MONO SKINCARE ROUTINE: DAILY DOSE OF SELF-CARE IN 5 STEPS
1. Do Not Damage Your Skin Barrier: you don’t strip your skin to kill bad bacteria or viruses.
Wash your skin (hands and face) with our MONO ultra-gentle soap-free cleansers daily. This soft cleansing formula forms a light, creamy foam upon contact with water so you can experience a touchable smooth complexion with a radiant glow while respecting your skin's natural pH.
The science behind: Constant use of harsh facial cleansers and antibacterial soaps strip your skin of the healthy bacteria or the 'good bugs' — consequently damaging your skin's natural bacterial ecosystem. This, in turn, makes your skin stressed and dry, causing skin issues like breakouts, eczema, rosacea flares and psoriasis.
2. Acidify the Skin to Keep Healthy or Help Rebuild the Barrier: A pH level of 5.5 – slightly acidic, is optimum.
Use our MONO pH-balancing toner tab over damp skin to create a light, conditioning lather. This radiance-boosting toner combines Organic Acids with nourishing Peptides, Ceramides and SolarRepair Botanicals to purify, balance and brighten your skin. NB: Balancing our skin pH becomes more and more difficult as we get older, because each decade of life our skin becomes more alkaline, resulting in a variety of undesirable changes and skin disorders ranging from wrinkles to pigmentation and even acne. So start young! Another factor sending us into alkaline anarchy is sun exposure: it gradually weakens the acid mantle, therefore exposing the skin to aggressors (read: dull, pigmented, acne-prone skin). The enzyme phospholipase A2 and the protein NHE1 work together to keep the stratum corneum [outer layer of the skin] acidic. And they’re both deactivated by prolonged sun exposure, and sun damage – occurring as early as our teens – kick-starts this process.
3. Love Your Bacteria.
They synthesize part of the acid mantle, the outer protective layer of the skin. Leaving them in peace allows them to do the job. Give them prebiotics, and an acidic, pathogen-free environment; such as all the ingredients that are composing the MONO Face Moisture Lotion.
4. Film It
If the barrier is damaged, the logical solution is to re-form an artificial one. A skin protective film of natural origin or not, which will prevent the skin from being raw and water from evaporating (the famous TransEpidermal Water Loss). The best natural solution: our glycerin-based MONO night serum. Prebiotics have a good water retention action because of their chemical structure.
5. Feed Your Microbiome From the Inside: healthy guts = healthy skin.
Know your good guys : the bacteria and their friends that can work for you. At MONO, we are all about lactic acid for the skin, but for the gut the hero is called Butyric Acid. It’s part of a family called Short Chains Fatty Acids (SCFA for their friends) and you are going to hear a lot about them in the coming year. These postbiotics (so produces of good bacteria) have many benefits, including supporting the immune system, balancing blood sugar or strengthen the gut barrier. So include them in your daily diet as much as possible too.