
Botnia Skincare Hydrating Serum: Bathe in Hydration
If you know Botnia, you’ve most likely heard us touting our #1 bestseller Hydrating Serum as the product that’s like a drink of water for your skin. And we’re not wrong! What makes this hydrating clear liquid so effective is its ability to bring hydration to dry, dehydrated skin. How’s it work? Let’s do a deep dive into our most popular product and how to use it properly in all climates.
Hyaluronic acid for the winter and summer
Remember the acid that’s not really an acid we talked about last year? Hyaluronic Acid (HA) remains one of the most-searched skincare ingredients online. During the winter or summer it can be extremely beneficial for the skin—when used the right way.
Because HA is water-loving, it needs water or water-like molecules to work properly. When adding in a hydrosol or toner after using our Hydrating Serum, the HA in the formulation will absorb the product and further plump up your skin. You want to make sure to layer the Hydrating Serum underneath a cream or oil to lock in that moisture.
Used alone, it’s possible that the HA can pull water from your skin and actually dehydrate your skin more! Eek! It’s why in dryer climates or being indoors with the heater on, it’s usually recommended to have a humidifier with you in the room too. That way, the HA has water molecules it can pull from the air to hydrate your skin.
The science of skin in the wintertime
A dip in temperatures affects the skin by shrinking blood vessels and reducing heat. When low temperatures last for a long time, the secretion of the sebaceous glands is reduced and the skin dries out in cold weather. Because the flexibility and tone of your skin depend on the amount of water present in the fatty tissue beneath the epidermis and dermis of the skin (called the subcutaneous tissue), increasing the moisture content of your skin helps with its firmness, elasticity, softness, and glow. Signs of dehydration like redness and inflammation are an indication of your cells not having enough liquid to bathe themselves in. When moisture is lost, you’ll see skin that’s dry, tight, and rough to the touch. Because the elasticity is reduced, skin can break much more easily resulting in flaky skin. What we want to do during this time is to rehydrate the skin and then moisturize it.
Digging deeper, when we think about the bonds that connect our skin and keep it intact, it’s important to think about our extracellular matrix (ECM). The ingredients that make up the ECM are fibers and glycoproteins, the most prominent glycoprotein being collagen. This matrix not only helps form our tissues but also informs cells in our body to do things like grow, divide, produce different types of molecules, or even die. Hyaluronic acid is naturally found throughout the body and essentially brings water to different parts of the body as a cushion or lubrication. Picture the ECM as the delivery system for our cells to be healthy: it’s why hyaluronic acid is so powerful for the skin—it’s like a bath for your cells, holding water molecules to hydrate your body. That water holds important nutrients for the cells and the more water we have to bathe our cells, the healthier they will be.
As our bestselling product five years running, there’s no question that hyaluronic acid works and it’s one of the most compelling reasons for using our Hydrating Serum as a part of your wintertime routine for skin hydration. We’ve seen so much success with our formulation, using it both inside the treatment room for facials and habitually with at-home care. So go ahead, dive deep into your HA and let your cells bathe in hydration!
Xo,
Botnia