Your Skin: Sensitive vs. Sensitized. What's the Difference?

When clients come to me for skincare treatments, it’s quite often I hear them say, “I have sensitive skin.”

But the reality is that they don’t have sensitive skin, it’s sensitized skin.

What’s the difference?

Sensitive skin is a genetic trait. You may have a genetic predisposition, your skin may naturally have a lower amount of pigment, or may be thin, or you may have blood vessels close to the skin’s surface causing the appearance of redness. Your skin’s protective barrier (the epidermal lipid barrier) may have a defect, allowing irritants, microbes, and allergens to penetrate the skin and cause adverse reactions which could be seen as rosacea, atopic dermatitis, psoriasis and eczema.

Sensitized skin is a reflection of your environment and lifestyle. Your skin may react when exposed to something such as certain product ingredients, chemicals, stress, and even pollutants. Other things that can contribute to sensitized skin are smoking, alcohol, poor diet, hormonal changes, medications, and exfoliating too much.

So if you've been saying you have sensitive skin, try to eliminate any sensitizing environmental factors and see how your skin responds.

Sunshine & Soul Skincare Studio is located inside The Emperor’s Medicine clinic. For more information, click HERE.