What is Skin Barrier and How Ceramides Work to Repair it?

Dry or scaly skin, itchiness, acne, atopic dermatitis. There is one commonality in all this: damaged skin barrier. Skin barrier is basically the outermost layer of our skin that keeps the skin moisturized and fights off bacteria. It is especially important for those of us living in Dubai and the Middle East, one of the driest places in the world. Let’s learn what the skin barrier means and how we can keep it healthy, or even rebuild it once it’s damaged. 

A brief anatomy of the skin barrier 

Like a brick wall, Skin barrier is built with bricks (skin cells) and mortar (lipid). The wall gets weaker (damaged skin barrier) when the mortar (lipid) does not completely fill the gaps between the bricks (skin cells), and, as a result, leakage will start (skin dryness). It does not end there, as the wall weakens, unwanted external elements (that can cause allergies and other skin diseases) also penetrate causing problems (skin issues like atopic dermatitis). 

The key to keep the wall healthy and, if damaged, to repair it lies with understanding the mortar. The mortar (lipid) is composed of 3 major ingredients: Cholesterol, Fatty Acid, and Ceramide. Insufficient ceramide usually causes the shortage of lipid (mortar) in the skin barrier. That’s why so many skincare brands try to show their products contain any type of ceramides.

What you need to know about ceramide

The white, oily-waxy component is a key component of the healthy skin barrier. Over 10 types of ceramides have been identified or created as a potential candidate ingredient for skin care products. Still a few things you might take note when it comes to ceramide: 

1.   Ceramide has multiple types: Ceramide EOP, Ceramide NP, Ceramide AP, ‘Myristoyl/palmitoyl oxostearamide/arachamide MEA’ are names you can check and identify as ceramides
2.   Ceramide alone cannot create the necessary lipid (mortar) for the skin barrier. It should be combined with fatty acid and cholesterol. If you find Stearic acid, Oleic Acid, Lauric Acid, Palmitic or Myristic Acid (as fatty acids), together with Cholesterol, or Phytosterols (cholesterol obtained from plants) in the ingredient section of your skincare product, at least you can say it has building blocks to help with skin barrier repair 
3.   Amounts and proportions matter. It is known that Products containing ceramides at lower than 5% are not very effective. In addition, the mixing ratio of ceramide, cholesterol, and fatty acid also matters. Research has found that 1:1:1, 1:3:1, 1:1:3 (Ceramide : Cholesterol : Fatty Acid) could be ideal mix of the three key ingredients

The problem with the last point (checking amount and proportion) is that it is easier for manufacturers to make such statements rather than actually implementing it in practice. Most skin care products do not state the exact proportions of the ingredients they use as they consider it the manufacturers’ Intellectual Property. Then how can you tell if your product you are considering, combines the key ingredients, using the right mixing ratio?

Check multi-lamellar structure or ‘Maltese cross’

Our skin barrier’s lipid layers are stacked in fine, alternating layers, which is observed as unique repetitive patterns (lamellar structure). On special microscopes (cross polarizing microscope), these repetitive layers are seen as repeated cross signs (Maltese cross pattern).

Research has shown that only when the 3 key ingredients (ceramide, fatty acid, cholesterol) are mixed and processed under ideal condition, the repetitive layers appear. This could be an ultimate benchmark with which you can find a right ceramide product with maximum skin barrier repair effect thanks to its similarity in structure to the natural skin.