Sensitive Skin: Best Tips + Products for You! | Dr. Shereene Idriss

Good morning, my little nerds. I am Dr. Sherene Idris, a cosmetic dermatologist based in New York City. Welcome to my YouTube channel. Please feel free to, like, subscribe and comment below. I definitely try to read through all the comments on Saturday and Sunday once the video is published, and hopefully I will get to your comment question request in the next video. So today I decided to tackle this a little bit differently and focus on sensitive skin. Maybe because I'm feeling a little sensitive these days. Going through construction on an office sucks, and there's no better way to put it. And I find myself tearing up or crying at a drop of a pin. So I thought I would empathize with all my sensitive soul skin people out there and do a video just for you. So in this video, we're going to cover the basics as to what is sensitive skin, what to look out for, and a couple of my favorite products on the market in each category that that would be best geared and suited for you. So, sensitive skin, the way I look at patients who come in with sensitive skin is the way I felt when I was pregnant, walking into a very fancy restaurant or a sushi restaurant where everything was there at my disposal, but I was not allowed to eat it. And I feel for people with sensitive skin because they probably walk into a Walmart, Ulta, Sephora, Target, and basically see all the skin care and feel very limited and trapped because they're too scared to approach any of them. So I see you and I feel for you because it sucks. People with sensitive skin tend to experience redness, inflammation, dryness, stinging, burning, itching, and even acne breakouts, pretty much everything. And the reason why they tend to react so much more profoundly is because their skin barrier is, is not as strong and as intact as somebody with, quote, unquote, normal skin or even oily skin. And so they need to approach any new product that they put on their face very gingerly, very cautiously, and really allow themselves the time to see if that product works for them and really get to see how their skin responds. And that's why I always say, get to know your skin before you decide to jump in and incorporate 20 new skincare products in your skincare routine overnight, because your skin will freak the f out. It will go, all right. It just will not work. I also want to say that oftentimes I find it amusing when I'm reading skincare product reviews online, whether it's Sephora or Ulta or Target or whatever, and I and I read this product made my skin get really really red and inflamed. It sucked. I'm sorry to break it to you, but maybe the product didn't suck, it just sucked for you. It's one of those it's not me, it's you, or it's not you, it's me situations. The product itself is what it is. But if you're somebody who's very sensitive, maybe it sucked for you. That's just something to keep in mind, especially as you are becoming a more well versed skincare consumer and you're reading these reviews online about products. At least this way you're becoming more aware as to what you know. You take it with a grain of salt and you kind of see if it applies. So what exactly is the difference between sensitive skin versus sensitized skin? Sensitive skin is, as we just described, somebody who has, you know, these sort of propensities to reacting or becoming inflamed or red or breaking out or whatever it is to various different ingredients that are not specific. Sensitized skin means you're now reactive to a very specific ingredient because your skin is sensitized to that ingredient. So you develop an allergy specifically against this ingredient. Not everybody with sensitive skin becomes sensitized. The likelihood, yes, is higher, but it doesn't mean that you're going to become all of a sudden sensitized to all fragrances. And that's why I always laugh at how everybody X's out fragrances. Obviously, if you have sensitive skin, probably avoid. But somebody like myself has normal skin, doesn't need to avoid fragrance. But that is the difference between sensitive and sensitized. And once you're sensitized in a very twisted way, it's almost kind of like a blessing. Very twisted way. Because now you know that you need to avoid that one ingredient and you know, just never to use it. So you can then look out for products that doesn't contain it. And how to discover if you actually have sensitized skin, it's by going to an allergist or a dermatologist and getting patch tested. Not prick tested, patch tested, where they put patches to see if your skin has developed an allergic reaction to an allergen. Here are the common, and I'm going to say 1, 2, 3, let's keep going. 4 ish, 5 ish things to look for or to try to avoid. If you have baseline sensitive skin. Skin. And I'm going to leave this with what I just talked about, fragrance, I think it's important to try to minimize your risk of becoming sensitized to different ingredients. Fragrances can cause a lot of reactions. And if you're somebody who's super, super sensitive, you probably want to look for something without fragrance. The caveat is fragrance can be masked as anything. It's not like you look at the ingredient list and it's written fragrance. You know, like even welita. There's no ingredient list printed on this. It's not written fragrance. It could be masked as essential oils, which obviously contain fragrances. There's an ingredient called Balsam of Peru, which is a very, very famous fragrance that is put in a lot of skincare products. There is also parfum, parfume or I don't know how you perfume parfum, whatever that is basically another word for fragrance because it's usually a proprietary concoction of different scents. So you're not necessarily going to find fragrance in the ingredient list. So you have to know what you're looking out for. For number two, alcohol. Alcohol is a really bad rep and it doesn't deserve it. There's different types of alcohols. There is denatured alcohols, okay? And those are basically alcohol denate or what's it called, sd. But those are not fatty alcohols. The reason I say avoid those types of denatured alcohols is because you're trying to put chances on your side. It's kind of like with fragrances, Alcohols are used in formulations to enhance penetrations of other actives. It can be a little bit stripping and drying. And so if you have a compromised skincare skin barrier, you're obviously going to approach a little bit with caution. But again, I don't want you guys to freak out. It's not all alcohols are created equal. And one day we're going to do a deep dive into alcohols in another video. But that's just something to kind of keep in mind if you're on the extreme end of sensitive skin. Skin. Third, foaming washes things with sodium lauryl sulfate. And I. It's a. I'm getting a lisp sls. But those are things you also want to avoid because those can be over stripping, like I said, causing a compromised skin barrier, making your sensitivities worse. And finally, tingling agents. Any kind of cream that you see that says cooling sensation probably has menthol peppermint in it. And those can be very, very, very reactive to your skin. You can kind of do a small test by looking at your toothpaste. If you're somebody who has super sensitive skin. When you brush your teeth with any Kind of mint toothpaste. You can see if you know you're developing sort of reactions around your mouth. That can be kind of like a very easy poor man's test to see if you're reactive to it. And last, if you are a super nerd and if you have the time to look into the PH of certain formulations, you want to avoid cleansers with very, very high ph because that can be overstripping and again compromise your skin barrier. So how do we know then which products you want to incorporate in our routine? I think it's pretty simple. Approach with caution. Test a small area in front of your ear, out or even right here underneath your ear. Do that every day for a week to see how your skin responds, because it's not necessarily going to respond with the first go around and then see how you like the product. And if it works and you're okay, use it all over your face. But do that for at least one to two weeks before incorporating something new. It's tedious, it's time consuming, it's emotionally draining. I am not disagreeing with you, but your skin will thank you in the long run. All right, now, claims. What are the claims we want to look for when we are trying to find products for sensitive skin? You want to see things that are formulated for sensitive skin, like this product right here. I can never do this by Van Cream. All right, so number two, you want to look for fragrance free claims, not unscented. Unscented, like certain soap bars actually has chemical in there that masks the scent. So don't look for unscented. It is not the same as fragrance free. There are two separate claims. They are not the same. So you want to look for fragrance free. A third little tidbit. If you see this label by the Eczema association, it's probably something that's better suited for you as well. Four, you want to look for things that are hypoallergenic. Sort of like your comforter for your bed. Think of it as comforter for your face. Hypoallergenic is always going to be better. And five, anti redness products cannot claim to calm inflammation. Otherwise it'd be considered like drugs and they'd have to have a drug claim on them. So a lot of skin care products over the counter use words like soothing, calming, redness, reducing anti redness as code word for sensitive skin. So that's just something for you guys to think of and to look out for. And so you just need to make sure that you are really reading between Those lines. Let's jump in quickly to some of my favorite roundups of products, starting with cleansers. I love this guy. I never, ever, ever not bring Vanicream up. I think it is a great cleanser for sensitive skin. It is free of pretty much everything. Masking fragrance like we talked about. For unscented lanolin, which is a wool alcohol found in Aquaphor, not Vaseline. I don't care about the parabens, but parabens, fine. Other preservatives, dyes, formaldehyde, etc. It is really, really gentle. Almost too gentle. If you're somebody who wears heavy makeup, you're definitely going to need to load up on another step for a double cleanse because it's not going to be enough. Which leads me to this. The Bioderma micellar water. This is the Sensibio H2O. I like this one a lot because it is formulated for sensitive skin. It does not contain fragrance, whereas a lot of other French products do. And I think that it is extremely, extremely. It's hypoallergenic and it is extremely gentle. So the combination of this and this does the job. If you're wearing as much makeup as like, I am currently, which is a very light under eye concealer, I put a little bit of powder on my eyes, eyebrow pen, eyeliner and mascara. So this, these two are actually great for, for a light makeup day. All right. And then third, everybody talks about, you know, Cerave's hydrating cleanser. It's nice because it's ceramide infused and you definitely want to use ceramides to help to restore your skin barrier. Moving on to serums. I love a good hydrating serum, but most of them on the market contain hyaluronic acid. If you have sensitive skin, I would strongly urge that you watch my HA video and try to cut it out. Code words for hyaluronic acid in the ingredient list are sodium hyaluronate. And a nice alternative is this one by Aveeno. I've been speaking about this one a lot. It is the calm and restore triple O serum. It is extremely calming and soothing, especially if you have eczema. And it is really nicely geared towards sensitive skin. So if you're looking for a hydrating serum, I would strongly urge that you guys look into this one. The one downfall is this dropper sucks. It is probably one of the worst droppers I've ever used on the market. You guys can flip it out for a pump head. I've posted a video on it on TikTok one day I'll do a video here for you guys. A second serum I really like is Dr. Jart's sika serum. The reason I like this one and I haven't opened this particular bottle I just bought this is because it has Centella Asiatica and Centella is a great ingredient. As I'm struggling to open this. Where are my scissors? I don't have scissors. So Centella is a great ingredient to help reduce redness. It cannot say that it treats redness or it's anti inflammatory, but know that it is. It is in the same similar style dropper as the Aveeno. But I will say the quality of this dropper is, you know, you cannot compare it to the dropper of the Aveena one. It is light green in color, which helps to counteract the redness that usually is apparent with sensitive skin or rosacea. But I love this serum. I think it is beautiful. It definitely helps to repair and soothe dry skin, especially sensitive skin. And it is one that I recommend quite often to my own patients. So that is Sikapair. Moving on to exfoliants. I think exfoliants have gone a little bit wild. I love a good chemical exfoliant. But a lot of patients and people in general are now overdoing it and really compromising their skin barrier. So you want to go with something where less is more. Lactic acid is a very gentle chemical acid. So is by Sunday, Riley. It is not going to be one of those massive powerhouses, but it's very gentle and it's going to help you lightly buff your skin. So this one's a nice one. And then usually I would say be careful with salicylic acid as it can be drying. But I found this one by First Aid Beauty, which is 2% salicylic acid, safe for sensitive skin, which they claim on here. I personally have not used it, but it is something out there. If you are acne prone with sensitive skin, you might want to look into these First Aid Beauty 2% Salicylic acid treatment pads. They're just something to kind of think about. All right. And finally, moisturizers. You want to think of your skin as a broken baby's butt. Okay. And you just want to cocoon your skin. You want to cocoon it, you want to restore your skin barrier. You want to treat it like it is a sculpture on the verge of breaking. And so moisturizers are going to be the best thing for you. And so I have a bunch. So Starting with again, Dr. Jart has this Ceramide cream. This one is infused with ceramides. It's great for super dry skin. It's also great for sensitive skin. Like we talked about, it comes in a nice tube, analyzed tube, and it is a good and really thick cream. Again, not for somebody with super oily skin. Somebody with really dry slash sensitive skin. This might just be enough for you. Again, if you're super sensitive, though, I would be careful because it's not necessarily the quote unquote purest of products out there, as it has other ingredients as well, including a scent. Okay. For example, it has citrus in it, so just beware. But it is going to help if you're super dry and you need your barrier repaired. If you're worried about any sort of scent, your best bet is plain old Vaseline. This is probably the cheapest and the fastest way you're going to fix your face or your skin. If you have super sensitive skin where your barriers compromise, it's literally just petroleum jelly in it and there's no lanolin. Whereas, for example, Aquaphor contains lanolin. So this is something I think you guys should look into and not be scared to test out on your face. If your skin is extremely sensitive, broken, dry, chapped, irritated, flaky, stinky, etc. You might want to do this for a week, see how your face responds to it and then decide if you hate it or if it actually saved your face. Just saying. The number three is the CIC fat cream. You guys can find this at your local drugstore. It's by Avene. And then I've spoken about this. I love the Sikoplast Baum B5 by La Roche POS. It's a very thick and chewy cream. It is really, really like. It just cocoons everything. It is not for somebody who's. You're going to have to really get it in there. It's. It does have a little bit of zinc in it, which causes that white cast, but that can also be inflammatory reducing. So just something to kind of think about if your skin is extremely sensitive and just not in a good spot. And if you want to treat yourself, a really nice one for winter coming up is SkinCeuticals triple lipid. This one is loaded in ceramides and it's going to help to restore your skin's barrier. And finally, a sunscreen, a very easy sunscreen that you guys can use. A sensitive skin skin that's not going to kill your face in the process, but it's going to not only help protect and soothe it. Cetaphil. They have this daily Facial Moisturizer with SPF 20 which is honestly too light, but it's something to start with. If you are somebody who cannot approach any sort of sunscreen in the US at least without getting some sort of reaction. It is with titanium dioxide and zinc dioxide. So it is a mineral based sunscreen. It does come with a tint. All right, not necessarily the best of tints for everyone, myself included. But again, if you're somebody who's super sensitive and you just want to try to get some sort of protection in and you don't walk a lot outside during the day or don't work by a window, you can at least try to start incorporating this sort of sunscreen in your daily routine. So those are some of my favorite products in a nutshell. I hope you guys enjoyed. I hope you sensitive souls out there can now sort of walk through a beauty aisle with a little bit more confidence. And I hope this video was helpful. I will catch you guys next week. Have a great weekend.