Essay on the difference and connection between beauty and skin health

Health is the prerequisite for all beauty behaviors. Compliant and suitable beauty methods can in turn consolidate health status and amplify health benefits. The two extreme misunderstandings in the current public perception that "beauty equals skin care" and "beauty will inevitably harm the skin" essentially confuse the boundaries and applicable conditions of the two.

Last week, when I was helping out at a cosmetology clinic that the dermatology department cooperates with, I met a girl who had just entered her sophomore year. She came in with her face covered. Her cheekbones were covered in red rashes, her face was swollen like a freshly steamed sourdough bun, and her eyes were almost narrowed into slits. When I asked, I found out that in order to catch up with the club's graduation party performance, she went to the small beauty salon at the school gate to get a "99 yuan quick whitening and peeling" the day before. After the treatment, her face was indeed two shades brighter, and it was particularly photogenic when she took pictures on stage. As a result, she ended up looking like this after sleeping all night, and she was so itchy that she couldn't fall asleep for half the night. I did a transcutaneous water loss test on her, and the value was three times higher than the normal threshold. It was obvious that the stratum corneum barrier was damaged. She was sitting in the clinic still confused: "Isn't it said that beauty is skin care? Why am I becoming more and more beautiful? ”

This is a typical equation of beauty and skin health. The core of skin health is never "good-looking", but "steady state" - to put it bluntly, it means that your skin can withstand the seasonal cooling, staying up late at night, and occasionally being exposed to the sun for half an hour. It will not easily become red, break out, or sting. It has a balanced water and oil secretion, a complete barrier of brick wall structure, and normal immune function. This evaluation cycle is at least monthly or quarterly. It does not mean that if you put on a mask today and your face is not stretched the next day, it will be considered healthy. The core logic of beauty is "appearance optimization." Whether it is cosmetic, such as applying lipstick and foundation, or functional, such as using whitening essence or photorejuvenation, the essence is to make the visual state of the skin more in line with the current aesthetics in the shortest possible time. The evaluation criterion is often "immediate effect", which can even be temporary and reversible.

Regarding the boundary between the two, the industry has actually been arguing for many years, and there is no absolutely unified standard answer. Most clinicians in the traditional dermatology department prefer "health is the absolute priority" and believe that any cosmetic behavior should not cause additional damage to the skin, even if it is reversible. When I was outpatients, there was an old professor who had been working for almost 40 years. When I met a young girl who wanted to undergo cosmetic surgery, she first had to conduct a barrier assessment for half an hour. As long as there was a little subclinical inflammatory reaction, she was advised to go back and recover before coming back. ； Many practitioners in the medical beauty and functional skin care industries prefer the logic of "controllable damage gain", such as the low-energy thermal damage of photorejuvenation, and the exfoliation of mild acid scrub. As long as the post-operative repair is in place within the tolerance of the skin, it will not damage health, but can stimulate the skin's self-repair ability, making the barrier tougher and collagen more abundant. There is actually nothing wrong with these two views. It is just that the former is from the perspective of "avoiding disease" and the latter is from the perspective of "improving the state". They are applicable to different groups of people.

I once had an old patient who was a planner in her 30s. She suffered from severe rosacea. It took her almost three years to get the redness and hotness under control. Before, she had to choose medical skin care products to even use ordinary moisturizers, let alone any whitening and anti-wrinkle products. After her skin has stabilized in the past two years, she comes to us for low-energy photon treatment once a month. She usually uses mild peptide essence. When she came for a review last month, not only did her rosacea not relapse, her skin was much brighter than before, and the dry lines around her eyes were also lighter. She said, "I always thought that to be beautiful, I had to sacrifice my skin. Now I know that once my skin is healed, I can just use something mild, and the effect will be ten times better than messing around with it before." You see, this is the core connection between the two: without a healthy foundation, all beauty effects are vain, and may even cause chaos to the skin. ； When the skin is in a healthy state, reasonable beauty methods will not only not damage the skin, but also help you maintain a healthy state for longer. For example, using antioxidant essence to reduce free radical damage, and applying collagen to replenish lost hyaluronic acid. These are all "plus points" for the health of the skin.

Speaking of which, I have been through similar pitfalls before. I stayed up late for a week for a project in the past two years, and my face turned yellow like a three-day old orange peel. When my brain got hot, I opened a bottle of 20% concentration VC essence that I had stored for a long time, and applied it for three days. As a result, my cheekbones started to peel off, and it hurt when I was exposed to the sun. After that, I applied ceramide repair cream for half a month. After my skin recovered, I switched to 10% low-concentration VC and used it once every other day. On the contrary, the dullness was gradually suppressed and I no longer had allergies. To put it bluntly, when it comes to beauty, it has never been about "the higher the concentration, the better, and the more expensive the item, the better." You must first find out where the "healthy bottom line" of your skin is and don't cross it.

The debate between "minimalist skin care" and "efficacious skin care" that is currently raging online is essentially a cognitive difference in the relationship between the two. Minimalists believe that their skin will get better by itself if they don’t use anything except moisturizing and sunscreen. In fact, this logic is more suitable for sensitive skin with a fragile barrier. Less effort is to maintain health. When it is healthy, the skin will naturally not get any worse. ； The efficacy party believes that as long as the ingredients are compliant and the concentration is appropriate, better results can be obtained by adding functional ingredients. This logic is more suitable for tolerant skin with healthy skin. As long as the tolerance threshold is not exceeded, better beauty effects can be obtained on the basis of health. The two camps are quarreling back and forth, but in fact they are not clear about it. Everyone's health baseline is different, and the suitable beauty methods are naturally different. No one is right or wrong.

In fact, in the final analysis, skin is the "coat" that will accompany you for a lifetime. You don't have to put things on your face just to look good, and you don't have to completely reject all beauty products that can make you happy for the sake of "health" - after all, putting on beautiful makeup and going out in a good mood can indirectly improve the condition of your skin, right? As long as you remember that any behavior that makes you beautiful cannot be at the expense of the long-term health of your skin, if you can do this, you are already better than 90% of people who mess around. Oh, by the way, if you are really unsure about your skin condition, go to the dermatology department of a regular hospital to register for a consultation. It only costs ten yuan, which is much more reliable than searching for ten hours of advice on the Internet.