Alcohol in skin care
When it comes to the use of alcohol in skincare, there are wake-up calls for many. Withering, irritating - these are the properties that are usually associated with it. Today we are going to tell you which alcohols are suitable and even beneficial for skin care and which ones should be avoided, especially for sensitive or dry skin.
What alcohols are "bad" alcohols for skin care?
In the skincare sector, "bad" alcohols are mainly denatured alcohol, denatured ethanol, ethyl alcohol, methanol, isopropyl alcohol, benzyl alcohol. They have a drying effect, and sometimes irritate the skin. The official WHO hand sanitizer recipe contains 70% isopropyl alcohol, and we all know how much sanitizer dries hands in the long run. There is no other way here, since this concentration is necessary for the destruction of microbes and viruses. The skin on your hands can wear off a lot more than the skin on your face, so you definitely need to be a little more careful. For example, Alcohol Denat means denatured alcohol and also has a dehydrating effect.
By the way, these alcohols are especially popular in inexpensive products for oily skin or acne, as they disinfect the surface of the skin and remove the oil film. At first glance, this may seem attractive, but such products have been shown to only dry out oily skin, which is usually already completely broken, and therefore not a good solution in the long run. In the long term, these products can weaken the barrier of sensitive skin, leading to more breakouts and breakouts, so be careful with these alcohol-based products!
Then what are "good" alcohols?
Yes, that's right, there are good alcohols that do not dry the skin, and sometimes even nourish it and make it smoother. These include, for example, cetyl alcohol, stearyl alcohol, cetearyl alcohol, behenyl alcohol, lanolin alcohol and myristyl alcohol. They all have one thing in common: they belong to the so-called "fatty alcohols". They do not remove moisture from the skin and are not harmful. On the contrary, they even have nutritional properties. They are mainly used as emollients and thickeners in skin care products and are not a concern even for very dry skin.
In conclusion, not all alcohol is the same and it is definitely worth taking a closer look at the ingredients of a product. This is the only way to know if you are doing something good for your skin or not.
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