Skincare Penetration and Absorption: How To Get The Most From Your Products

One of the skin’s primary roles is to protect our body from external substances—even potentially beneficial ones, like the active ingredients in skincare. This can make it difficult to formulate moisturizers and serums that penetrate the skin’s layers and produce results.

This guide to skincare absorption explores the science behind the skin barrier, the factors that can impact ingredient penetration, and how to enhance your skincare routine to get the maximum benefits from your skincare products.

Shop Now

How Boosting Skincare Absorption Can Help Improve Your Skin

There are several ways to help improve your skin look and feel. A healthy lifestyle that includes enough sleep, plenty of water, and a healthy diet can support healthy looking skin. Incorporating skincare products with active ingredients like vitamin C or peptides, and remembering to use sunscreen can also go a long way in targeting your skin concerns.

Effective penetration of active ingredients helps the products in your skincare routine best perform their function, such as targeting signs of skin aging like fine lines and loss of elasticity or helping support hydration.

Understanding Skincare Absorption

To understand skincare absorption, we need to understand how the skin works. The skin is composed of 3 layers, the deep hypodermis, the middle dermis, and the outermost epidermis—the layer containing most of the components in the skin barrier.

The skin barrier has 2 main functions:

1. Water retention

The skin barrier prevents excessive water loss. This ensures the skin doesn’t dehydrate and helps support optimal moisture levels.

2. Protection from external hazards

The skin barrier helps to protect against potentially harmful substances, like allergens, damaging free radicals, and irritants.

Essentially, the skin barrier acts as a selective guard, regulating what goes in and out. While this selective nature is helpful for maintaining healthy skin, it poses a challenge for skincare formulators trying to deliver active ingredients like antioxidants, vitamin c, or niacinamide into the skin.

Skincare Absorption and Molecule Size

Molecule size is one of ways formulators bypass the skin barrier’s defences. Molecule size plays a primary role in whether substances penetrate the skin or remain on the surface. Smaller molecules tend to penetrate the skin more easily and larger molecules generally stay closer to the skin’s surface.

For example, different forms of hyaluronic acid have different molecular weights. The smaller molecular weights are more readily absorbed and can act on deeper layers of the skin, and the larger molecular weights provide surface hydration.

Larger molecules are often leveraged in barrier support formulations. Because they tend to sit on the skin’s surface, larger molecules can form an occlusive barrier to lock in moisture.

What Affects Skincare Absorption

Some ingredients in skincare products may penetrate more easily in oily skin types, depending on whether they’re oil soluble or water soluble. However other ingredients may mix with the sebum on the skin’s surface, which can reduce penetration.

Because well-hydrated skin allows for better absorption of active ingredients, dry skin may also affect the penetration of skincare products. A good moisturizer or lotion, and drinking plenty of water can help ensure the skin doesn’t dehydrate

Environmental factors like seasonal weather conditions and pollution can influence skincare product absorption in several ways:

  • Humidity levels can increase skin hydration levels and increase the absorption of some water-soluble ingredients.

  • Pollution can disrupt the skin barrier and lead to increased permeability, allowing both skin ingredients and potential irritants to enter more easily.

  • Oxidative stress from damaging environmental stressors, like UV rays, can affect the skin barrier function and impact skincare absorption.

The order in which you apply products can also impact absorption.

  • Cleansing and toning should always be the first two steps to remove impurities and prepare the skin for subsequent products.

  • Follow this step with thinner, water-based products — essences or serums — which are more easily absorbed.

  • Finish with thicker moisturizers, lotions, or oils to lock in moisture and other active ingredients in your skincare routine.

  • Always end your AM skincare routine with a broad spectrum sunscreen to protect against sun damage from exposure to ultraviolet (UV rays) and reduce the risk of skin cancer.

Learn how to layer with precision in our Guide to Layering Skincare.

Certain ingredients, or ingredient combinations, can help increase the penetration of skincare.

  • Peptides, can be optimized for delivery into the skin. Some peptides can even act as delivery molecules, helping support the delivery of other active ingredients within a formula. Learn more about the Power of Peptides.

  • Hydrating ingredients, like the ones found in our Multi-Active Delivery Essence, boost skin moisture and help make the skin more receptive to the active ingredients in your skincare.

  • Water-based skincare products tend to penetrate more deeply than oil-based skincare products due to their lightweight nature and smaller molecule size.

How to Enhance Skin Absorption

Boosting skincare absorption doesn’t require drastic measures. Simple techniques can lead to improvements in your skin look and feel.
Exfoliation

Exfoliation helps clear away congestion that can potentially reduce the absorption of skincare products. Glycolic Acid 7% Exfoliating Toner is a chemical exfoliant that helps remove dead skin cells from the skin’s surface. Read more about exfoliants in Back to Basics: Exfoliation.

Gentle Massage

Massaging the skin as you cleanse or apply your skincare products temporarily increases blood flow and warmth. This can help make the skin more permeable and may allow skincare products to penetrate deeper.

Hydration

Well-hydrated skin is more supple and allows for better absorption of some skincare ingredients. Hyaluronic Acid helps lock in moisture creating an ideal environment for skincare absorption. Explore the Science of Hydration for more information.

Tailoring Skincare Products

Choosing the right cleanser, moisturizer, or lotion for the right environmental conditions can help keep skin healthy and receptive to active ingredients. For example, our Squalane Cleanser has a richer format that supports hydration in dryer seasons. In more humid weather, our lightweight Glucoside Foaming Cleanser can help wash away excess oil. Daily broad-spectrum sun protection, like our UV Filters SPF 45 Serum, can help defend against the effects of sun exposure and support the skin barrier.

Using formulations designed to increase penetration

The Ordinary Multi-Active Delivery Essence contains a specific combination of four active technologies, which effectively boost skin hydration to increase penetration of skincare ingredients.

Optimizing Skincare Absorption

By understanding how skin type, environmental factors, and application order affect skincare absorption, you can help products deliver results. Regular exfoliation and proper skin hydration can help enhance absorption and enhance your overall skincare regimen.

Discover what is a skincare essence and how it can become a transformative step in your daily regimen. Whether you're just starting out or refining an established routine, understanding how to layer products and improve skincare absorption will help you get the most from your skincare regimen.

Enhancing Skin Absorption FAQs

Several factors affect how well skincare absorbs into your skin, including the molecule size of active ingredients, skin type, environmental factors, and the order in which you apply your skincare products.

Cleansing and toning help remove impurities and prepare skin for treatment. Exfoliation helps clear dead skin cells and other congestion that can potentially impact penetration and absorption of skincare.

Well-hydrated skin is more supple, which allows skincare ingredients to penetrate more effectively.

Start with a cleanser to remove impurities. Then use thinner, water-based products such as essences or serums. Finally, finish with thicker creams, lotions, or oils to lock in moisture.

Smaller molecular weights of Hyaluronic acid are more readily absorbed than larger molecular weights and support skin hydration. Some Peptides can act as delivery molecules, supporting the delivery of other ingredients.

Yes. Environmental factors like seasonal weather conditions and pollution can influence skincare absorption. Your regimen may need adjusting depending on these factors.

Regular exfoliation with ingredients like glycolic acid, cleansing with Squalane or Glucoside, and maintaining skin hydration with hyaluronic acid, may help enhance absorption and support a better skincare regimen. You can also incorporate formulations like Multi-Active Delivery Essence, which are designed to increase the penetration of skincare ingredients.

Check Out Some of Our Back-to-Basics Resources from the O. Library

Read More Here