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Healthy skin is slightly acidic. This acid mantle helps form a protective barrier, and it’s important for overall skin health. Washing with baking soda can remove the skin’s protective oil barrier, alter its pH, and disrupt the natural bacteria on the surface that help to prevent infection and acne. This can leave you with stripped skin that’s prone to infection and breakouts.
While it’s generally not harmful, baking soda can irritate the skin. Most people don’t know they are sensitive to baking soda until they start applying it directly to their skin. It’s notorious for causing rashes, redness, and burning for some people when used in homemade or natural deodorants.
Dermatologists sometimes use baking soda to neutralize a chemical peel in the office, however, in general, baking soda should not be used on the skin on its own.
Oily skin occurs when the sebaceous glands in the pores are producing more oil, or sebum, than necessary. Sebum is natural in all skin as it keeps the skin moist and healthy. Over production of sebum can be caused by hormones, genetics or could even be a result of dry skin over-compensating by producing extra oil, in order to retain some measure of moisture.
Oily skin can also be caused by using the wrong products for your skin type. For example, if you are using overly drying soaps and astringents for your skin type, your skin may respond by over producing oil to compensate, as mentioned above. This can create an unfortunate cycle of using harsh soaps to eliminate oils, but instead exacerbating the problem.
On the other hand, overly oily makeup and products can also cause oily skin.
Ingredients that help exfoliate dead skin cells to keep pores unclogged and increase new skin cell production, such as Vitamin A/Retinol, glycolic acid, and salicylic acid, are good for treating acne as well. Benzoyl peroxide is a topical agent for fighting bacteria and unclogging pores. It is one of the longest-used medications to keep oily pores clean and healthy. Jojoba oil is also good for fighting bacteria trapped in oily skin and maintaining a moisture barrier to prevent over-production of sebum.
baking soda may be effective for oily skin, but there are many other factors that may affect whether this ingredient would work on your skin or if there are better ingredients that may work for you. Take this skin quiz to find the best ingredients for your skin and build your skincare routine.
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