What is Corneotherapy?
A long word that sounds kind of scary?
Something to do with your eyes?
Some sort of fluffy, hippy dippy treatment?
Nope, nope and nope.
Corneotherapy has fast become my lastest obsession!
A remedial skin care treatment I wished I had learnt and started practising years ago, but alas here I am now throwing myself into this methodology, better late then never hey!
For everyday Nacy Bloggs our skin maybe isn't something we think too much about, it's just there. But let me tell you - your skin is amazing! It's our largest organ, it's living, breathing, communicating, protecting and our first line of defence against the big wide world. It has a huge job to do and how do we treat it? Actually pretty rubbish most of the time.
Hands up if you like to try lots of differet products sourced from all over the place?
Hands up if you use 'strong' or 'active' products with acids, oils, fragrance and are potientially full of preservatives? Do the words natural or botanical sound familiar?
Hands up if you love nothing more then a chemical peel, microdermabrasion or microblading/skin levelling treatment?
Don't use and SPF daily? Aren't drinking much water? Had a good binge on junk food and/or alcohol over the weekend? You can all put your hands up too.
I'm sorry to tell you but all of the above puts your skin under huge stress and makes its already mammoth job even harder. Never fear, we can praise the skin gods and i am hear to teach you how together we can make changes to all of that skin stress - I introduce to you, Corneotherapy.
Before we dig too deep here is some skin nerdery for you.....
Our skin is comprised of a few different areas, lets look at the Epidermis (upper most layer) which has five of its very own layers.
Starting at the top we have the....
x Stratum Corneum
x Stratum Lucidum
x Stratum Granulsom
x Stratum Spinosum
and lucky last the
x Stratum Basale
The key component of Corneotherapy is keeping the Stratum Corneum intact at all times - gone are the days of exfoliating our skin within an inch of it's life with the likes of peels, micro and abrasive scrubs (insert St Ives Apricot Scrub) to name a few.
Our skin cells are not dead until they have hit the floor, these are our primary link from the outside world to the inside world of our skin - they have a big story to tell and are vital for overall skin health - put down the scrub and let them do their job!
Think about it like this, we have a roof on our house, pretty handy at keeping us protected from the environment and elements, now imagine if someone came along and made big holes in your roof at home - you wouldn't be too happy! Along comes some rain and you will be frantically trying to keep your possessions from getting soaked, throw in some wind, all your goodies are being blown everywhere. It's the same for our skin, if we take away our upper most layers all of our cells underneath are in full freak-out mode trying to keep their foundations safe and protected, when we use products mentioned above and treatments that are harsh and stripping it only makes those holes bigger and creates even more 'holes'..
Corneotherapy is science not a trend.
Prof. Dr. A. Kligman describes it as the science of maintaining and restoring healthy skin and aiding in..
x recovering the stratum corneum
x improving the function of the skin barrier
x improving overall homeostasis of the skin
x protecting from irritants and allergens
How do we practise corneotherapy and what makes a product range corneotheraputic?
The aim of my game is now only practising treatments that follow the principles of Corneotherapy - treatment that is directy targeted to correct and restore the Stratum Corneum barrier.
The best part of all is having Dermaviduals availabe as our product range, Dr Hans Lautenschlaeger (good luck pronoucing that one!) the founder of Dermaviduals is an absolute genius when it comes to skincare, creating a corneotheraputic range that ticks all of the boxes, a dermatological cosmetic with an individual concept, not only is it complety skin friendly but Dermaviduals is individually adapted for each skin and it's unique condition and type - giving us thousands of combinations for bespoke home care products an in clinic treatments.
So what is in other products that makes them so bad? substances such as preservatives cause irritations and aren't tolerated by the skin, perfumes - the number one skin irritatant, mineral oils - create a film on the skin causing a cascade of negative effects and inhibit normal skin functions, emulsifiers - disrupt the skins natural barrier function and strip the skin of vital lipids and amines - a major skin stressor.
The reason why Corneotherapy and Dermaviduals achieve results like nothing else can is becasue of DMS (dermal membrane structure) the key principle behind Dermaviduals, the products made up of DMS physiologically mimics the composition of our skin meaning its recognised and repairs the holes made in the roof of our skin by products and treatments of our past. DMS acts as a 'lock in' holding in vital hydration as well as being a transporter for active ingredients.
Beautiful skin isn't all about what goes on topically (although its a big part of the story) that's just one piece of the puzzle, we need to think about diet, lifestyle, genetics, medical history, hormones - but i will save that for another day. If you have made it to here i applaud you!
As you can see the principles of Corneotherapy is no walk in the park but that's why I love it, the skin is such a diverse and complex organ that tells our individual story, with the right knowledge and understanding, as a skin therapist I am able to read it and apply my skills to help your skin function effectively - my passion.
When you glow ,I glow.