In This Article:
+ Recommended Products
+ Can Alcohol Ever Be Good for Skin?
+ If Alcohol Evaporates, How Damaging Can it Be?
+ If Alcohol is Bad, Why is it Used to Clean
Wounds?
+ The Good Types of Alcohol
+ Alcohol's Connection to Oily Skin and Acne
+ Alcohol & Your Skin Cells: For the Science
Lovers
+ Bottom Line
There is so much incomplete or misleading
information online, it's easy to believe that alcohol-based moisturizers or
treatments aren't really all that bad for your skin. Formulas
loaded with alcohol (SD alcohol, ethanol, denatured, isopropyl, methanol or ethyl
alcohol) often have a pleasing, quick-drying finish that feels weightless on
skin, so it's easy to see their appeal. Despite the conflicting information
you'll come across, the research is clear: No matter your skin-care concerns, alcohol
as a main ingredient in any skin-care product is a problem. The Paula's
Choice Research Team is here with the latest research (the sobering facts, if
you will) about alcohol-based products—when we suggest that you use a
"cocktail" of beneficial ingredients, mixing them with alcohol is definitely
not what we mean!
Can Alcohol Ever Be Good for Skin?
Surely, you think, there must be a good reason so
many skin-care companies include alcohol in their products. Right? Of course,
there are a few reasons, but in our experience, there are only two primary
explanations. As mentioned above, alcohol can make a thick skin-care product
feel almost weightless, creating a deceptively pleasant aesthetic.
The second reason is that your skin is very good
at keeping ingredients out. Skin-protective substances (think lipids, enzymes,
and antioxidants) act like little nightclub bouncers, keeping beneficial
ingredients in your serums or other treatments from getting in. Alcohol helps
ingredients like retinol and vitamin C penetrate into the skin more
effectively, but it does that by breaking down the skin's barrier—destroying the very
substances that keep your skin healthy over the long term. Like a cowboy in a
bar fight scene from an Old Western movie, alcohol is hurling retinal through
the windows of your skin's barrier without a second thought.
If Alcohol Evaporates, How Damaging Can it Be?
We understand the logic—if alcohol evaporates
quickly, it seems reasonable that the damage will not be so severe.
Unfortunately, research reveals that this logic is only wishful thinking.
Alcohol immediately harms the skin and starts a chain reaction of damage that
continues long after it has evaporated.
Once alcohol is done raiding your skin's barrier
like a SWAT team, your skin isn't quite the same, and it won't be as good at
protecting itself from further damage. A 2003 study published
in the Journal of Hospital Infection found that with regular
exposure to alcohol-based products, cleansing becomes a damaging ordeal—skin is
no longer able to keep water and cleansing agents from penetrating into it,
thus further eroding the skin's barrier.
If Alcohol is Bad, Why is it Used to Clean Wounds?
Nowadays, most medical professionals do not use
alcohol to clean wounds, so this is less of an issue than many think. Not only
is alcohol destructive, it's also ineffective at sterilizing wounded, open
skin. According to a report in Dermatology Clinics Journal, "…studies have
demonstrated little benefit in [alcohol and topical antiseptics] disinfecting
open wounds. Antiseptics are inactivated by organic matter such as clotted
blood, serum, pus, and foreign bodies." Although alcohol disinfects skin,
which is why the doctor or nurse often swabs your skin before giving you a
shot), applying alcohol to an open wound is incredibly harmful—physicians clean
wounds with either sterile water, saline solution, or iodine.
The consumer's go-to site for medical advice,
WedMD, states that, "rubbing alcohol to clean an injury can
actually harm the tissue and delay healing."
The Good Types of Alcohol
There's a class of ingredients known as fatty
alcohols, which are not the least bit harmful for skin. Often confused with the
bad alcohols, such as denatured alcohol, the fatty alcohols include, among
others, cetyl alcohol and stearyl alcohol. Typically, fatty alcohols are used
as emollients and thickeners in skin-care products. Fatty alcohols are not
irritating and, in fact, can be beneficial for dry skin. As far as your skin is
concerned, fatty alcohols are about as related to skin-damaging alcohol/ethanol
as a martini is to a cup of olive oil.
Alcohol's Connection to Oily Skin and Acne
Alcohol has two benefits that could reasonably
appeal to someone with acne and/or oily skin. Alcohol can kill acne-causing
bacteria on the surface of the skin, which is why some swear by alcohol-based
anti-acne products to reduce their breakouts. Alcohol also quickly de-greases
skin, and that instant gratification is attractive to those with super-oily
complexions.
Research
demonstrates that alcohol-based anti-acne products increase both
irritation and dryness, and this can make it harder for those battling acne to
stick to their routine. Not surprisingly, the same research noted that
anti-acne products that contain milder alternatives to alcohol were better for
skin. The irony of using alcohol-based treatments is that the damage they cause
leads to an increase of acne-causing bacteria, and makes inflammation worse,
the consequence of which are red marks that stay around for much longer than
they would otherwise.
For those with oily skin, alcohol can stimulate
oil production at the base of the pore, so the immediate de-greasing effect is
eventually counteracted by oily skin producing even more oil! Talk about
spinning your wheels!
In many ways, alcohol-based products are the
handsome bad boys of skin care—flashy, attractive, even dangerous, but we all
know it's a relationship that's going to do more harm than good.
Alcohol & Skin Cells: For the Science Lovers
We must include the facts on how alcohol affects
skin cells, because it's a free-radical bonanza. Small amounts of alcohol
applied to skin cells in lab settings (about 3% alcohol, but keep in mind
skin-care products contain amounts ranging from 5% to 60% or more) over the
course of two days increased cell death by 26%. It also destroyed the
substances in cells that reduce inflammation and defend against free radicals;
so, not only does alcohol crash your healthy-complexion party—it trashes the
furniture, too! Worst skin-care guest ever.
The damage to cells continues, and it's not
pretty: Exposure to alcohol causes skin cells to literally self-destruct.
Seriously—they just give up and go boom, and the longer the exposure to alcohol
continues, the worse it gets for your skin cells. The same study found that
only two days of exposure was dramatically more harmful than one day of
exposure, and that was using an alcohol concentration of less than 10%, which
is much lower than what's in many alcohol-based skin-care products.
This research clearly demonstrates the connection
between free-radical damage to skin cells and alcohol exposure. Interestingly,
this is exceptionally similar to the free-radical damage that results from excessive
consumption of alcohol in the short and long term. Cheers to that? We think
not!
Bottom Line
Our team always asks when reviewing a product
ingredient list: "What benefits does an ingredient have for skin or to the
formulation, and if an ingredient has some negative aspect, can another
ingredient with no downside be used instead?" In the case of alcohol-based
products, because we know they're always bad news for skin (whether you're
seeing the damage now or 10 years from now), it doesn't make any sense to use
them given that there are more advanced alternatives. We here at Paula's Choice
don't develop SD alcohol/ethanol-based products for the same reason we don't
take a horse and buggy to work, it's an antiquated way to formulate cosmetics.
The research is clear: Alcohol harms your skin's
protective barrier, triggers free-radical damage, makes oily skin and redness
worse, and is best described as "pro-aging." Why bother, given the
damaging effects of topical alcohol and the hundreds of skin-friendly alternatives
available?
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