The HAppy skin ingredient
How does Hyaluronic Acid work?
The heat’s been mad lately, so I’m in the mood for talking about everyone’s favorite hydrating ingredient: hyaluronic acid!
Hyaluronic acid has got to be one of the most common hydrating ingredients in skincare. Not only is it great at its job, it’s one of those golden ingredients that works well with almost all others!
HA? What do you mean?
Something to know about hyaluronic acid is that it is a naturally occurring substance in the body. It’s everywhere! There’s a lot of it in your skin, but it’s also easy to find in your bones and cartilage, tendons, and even your eyes! You can think of it as an essential lubricant that keeps the miracle that is your body running smoothly.
When it comes to skincare, hyaluronic acid is a humectant. This means that it helps your skin hold on to moisture and wick it from the air. It can hold 1,000 times its weight in water which makes it a great partner for healthy skin. Including hyaluronic acid in your skincare routine will help provide your skin with what it needs to feel supple and bouncy while also helping to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
Hyaluronic acid is also known for its skin barrier strengthening properties, not just replenishing it with water, but also stimulating the production of elastin and collagen for better overall protection. If you’re wondering what happens if you’re hosting a damaged skin barrier, you can take a look at our post all about it here.
So HAppy together
As I touched on at the top, another great feature of hyaluronic acid is that it plays well with almost every other skincare ingredient. Despite the word “acid” in the name, it is a soothing ingredient, so is a great addition to a skincare regime that contains products like vitamin C or retinol as well as acid exfoliators like AHA, BHA, and PHA. It also works great with other soothing ingredients like niacinamide.
Most skin types are receptive to hyaluronic acid too! Whether you have oily skin, dry skin, or sensitive skin, we can all benefit from a little more moisture!
Diving deeper
Hyaluronic acid has the fun (and useful) property of coming in different molecular weights. What this means for skincare is that different sized HA molecules can penetrate the skin to different depths. This is important to know if you want to deliver all the juicy hydration benefits deeper in your skin.
Grabbing yourself something like the Green Tea Seed Serum that wonders for replenishing moisture, as it contains five types of hyaluronic acids of different molecular weights that penetrate deeper into your skin (the lower the weight, the deeper it goes). As a pre-serum, it gives you the opportunity to lock in moisture right at the beginning of your skincare routine and help prepare your skin for the next products you use.
Don’t HA-sitate!
This one is a no brainer! For most folks, hyaluronic acid will be an absolutely welcome addition to their skincare. For a lot of us, our routines already feature the ingredient - that’s just how common it is. But it’s always good to know what it is you’re putting on your face, and to understand how exactly it’s helping you. If you’re not sure, we always recommend an in-store patch test!
Stay hydrated!
x
Gi