Dry skin and atopic dermatitis: how to tell the difference?

Peel­ing, feel­ing of tight­ness, wrin­kled appear­ance, cracks, red­ness, eczema and the desire to con­stant­ly comb the arms, legs, neck, back indi­cate that the skin con­di­tion is not at all nor­mal. To help her recov­er, you first need to deter­mine whether you are deal­ing with dry skin or atopic der­mati­tis. The tac­tics of leav­ing will be dif­fer­ent.

Dry skin and atopic dermatitis: how to tell the difference?

With dry skin, an imbal­ance of lipids and water occurs in the upper lay­er of the epi­der­mis. Basi­cal­ly, dry skin is skin that lacks mois­ture and oil. As a result, the pro­tec­tive func­tion of the hydroli­pidic man­tle is bro­ken, the skin becomes less elas­tic, at first you begin to feel dis­com­fort, and then wrin­kles, cracks form on the skin, and it is dam­aged even from fric­tion with cloth­ing. As a rule, this occurs due to exter­nal fac­tors: the tem­per­a­ture dif­fer­ence between the room and the street, insuf­fi­cient flu­id intake and mal­nu­tri­tion. To stop this con­di­tion, it is nec­es­sary to reduce the vol­ume of liq­uid evap­o­rat­ing from the sur­face, main­tain the nec­es­sary lev­el of mois­ture in the epi­der­mis and strength­en the dam­aged pro­tec­tive lay­er of the skin.

But not all mois­tur­iz­ers are effec­tive. Instant relief comes from for­mu­las that con­tain bioac­tive mol­e­cules relat­ed to the com­po­nents of the skin’s struc­ture. One such sub­stance is urea. As part of the nat­ur­al mois­tur­iz­ing fac­tor, it mois­tur­izes the skin in deep lay­ers and retains mois­ture for a long time, pre­vent­ing water from evap­o­rat­ing from the sur­face. Urea also has exfo­li­at­ing and revi­tal­iz­ing prop­er­ties.

BABÉ Lab­o­ra­to­rios Revi­tal­iz­ing Lotion con­tains 10% urea to pro­vide fast relief from dry and dehy­drat­ed skin. Apply Lotion all over your body 1–2 times dai­ly to help relieve tight­ness and dis­com­fort. And in order to neu­tral­ize the neg­a­tive effects of water on the skin, take a show­er with a mois­tur­iz­ing show­er gel. This is a very gen­tle cleanser with­out soap, unnec­es­sary chem­i­cals and preser­v­a­tives, which is suit­able for even the most sen­si­tive skin own­ers. After a show­er, it forms an invis­i­ble and intan­gi­ble pro­tec­tive veil on the body, which does not allow mois­ture in the epi­der­mis to evap­o­rate, which means it restores dry skin.

If the skin is not only dry, tight, cov­ered with wrin­kles and cracks, but also prone to itch­ing and red­ness, most like­ly you are deal­ing with atopic der­mati­tis. Atopic der­mati­tis or atopic eczema is a der­ma­to­log­i­cal dis­ease, usu­al­ly chron­ic and asso­ci­at­ed with dys­func­tion of the skin pro­tein filag­grin.

But not all mois­tur­iz­ers are effec­tive. Instant relief comes from for­mu­las that con­tain bioac­tive mol­e­cules relat­ed to the com­po­nents of the skin’s struc­ture. One such sub­stance is urea. As part of the nat­ur­al mois­tur­iz­ing fac­tor, it mois­tur­izes the skin in deep lay­ers and retains mois­ture for a long time, pre­vent­ing water from evap­o­rat­ing from the sur­face. Urea also has exfo­li­at­ing and revi­tal­iz­ing prop­er­ties.

Dry­ness is just one of the signs of atopy. It is also pos­si­ble to dis­tin­guish atopic skin from dry skin by char­ac­ter­is­tic red spots, which begin to itch and grow in exac­er­ba­tion, and from comb­ing and with­out time­ly treat­ment, a sec­ondary infec­tion “set­tles” in them, and they grow and get wet, bring­ing more dis­com­fort.

This prob­lem is a der­ma­to­log­i­cal dis­ease that affects the qual­i­ty of life. There­fore, the diag­no­sis and treat­ment should be dis­cussed with a der­ma­tol­o­gist. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, atopic der­mati­tis is a chron­ic dis­ease, but the remis­sion time can be extend­ed and is quite man­age­able.

Most like­ly, dur­ing exac­er­ba­tions, the doc­tor will pre­scribe anti-inflam­ma­to­ry and hor­mon­al oint­ments, as well as anti­his­t­a­mines. Very often, the cause of exac­er­ba­tions of atopic der­mati­tis is asso­ci­at­ed with an aller­gic reac­tion. It can be food, air com­po­nents (dust, pollen, smog, ani­mal hair) or anoth­er aller­gen. There­fore, the basis of treat­ment is a change in lifestyle to elim­i­nate it. In addi­tion to ther­a­py, atopic patients are pre­scribed reg­u­lar care with the help of emol­lients — spe­cial der­mo­cos­met­ic for­mu­las that restore skin lipids and relieve itch­ing.

When com­par­ing atopic and dry skin, it is very impor­tant to under­stand that all prod­ucts for atopic skin can be used for dry and sen­si­tive skin. But not all prod­ucts for dry skin can be used on atopic skin. For exam­ple, a regen­er­at­ing lotion is not suit­able for atopic skin, due to the con­tent of 10% urea: on atopic skin, this com­po­nent will only increase itch­ing with­out solv­ing the prob­lem. Also, dry skin may not respond to fra­grances, dyes, preser­v­a­tives and oth­er aux­il­iary com­po­nents of cos­met­ics, while atopic skin is like­ly to “give out” more irri­ta­tion.

What is good for atopic skin?

Atopic skin cleans­ing is ide­al­ly car­ried out with emol­lients. The unique prod­uct of BABÉ Lab­o­ra­to­rios, oily show­er soap, was cre­at­ed espe­cial­ly for the most demand­ing skin. It gen­tly cleans­es the skin of impu­ri­ties, while sooth­ing and pro­tect­ing it from fur­ther mois­ture loss. The secret lies in 40% sooth­ing and revi­tal­iz­ing nat­ur­al oils in a soap-free, water-free for­mu­la that gives skin instant com­fort.

Dur­ing remis­sion, body milk is applied — this is a gen­tle, fast-absorb­ing lotion for instant hydra­tion and sooth­ing of sen­si­tive skin after a show­er for 24 hours. The for­mu­la, enriched with jojo­ba oil and fat­ty acids, improves the pro­tec­tive prop­er­ties of the skin, restor­ing its lipid bar­ri­er. The con­tent of glyc­erin and soy­bean oil pro­vides a mois­tur­iz­ing effect, while the BABÉ Sooth­ing­Com­plex of aloe, chamomile, alpha-bis­abolol and allan­toin, gives the skin instant com­fort.

For atopic skin in any con­di­tion, hand cream is also per­fect. This is a mul­ti­func­tion­al prod­uct for com­pre­hen­sive dai­ly care for dry and chapped hand skin. For­mu­lat­ed with Mol­e­c­u­lar Mois­ture Film and Revi­tal­iz­ing Com­plex to nour­ish, soft­en, restore and pro­tect. The creamy tex­ture instant­ly nour­ish­es and absorbs quick­ly, leav­ing the skin of the hands filled and well-groomed.

Atopic der­mati­tis in adults is a mark­er of a par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive ner­vous sys­tem. Psy­chol­o­gists agree that skin prob­lems are faced by those peo­ple who, for some rea­son, can­not express their emo­tions out­ward­ly and this is how the body copes with them through the skin.