Your Skin Has a Nightlife!
Damn girl, your skin might be partying harder than you.
And apparently, someone needs to start secretly swapping her vodka sodas for glasses of water.
Because while you’re asleep, your skin is very much still doing things.
Okay, not literally hitting an after-hours club without you. But your skin operates on a circadian rhythm, just like the rest of your body. Skin cells have their own biological clocks, and over the course of 24 hours, things like skin temperature, blood flow, barrier permeability, cell activity and water loss all fluctuate.
In other words, your skin has a schedule. And nighttime is busy.
First up: she’s losing water.
One of the more interesting things that happens at night is a change in transepidermal water loss, usually shortened to TEWL.
Very scientific name. Very simple concept.
Water naturally escapes from your body through the outermost layer of your skin and into the environment. Your skin barrier helps control how much gets out, but it doesn't create an impenetrable seal. Research into skin's circadian rhythm has found that skin permeability and water loss fluctuate throughout the day, with permeability generally higher in the evening than in the morning.
So while you're eight hours deep into your pillow, your skin can be losing moisture to the environment.
Rude.
And your bedroom can join the party too. Humidity, temperature and the environment you're sleeping in can affect skin hydration, which makes sense when you consider that you're spending seven or eight uninterrupted hours in the same room. Research comparing different humidity levels during sleep has found measurable changes in skin characteristics by morning.
But she’s also doing some housekeeping.
Nighttime isn't simply “the part of the day when your skin gets dry.”
Your skin's circadian rhythm also influences processes including keratinocyte proliferation, blood flow, temperature and DNA repair. Research suggests that some repair activity related to UV-induced DNA damage follows a circadian pattern and peaks at night.
Which is where the whole idea of beauty sleep starts becoming annoyingly legitimate.
Actual sleep matters.
One study comparing good and poor sleepers found that the good sleepers showed 30 percent greater skin-barrier recovery 72 hours after researchers experimentally disrupted the barrier. The poor sleepers also had higher baseline transepidermal water loss.
Another study asked participants to sleep only four hours a night for six nights. Skin hydration decreased after just one night of restricted sleep and continued declining, while researchers also observed changes in elasticity, texture, gloss and other skin characteristics over the study period.
So no, one late night isn't going to turn you into the crypt keeper.
Thank God.
But sleep, hydration and barrier function are genuinely connected.
So what can you actually do about it?
You do not need to turn bedtime into an eleven-step ceremonial event involving four serums, a facial roller, red light, a tiny refrigerator and 45 minutes you absolutely do not have.
The basics matter.
Get some actual sleep.
Revolutionary, I know. Skincare cannot completely compensate for chronically inadequate sleep. Your body is doing a lot more overnight than anything in a jar can accomplish.
Cleanse without declaring war on your face.
If your skin feels squeaky, tight and vaguely offended after washing it, consider whether you're stripping it more aggressively than necessary. Your barrier is supposed to help keep water in. Treat her accordingly.
Give skin hydration and something that helps support the barrier.
Humectants such as hyaluronic acid and glycerin help increase water in the outer layers of skin, while emollient ingredients can help smooth and condition the surface. You don't necessarily need seven separate products to accomplish those jobs.
Don't make every night an active-ingredient Olympics.
More exfoliation, stronger acids and more products aren't automatically better. If your skin is irritated, tight, flaky or suddenly protesting everything you put on it, piling another active on top may not be the answer.
And if your bedroom is extremely dry, particularly in winter or when the heat or air conditioning is blasting, humidity is worth thinking about too. Your environment is spending the entire night with your skin.
And this is exactly why we made After Hours.
We didn't want nighttime skincare to mean seven products lined up beside your sink and a routine that requires its own Google Calendar.
We wanted the formula to work hard so you don't have to.
After Hours is our leave-on Hydra Luxe Rescue Mask, formulated with triple-weight hyaluronic acid, polyglutamic acid and glycerin as part of its hydration system, alongside ingredients including squalane and jojoba to condition and support the skin barrier.
Put it on. Leave it on. Go live your life. Or, ideally, go to sleep. And that's literally where the name came from.
After Hours is skincare for the hours when you're off the clock but your skin isn't.
Obviously, there's a little wink in there too. The after-hours club. The party you maybe shouldn't still be at. The kind of night that ends with your shoes in your hand, your Uber rating slightly compromised and tomorrow-you questioning some decisions.
There's a reason beauty doesn't need to be so fucking serious all the time.
But the skincare can be.
While you're asleep, your skin is cycling through real physiological changes. Water is escaping. Barrier function matters. Sleep matters. Your environment matters. So we wanted to make something smart enough to understand the assignment, but easy enough that you didn't need to think about it.
Your skin can have the nightlife. You can go to bed.
She's the friend quietly replacing your vodka soda with a glass of water while you're not looking.
We work After Hours on your skin, so you don't have to.
And now you know.
xo
Shelley
Sources + Further Reading
Circadian Rhythm and the Skin: A Review of the Literature
A review of how the skin’s circadian rhythm influences functions including transepidermal water loss, permeability, blood flow, temperature and cellular repair.
Read the study
Does Poor Sleep Quality Affect Skin Ageing?
Clinical and Experimental Dermatology
Research examining the relationship between sleep quality, skin barrier function and recovery.
Read on PubMed
A Study of Skin Characteristics With Long-Term Sleep Restriction in Korean Women in Their 40s
Skin Research and Technology
A study looking at changes in skin hydration, elasticity and other characteristics during sleep restriction.
Read on PubMed
