Natural Skin Care – The importance of your Skin’s pHOur skin’s functions are too many to go through here in detail, however it protects our ‘insides’ from
external environment, acting both as a barrier and a filter between ‘outside’ and ‘inside’.
The skin helps in regulating our body’s temperature, like when we have a fever or we’re physically working hard, we tend to sweat, which is body’s way to attempt to lower temperature.
Our skin also protects us from harmful substances entering our body, and it eliminates many toxins. This takes workload off our Liver and Kidneys to filter out by-products from our body’s metabolism. The skin also breathes!
The pores of our skin are made up of a combination of oil and sweat glands (sebaceous and sudoriferous glands) helping to keep our skin healthy and elastic. An excessive sebum secretion is often associated with oily skin and acne. This is particularly common in adolescents as increased levels of sex hormones stimulate sebum production and secretion. When in balance, combined excretion of oil and sweat from skin’s pores has a pH of about 5.5.
This slightly acidic layer, also referred to as “Acid Mantle”, is our body’s first defence mechanism against bacteria invading it and is not a favourable environment bacterial growth to occur. This defence layer develops at puberty, which is why children are more susceptible to disease, viruses and fungal infections such are ringworm. The pH of children’s skin is closer to neutral (pH 7).
At puberty, however, we start to produce more hair on our bodies. Hair follicles have an associated sebaceous gland or glands which become active as hair growth increases, causing changes in skin’s pH. The hormones that control sweat also become active and whole surface of a teenager’s skin is totally different to that of a young child. This is our body’s way to increase our defence system.
The pH of normal, healthy human skin is somewhere between 4.5 and 6. However, this varies with age. Typically, newborns have a pH closer to neutral (pH 7) that quickly turns acidic in order to protect young children’s skin.
In late teens to early 20’s, our Acid Mantle is well developed and provides good protection against potentially harmful, external environmental factors. Our skin usually looks healthy, heals quickly when injured and seems to take care of itself.
With increasing age however, skin’s pH becomes more and more neutral, and thus more susceptible to bacterial growth. This reduced acidity kills fewer bacteria than before, leaving skin susceptible to bacterial growth and infections. The skin weakens as a result and begins developing problems with increasing age. (Interestingly, pH value rises beyond 6 when a person actually suffers from a skin problem or skin disease.)
The aging process of skin causes biochemical changes in collagen and elastin, connective tissues underlying skin, which give skin its firmness (collagen) and elasticity (elastin). The rates of loss of skin firmness and elasticity differs from individual to individual, depending on their genetic makeup, general health, over exposure to sun, skin care regime, or lack there of, and other factors.
As skin becomes less elastic, it also becomes drier; underlying fatty tissue begins to disappear resulting in skin beginning to sag. Our skin is less supple, and wrinkles begin to form. At this stage, our skin is more easily injured, heals more slowly and tends to dry out more quickly. As outlined above, skin’s pH is important and maintaining a slightly acidic pH of around 5.5 is critical.
