How to Repair Your Damaged Skin Barrier: Best Creams

Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos: Getty

Whether you want your complexion to be dewy, glassy, glazed, bouncy, glowy, or all of the above, it starts with a healthy skin barrier. You probably know as much if you’ve visited a facialist in the past year, spent any time on SkinTok, or shopped for new skin-care products. Beauty retailers are now stocked with items that promise to strengthen, support, and rescue your barrier. But how do you know if you need any of them? It’s not as if you can see your skin barrier. (Or, wait, can you?) Read on for a step-by-step guide to barrier repair that explains all that and more.

Barrier is a simplified term for the outermost layer of skin, which is designed to keep bad stuff out and good stuff (mainly water) in. Board-certified dermatologist Whitney Bowe, M.D., says the old way of explaining how it works was a brick-and-mortar analogy: Your skin’s outermost layer, the stratum corneum, contains mature skin cells (the bricks) and a mixture of lipids and proteins that bind those cells together (the mortar). “Skin-barrier function absolutely includes those healthy lipids — the mortar — but we now know it also includes the microbiome,” Bowe says. You can have strong bricks and sticky mortar, but if there’s an imbalance to your microbiome — the mix of healthy bacteria and microorganisms that is always present on your skin — your barrier isn’t going to function properly.

There’s no test for barrier healthiness. “I can’t look at you under a microscope or a dermoscope or a VISIA system and be like, ‘Oh, your skin barrier is damaged from a microscopic perspective,’” says Bowe. But there are signs. A compromised barrier has trouble holding in water (dermatologists call this transepidermal water loss), so the most obvious sign is skin that remains dry no matter how much water you drink or how much moisturizer you use. You may also have rough patches or sensitive areas. And if you have rosacea, acne, eczema, or psoriasis that is flaring even if you haven’t experienced any of your usual triggers, that could also be a barrier issue. But the signs could be even subtler. “When the skin barrier is compromised, there’s a low-grade level of inflammation, so the skin is constantly playing defense and that can accelerate aging,” Bowe says. “You may be like, Why do I feel like I’m aging faster than my peers? Or I feel like I look five years older in the last five months. That could be attributed to the skin barrier.”

Up to a month. Bowe says there are products that can reduce transepidermal water loss immediately so your skin seems more hydrated, but it takes about 28 days for a complete skin cycle. If your skin barrier is damaged, it needs a couple of weeks of that cycle to bring a fresh set of healthy skin cells forward. In addition, you want to give your microbiome time to rebalance, and Bowe says that can take up to four weeks.

Step 1: Stop using all your usual skin care.
Overwashing and overexfoliating are the most common causes of barrier damage, but the fix isn’t as simple as cleansing less frequently or skipping your exfoliation step. Many of the ingredients in spot treatments, moisturizers, and serums alter your skin’s pH or have exfoliating properties that can throw off your skin’s balance. And while your skin heals, you also want to avoid any products with fragrance, essential oils, vitamin C, exfoliating acids, or retinol-like or retinoidlike ingredients. “Less is more — you’re going to use the bare minimum for the next few weeks,” Bowe says.

Step 2: Wash your face once or twice daily with warm water and a creamy, pH-balanced, fragrance-free cleanser.
Overcleansing is problematic, but so is not washing thoroughly enough, because you’re not removing any of the pollutants, allergens, oils, or remnants of makeup that build up on your skin over time and can affect barrier function. “I have patients who don’t really cleanse. They say, “I’m gonna let my natural oils do their thing,” but they have barrier issues and we start them on a gentle cleanser and they respond beautifully,” says Bowe. She suggests a non-active cleanser that emulsifies without creating a lot of lather and doesn’t contain any type of fragrance (natural or chemical). La Roche-Posay’s Toleriane Hydrating Gentle Cleanser and Cetaphil’s Gentle Skin Cleanser for normal-to-dry skin are good options that don’t suds up. If you like a bit of a lather — nothing too drying — Vanicream’s Gentle Facial Cleanser or Dieux’s Baptism Gel Cleanser (the fragrance-free version) may be more your vibe. You can skip your morning cleanse and just use water.

Step 3: Moisturize twice daily. 
Your moisturizer can be a lotion, cream, or balm, but you don’t want anything that bills itself as brightening, anti-aging, exfoliating, or active. You’re looking for a moisturizer with multiple types of hydrating ingredients (humectants and emollients) as well as occlusives, which will help seal in the moisture that’s currently escaping via your compromised barrier. “In the old days, you might think just putting on Vaseline would fix a leaky skin barrier because, sure, it can help with transepidermal water loss,” says Bowe. But it treats only a symptom, not the source of the problem. That’s why she also suggests products with prebiotic or probiotic ingredients, which help repopulate the healthy bacteria on your skin (some examples include inulin, lactobacillus ferment, pseudoalteromonas ferment extract, and saccharomyces lysate). If possible, it should also be fragrance free. But if you don’t feel like reading ingredient lists, just look for a moisturizer designed to repair the skin barrier that notes it’s microbiome friendly. I suggest Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream.

Step 4: Use the simplest makeup possible.
Ideally, you’d go without makeup while your skin recovers, but if that’s not possible, at least avoid any makeup that has long-wear claims or oil-absorbing properties or lists denatured alcohol or isopropyl alcohol as one of the first few ingredients. And step away from the setting spray. “Many of them contain ingredients that evaporate off quickly and that can dry skin further,” says Bowe.

Step 5: Skip the sunscreen or use a moisturizing sunscreen that washes off easily.
“I don’t want to fearmonger around sunscreen, but if you want your skin to get back to normal, the less you’re putting on your face, the better,” says Bowe. You might think mineral sunscreens are less problematic for a compromised barrier than the chemical ones, but Bowe says some of them can be really hard to wash off, which means you could end up overcleansing and restarting the cycle of barrier damage. As much as possible, just stay out of the sun and away from windows. When you are outside, keep your skin protected with hats, sunglasses, and UPF clothing. If you feel you must wear sunscreen, “use one that feels hydrating and moisturizing on the skin,” Bowe says. And look for an option with as few extras as possible (so no anti-agers, skin brighteners, etc.). Bowe says many of her patients with sensitive skin (i.e., compromised barriers) can tolerate Beauty of Joseon’s Relief Sun Rice + Probiotics SPF 50. Naked Sundays’ CabanaClear Water Gel Serum is another good option for skin that’s sensitive or in recovery.

Step 6: Adjust your lifestyle.
Insufficient sleep, too much alcohol, too much sugar, and not enough fruits, vegetables, and whole grains — all those things you already know are bad for your health are also bad for your skin barrier. So, if you can, use the barrier-repair process as an excuse to reset other habits as well. “If you’re not first addressing why things got out of whack, why your microbiome isn’t balanced or the lifestyle habits that led to your issues, you’re not getting to the root of the problem,” says Bowe.

After a month, you can add back in your usual products slowly, trying each for a week or so to see if it’s causing dryness or sensitivity (if it is, stop using it). I know that sounds like a lot of work, but think about it this way: You’d be willing to go through allergy tests or an elimination diet if your stomach were constantly upset, right? Well, your skin is just as important to your overall health — and it affects your mental health, too. That alone makes barrier repair worth the effort.

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