Can You Treat Sensitive Skin With Natural Ingredients? Let's Chat It Out

There are certain beauty rules we follow, repeat, and hold as sacrosanct. Some of these rules are held so high because, well, they're true. Others should really get with the times: As research and innovations move the industry forward, so should our collective understanding and guidelines. Well, several rules apply to sensitive skin: Keep routines simple, use basic formulas, don't try any treatment that's too dramatic, and stay away from most natural ingredients in favor of synthetics.

Yes, it's perhaps one of the hotter skin care debates of late: Can you use all-natural products if you have sensitive skin? Or should you rely on clean synthetics? See, the issue at hand is many natural ingredients can be irritating to the skin—some botanical extracts, essential oils, and natural emulsifiers included. 

So this rule is true: When your skin is forced to deal with too much, it will become irritated. (Perhaps you, too, become agitated when overwhelmed? Well, your skin is the same.) The increased attention we place on our skin care routine and bloated product lineup is perhaps starting to backfire.

"I believe that in this new way of consuming beauty, where a lot of us are told to have a beauty routine that it's composed of 30 different hero products from 30 different lines, we're doing some same," she says. "Like who's really telling us that we're able to layer all those things together? I think that it's really important to be cognizant of those things. It's wreaking havoc on the barrier in greater ways than ever before." Your skin wasn't built to withstand constant scrubbing, peeling, prodding, and disrupting. 

Building resilient skin means skin that's able to withstand aggressors. To do so, many turn to resilient ingredients themselves. 

It's perhaps my favorite area of interest: a class of ingredients called extremophile endurance technology. Harper isn't the first to use this category—and certainly won't be the last—but makes a great case for using them on reactive skin. Essentially, these are botanicals that are able to survive the harshest and most difficult of circumstances. 

"These are plants that have adapted over time in nature to withstand all these extreme conditions and through such high stress that they go through," she says. "Basically each one develops, like, a superpower. And because of that superpower, they can really help support the skin through modern environments." 

For full transparency: I've been testing out the collection for several weeks now. (I'm honest with you when I say I don't recommend things I don't try or can't vouch for.) And let me say: If you have reactive skin, this line will likely work for you. I do have sensitive skin, which has only become more so as I get older. Because of my regular rosacea flare-ups, I'm often left with blotchy patches and uneven texture when I try anything too abrasive, potent, or irritating. Unfortunate hazards of the gig, I suppose.