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Skin Slugging, Flooding and Sandwiching
5 minute read
Skin care trends hit hard and fast yet seem to be swiftly reinvented before you’ve even had a chance to fully understand the full concept of the OG. Yes, some are worth trying, but others… Not so much!
Another TikTok Song About Hydration, Just with Different Lyrics
The thing about skin care trends today is, while they are generally not new concepts, they can be helpful in that they have particularly smart names that get people doing exactly what Skin Experts have been telling them to do for years.
We’ve chosen three trends with catchy new names to pull apart so you can see just how similar they all are and, more importantly, how you can incorporate them into your home care regime if you suffer with dry, dehydrated skin.
What is Skin Flooding and How Do You Do It?
#skinflooding isn’t anything exciting or new by any means, it is simply the practice of layering your hydrating skin care products to help the skin retain more moisture, repair the skins barrier and aid in the absorption of subsequent hydrating products.
Really, it’s just maximising the use of your products, which is something you should be doing anyway and likely why your Skin Expert prescribed you the products they did: to increase hydration.
A hydrated skin is a happy skin and everything else falls into place when the skin has adequate water levels.
What is Skin Slugging and How Do You Do It…. Properly?
#skinslugging whilst controversial in its TikTok approach is another song Skin Experts have been belting out since the beginning of beauty days. Skin Slugging is the method of trapping in your hydrating products with an occlusive barrier of oil, however “skinfluencers” on TikTok harped on about using Vaseline as the slug-like-oil to finish your skin off with; something a credible Skin Expert would never endorse.
Vaseline uses petroleum jelly, and this is wildly inappropriate for a barrier impaired and dehydrated skin given where it is derived. Years of research and clinical studies on the use of skin friendly oils extracted from plants, seeds and marine derivatives give cosmetic chemists and formulators a buffet of ingredients to choose from when creating facial oils and skin balms.
These professionally formulated products are designed to do exactly what Skin Slugging says to do; trap in the hydration (from the skin flooding approach to hydration) and active ingredients layered prior due to water not being able to evaporate through oil.
Another clever tweak to a song we’ve sung for years, again it all comes back to the philosophy a hydrated skin is a happy skin and Skin Slugging with quality oils is a great way to ensure your Skin Flooding sticks.
What is Skin Sandwiching and How Do You Do It?
#skinsandwiching much like the name suggests talks about layering products (like a sandwich) to slightly damp skin to increase hydration levels as damp skin absorbs product better, and they’re not wrong. In fact, the whole point of both skin flooding and slugging is to increase hydration as the skin absorbs product better when hydration levels are on point.
The debate is over whether splashing a light amount of water on your face between each product application is the ultimate way to achieve better absorption. Specially formulated hydrating sprays, like the O Biome Hydrating & Setting Spray, are designed to be used in a multi-faceted way, one being that it should be spritzed onto the skin between product applications to give the skin the “dampness” that it requires for maximum absorption. At the same time you’re doubling down by giving the skin actual hydrating ingredients rather than a splash of tap water.
The skin sandwich effect also continues with how to layer your products based on consistency, from the thinnest to the thickest ie: water based, gel based, lotion based, cream and then oil based.
The following steps is the O COSMEDICS route to Skin Sandwiching (and let’s be honest also Skin Flooding and Skin Slugging):
01 Cleanse with either of our three cleansers: Gentle Antioxidant Cleanser, Nourishing Cleansing Balm or Corrective Cleanser & Peel for a deep and hydrating cleanse.
02 Spritz the skin with O Biome Hydrating & Setting Spray.
03 Follow with Micellar Treatment Gel to leave a biomimetic shield of anti-pollutants and hydrating ingredients.
04 Spritz the skin with O Biome Hydrating & Setting Spray.
05 Apply 3D Hyaluronic Serum.
06 Spritz the skin with O Biome Hydrating & Setting Spray.
07 Apply Comfort Cream.
08 Spritz the skin with O Biome Hydrating & Setting Spray.
09 Apply Youth Activating Oil-Balm.
In summary, #skinflooding is layering hydration products which is essentially the point of #skinsandwiching, with the addition of spritzing the skin between the layering and ensuring you apply the #skinslugging rule of sealing in all these hydrating products with a rich and skin friendly oil balm.
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Shop O COSMEDICS Skincare Products Perfect for Skin Sandwiching, Skin Flooding and Skin Slugging:
