Why would we “tone our skin” in the first place?

Can we skip this step?

Is there a truly natural toner for everyone and all skin types?

INSTRUCTIONS: Make your own DIY Toner for hands and body! scroll Down

Ask a dozen skin care experts and you’ll get a variety of answers … so what’s up?

Like many, you might often feel parched, dehydrated, tight, and dry. Maybe you have very sensitive skin, acne, rosacea, or another skin issue. Perhaps you have happy skin that feels good and you’re hoping to preserve supple texture, healthy appearance, and optimal functioning as the years go by.

Clear away all the layers of nuance in skin health, past the myths, misinformation, and marketing, and we can distill it down to an appreciation for a unique feature of our human skin, the Acid Mantle.

The foundation of strong, happy skin and supporting a natural glow requires an intact, fully functioning Acid Mantle (aka Moisture Barrier), a microscopic biolipid film created by the skin organ itself. This film is supposed to cover every inch of your body from head to toe.

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Nurturing our moisture barrier is at the very core of my mission, my research, and product creation. It cannot be stressed enough how important the maintenance of the Acid Mantle really is.

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let’s dive in …

The Acid Mantle is surprisingly easy to damage, it’s just a microscopic film after all.

Even just rinsing in plain water impairs its’ form and function for some time. Soap, scrubs, and hot water strip away our moisture barrier even more efficiently.

And herein lies everyone’s biggest skincare challenge … reconciling our modern lifestyles with the biological needs of our skin, what does this have to with toning, toners, and how to use them?

PARCHED, TIGHT, DEHYDRATED SKIN …

signs of trouble we can address!

When our skin is alkaline …. it can not function properly. The first sign that the skin pH is off and the acid mantle is not well-formed or functioning is parched DEHYDRATED SKIN, what we commonly call Dry Skin.

Tap water does not have a skin-loving pH. Tap water will have a pH of 7 or even higher. If you are struggling with skin issues, tap water is likely causing more problems which are harder to resolve as time goes by.

Stripping our skin: Just rinsing in pure water impairs the Acid Mantle (our moisture barrier), removes native skin oils and natural moisture factors, and alters the skin’s pH for some time. Since we bathe often there’s no wonder just about everyone will contend with skin issues at some point in their lives. What is often? Well, our skin organ is adapted to NOT coming into contact with water. But not bathing doesn’t suit our lifestyles.

We “tone” our skin to reset the pH to slightly acidic.

The Acid Mantle goes by a few different names, one of them is our Moisture Barrier. It performs so many vital functions, including “talking” to our immune system and holding in dermal moisture. Without an intact Acid Mantle, our skin can be invaded by pathogenic microbes which can lead to inflammatory skin disorders. We’re even more vulnerable to colds and flu!

Caring for the Acid Mantle is wise, preventative medicine.

Our skin must be about 4.4-5.5 to function well. Tap water has a pH of 7 - it seems like such a small difference, but pH 7 is MAGNITUDES HIGHER - the skin knows this all too well, Even just rinsing in tap water shifts the pH of skin from acidic to alkaline. Our skin hates being alkaline! And it will tell you.

The skin can reset the pH, and rebuild the acid mantle - but only if not seriously impaired, and it takes time to repair itself: anywhere from a few hours (in babies and kids) to days! In some instances, the skin is not able to do so at all: in the aged and infirmed we see serious impairment which is difficult or impossible to resolve.

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The skin synthesizes the acid mantle from compounds naturally present in the skin. We are constantly washing them away! We can provide some compounds the skin needs to rebuild the mantle, but we can not replicate the Acid Mantle.

Simply living in the modern world is something we have to reconcile to have happy skin, just about everything in the modern world is totally out of sync with the needs of our skin.

It’s surprisingly easy to impair our precious Moisture Barrier simply by shifting the pH towards an alkaline pH and leaving it there. It’s very easy to do more serious, long-term damage too.

Our skin naturally becomes more alkaline as we age. This is so important! We need to dial in on how to gently re-acidify our skin to support healthy aging.

Conventional toners often include drying alcohols.

I hear all the time in my store - “I stopped using a toner because it dries my skin out” or “It seems like an extra step (and expense) I can skip”.

There is a reason for that! Most, if not all, conventional toners, contain “drying alcohols” and YES, you can skip the conventional toner but …

There is a HUGE difference between the types of alcohol found in our skincare.

There are the “fatty alcohols” that nourish, condition, and heal our skin.

And then there are the “drying alcohols” which quickly damage it.

It is easy to confuse the 2 because the name alone is what these two classes of compounds have in common - and that’s about it.

Hidden Alcohol! It’s in a lot of stuff you would never guess. Including popular brands of commercial “witch hazel”! It’s created in the process of making it, it's not added, so it doesn’t need to be listed on the ingredients list!

You can dive deeper into this discussion by reading my article on glycerin in skincare HERE.

if not conventional toners OR witch hazel …. then what?!

A much, much better choice does exist! And it happens to be a nourishing skin care tradition.

Ditch your conventional toner and instead, spritz your skin with 100% steam-distilled, hydrosol water, also known as a Distillate.

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Distillates, aka Hydrosols. are one of the most ancient methods of extracting the compounds in a plant. A hydrosol is simply the condensed steam rising off a pot in which herbs are boiling. Just this process creates a water that is slightly acidic, skin-loving pH.

Another nourishing benefit of hydrosol waters is the hundreds of beneficial plant compounds present in the condensate, and a small amount of essential oils which provide a light, natural scent to the water - a lovely feature of hydrosols!

Hydrosols can be used as skin tonics and toners, as a base of herbal medicines, and they can be consumed and used in cooking! I use them as the “water” component when creating my line of lotions, creams, conditioners, and shampoos!

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HOW TO APPLY HYDROSOL WATER:

1. Every time your facial skin comes in contact with tap water (bathing, showering, and washing your face) follow up with a few spritzes of hydrosol water. This approach adds moisture to your routine, hundreds of nourishing plant compounds, and improves the skin’s pH.

2. Spritzing instead of applying with a cotton pad reduces physical contact with the skin, which in and of itself can lead to irritation and can make sensitive skin more reactive.

3. After you spritz with the hydrosol, you can immediately apply your lotion, cream, or facial oil. Massage into the skin gently then let it all soak in. You’ll be slippery and wet for a few minutes as this soaks in. This approach adds more moisture! If your skin is persistently dry and parched, and you experience this throughout the day, I suggest that you apply another light application of the cream, lotion, or facial oil, as soon as the first application has soaked in, about 4-5 minutes.

how to make and use a simple tonic at home …

We can help our hands deal with excessive washing by saturating our hands with a very dilute, slightly acid solution, you create at home with WATER + VINEGAR.

HAIR, SCALP, and BODY SKIN will benefit by making a habit of saturating yourself from head to toe after bathing.

If you catch it in time, adjusting the skin pH might be the only thing standing in the way of returning to happy skin!

HOW

TO BATH WATER: add 1 -2 cups vinegar to warm bath water (1 cup for a standard bath, 2 cups for a larger tub). Enter the bath clean (shower before the bath). Pat dry after soaking for 20 minutes. Do not rinse at the end of soaking. Apply oils and/or lotion.

END OF SHOWER: in an 8 oz water bottle with a squirt top, add 2 Tablespoons of vinegar to a dry bottle. Fill with warm water (I do this part in the shower). Or half the recipe to make 4 ounces.

• At the end of the shower, turn off the tap, and squirt the entire contents over hair and body.

• Saturate yourself well, wring out long hair.

• Do not rinse, pat dry and apply body oil and/or lotion.

• If you like to use a leave-in conditioner, apply that and disperse into your hair. Make sure to condition your scalp too.

• Please use the entire contents of the bottle. Discard any that remains, remove the cap, rinse the bottle, and let it aid dry before reusing. We don’t want to bottle to become contaminated with bad bacteria.

FOR HANDS AFTER WASHING: in a 4 oz bottle with a squirt lid add 1 Tablespoon of vinegar and fill with water.

• After washing your hands, turn off the tap.

• Saturated your hands well with the dilute solution.

• Do not rinse. Pat dry and follow up with a lotion, cream, salve, or balm.

• I prefer to make the 4 oz bottle for this use, so it only lasts a couple of days. After 2-3 days please discard any remaining. Rinse the bottle well, and allow it to air dry before refilling so it stays nice and clean.

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Any culinary vinegar serves the purpose.

Raw Apple Cider Vinegar has other benefits for the skin so if you’re not offended by the smell of it on your skin and hair for a little while, it is a great choice for this purpose.

The aroma will subside pretty quickly but some people are put off by that smell. Rice wine vinegar has a more mild scent and works just as well - all we are going for is some acidity.

Resist the urge to make the dilution any stronger than recommended.

Do not use lemon juice, it’s much more acidic than vinegar and very easy to make your rinse too strong!

Last but not at all least ….

TAP WATER: we’re bathing in alkaline water!

Awareness of the impacts of tap water is growing. The water in our homes is not what it was 50 years ago - and this means something for the health and functioning of our skin (and hair).

Tap water has a pH of 7. That is neutral. And this can lead to problems. Our skin must be about 4.4-5.5 to function optimally. It seems like such a small number, but pH 7 is MAGNITUDES HIGHER so our skin experiences tap water as an alkaline solution!

There’s more to our water problem than the pH Our skin also does not like to have minerals and soap accumulating on it. Partly because water with a pH of 7 or higher does not rinse as well, leaving behind these irritants which over time build up on us, causing irritation. This also makes your laundry stiff and less absorbent over time). And partly because our tap water is now often laden with dissolved minerals AND an alkaline pH.

Dissolved Minerals in tap water: These make our water “hard”. Hard water is really hard on our hair and skin! If you see accumulated mineral deposits on your fixtures, get your water tester and take measures to remove these for much happier healthier skin and hair!

The bottom line? It just might be the pH and mineral content at the root of your skin issues, or making them worse!

Toning to the rescue: Once again, we can reach for pure steam-distilled hydrosol water with its skin-loving pH and hundreds of nourishing plant compounds to quickly reset the skin’s pH. Spritz well after contact with tap water. Done.

DIG EVEN DEEPER!

Skin Issues? Aging Skin? Skin Functions in the Modern Era, Optimal Skin pH, and the problem with our tap water today.

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A special CONSIDERATION: POOLS & HOT TUBS.

To keep water sanitary and not cause infectious diseases, pool and hot tub water must be treated. Those chemicals can and do wreak havoc on our skin! The water in pools are hot tubs is very basic and the skin does not like that at all.

There is no time more important than after your skin is exposed to chemically treated pool & tub water to adhere to the practice of acidifying the skin.