Is Skin pH Important? A Must Read For Acne Sufferers Seeking Acne Treatments

When searching for acne treatments, you hear that a better skin care regime can greatly improve your acne. However, you may not know the importance of getting the pH (power of hydrogen) balance right in skin care.

I’m not going to turn this into a dreaded chemistry lesson but here is a quick summary. pH is scaled from 1 to 14, and refers to the levels of acid or alkaline in a substance. Below seven is acidic, above is alkaline, and seven - the optimum level for the body- is neutral. Skin, on the other hand, has a different pH from the body and ranges from 4 - 6.5.

The skin is therefore acidic in nature (aka ‘acid mantle’) which prevents bacteria being absorbed by skin as it can’t survive the acidic conditions.

As you can see it’s vital that you use acne treatments that won’t play havoc with your skin’s pH level. Failing to maintain a balance will increase bacteria, damage, dry skin and potentially more acne.

It takes around 14 hours for the skin pH to return to normal if the acid mantle has been unsettled … but when you use skin care products and acne treatments you use them before enough time has elapsed for you skin pH to return to normal.

The first thing you can do is to read product labels. As with many products some terms don’t actually mean what you think they mean. So when you see ‘pH balanced’ I would also check for the pH number. Look for products that are pH 4 - 7 and you you will be on the right path to treating acne and caring for your skin properly.