The pH level also matters for the individual ingredients in your formulation. For example retinol works best in formulations of 4 to 6.6 pH. That’s about the same pH as skin, which ranges from 4.7 to 5.75 pH (lower is more acidic). But on a scale of 0-14, there’s a big difference between skin — and skincare formulations — at the high and low end of that scale.
Skin with low acid levels can be more prone to acne or dryness. Too acidic and it can become inflamed and painful. Your ideal products will work with your skin’s natural acid levels and correct them if they fall too high or low. Qyral customized formulations not only do this, but they also ensure they deliver active ingredients at the optimal pH for the best results for your skin’s needs.
Customized Products Are Revolutionizing Skincare
Mass market products have lots of limitations because they need to cater to millions of people with the same formulations. They can’t adjust precisely to individual concentration and pH requirements. They can’t treat multiple skincare concerns at once. And they can’t account for the other skincare products you might use alongside them. It’s no surprise that for most people they only produce okayish results.
Even when you do find a product that works, there’s no guarantee that it will last. Due to lifestyle changes or simply getting older, your skincare needs will evolve and your mass market products won’t.
Customized skincare is different. It’s made for you, using the best ingredients for your skin. And then personalized skincare from Qyral goes a step further by adjusting the formulation to deliver the right concentration of ingredients at the right pH for your unique needs. It’s the most effective skincare you’ll ever use, because it was made just for you.