National Healthy Skin Month is celebrated each November. It was formed in 1997 by the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) to raise awareness around the importance of skin health.
This vital campaign educates people on how to take the best care of their skin and establish healthy skin habits as part of daily life. A huge part of this involves protecting the skin from hidden irritants. One of the biggest parts of protecting your skin is educating yourself.
When you know how to protect your skin, what common hidden irritants are, and how to avoid them, you’ll be able to create a sustainable skin-health routine that works for you. In this blog post, we’re going to take a look at how you can spot hidden irritants and go deeper on how to avoid them.
From beauty products and household cleaners to airborne allergens and even lifestyle influences, let’s dive into it.
What Makes National Healthy Skin Month So Important
When it comes to your health, being proactive is paramount. Yet, this can be hard to do when you’re not aware of best practices or what you can do to take care of yourself. This is why campaigns and initiatives like National Healthy Skin Month are so important.
Dedicating the month of November each year to National Healthy Skin Month is a way for the healthcare industry to show us how to take care of our skin. It also emphasises the importance of preventative care, and not just treatment.
Remember, the skin is our body’s largest organ–it’s essential to keep it healthy. But if you’re facing real-life challenges on a daily basis, that can feel hard. This is certainly what happens when you’re exposed to hidden irritants.
What Are Hidden Skin Irritants?
Hidden irritants are exactly what they sound like–everyday irritants and skin health triggers that you may not suspect. This is why they’re classed as hidden. It’s likely that you’re going about your daily routine, while unbeknownst to you, some of the things you’re doing or the lifestyle choices you’re making are causing havoc for your skin.
In many cases, they can be silent but deadly. You don’t have to have an immediate allergic reaction for a hidden irritant to have an effect. In fact, the main reason that they’re problematic is that they can often cause both subtle and long-term skin damage.
Everyday Hidden Irritants You Should Watch Out For
The first step in protecting your skin comes in the form of knowledge. When you know what hidden irritants are and where you can find them, you can make choices to change your routine or avoid them. So next, we’re going to dive into a breakdown of some of the most common hidden skin irritants.
Tap Water Quality and Chemicals
The first unsuspecting place to look is your shower water! Here, you’ll find hidden chemicals such as chlorine and chloramine, along with hard minerals. Over time, low water quality and added chemicals could irritate your skin.
Fragrances in Skincare and Household Products
Then we have the products you know and love. While you may be using things like soaps, lotions, and detergents to keep yourself (and your home) clean and feeling good, the fragrances in them might just be the cause of your skin irritation.
Fabric Irritants in Clothing and Bedding
The same goes for the products you use to do laundry. Different dyes, harsh laundry detergents, and even rough fabrics could be rubbing you the wrong way and causing irritation or damage.
Airborne Pollutants and Indoor Allergens
There are also the common airborne pollutants and indoor allergens to be aware of. If you take meditation for allergies, you may think that this just affects your breathing. However, things like dust, smoke, pet dander, and pollution can also irritate your skin.
Hidden Irritants in Your Diet
You may not realize it, but there can also be hidden irritants in the food you consume, too. When it comes to processed foods, you may never know what’s really in them. But things like excess sugar or additives could be causing problems for your skin.
Stress and Lack of Sleep
Then we have the lifestyle factors. Things like feeling stressed and not getting enough sleep can do more than make you feel bad. Having too much of the stress hormone cortisol in your body or having constant disrupted sleep cycles could be irritating your skin!
Overuse of “Harsh” Skincare Ingredients
With that in mind, if you ever overuse harsh skincare ingredients such as actives, this could be causing skin irritation. Examples here include any strong actives such as the exfoliating acids (AHAs and BHAs), retinoids, and alcohol-based toners.
Hidden Irritants from Technology Exposure
Then, your tech devices could just be doing more than just draining your energy! You may find that the blue light from your screens and even the bacteria from phones are the culprits for irritating your skin.
Seasonal and Environmental Changes
Finally, there are also the seasonal changes we experience in the climate. When cold winds, humidity shifts, and strong sun exposure happen, it may be showing up more in your skin than you realize.
How Shower Filters Can Protect Your Skin
At AquaBliss, we know just how important it is for you to protect your skin. This is why we’ve created our line of shower filters. Shower filters are a simple and effective solution to tackle one of the biggest hidden irritants on the list, unfiltered water!
Using a shower filter gives you control over your cleanliness and hygiene routine and helps to minimize your exposure to kinds of chemicals and minerals that strip the skin of its natural oils.
How to Protect Your Skin During National Healthy Skin Month
This National Healthy Skin Month, it’s time for you to take action! While more awareness may come around each November, you can also increase your understanding of skin irritants and put preventative measures in place.
Whether it’s investing in a good quality shower filter, changing the household and beauty products you use, or reducing your daily exposure to airborne, dietary, lifestyle, and seasonal irritants, you should start to see a positive change in your skin.
When to See a Dermatologist
However, just remember that if you do start to notice a lot of skin irritation, you may want to make an appointment with your dermatologist. If you’re making changes to your lifestyle and your DIY solutions just aren’t enough, it’s time to see a professional.
When you see a dermatologist about skin irritation, you’ll be able to get a professional evaluation and personalized treatment. If you’re concerned about any chronic issues, being proactive with your dermatology visits could make a huge difference in your skin health.
And remember, always do a patch test when using a new product on your skin, just to make sure it doesn’t cause irritation!
Protect Your Skin by Celebrating National Healthy Skin Month
Whether you realize it or not, there is a wide range of hidden irritants that you may be exposed to in your everyday life. However, as common as they can be, they are manageable.
This is exactly what National Healthy Skin Month is here to do. By raising awareness about skin health and educating us all on preventative techniques, we can all enjoy better skin health for longer.
Make sure that you take small, consistent action on a daily basis, such as using your shower filter, and you’ll be able to see long-term results that last.
