Yes, Quarantine Skin is a Thing. Here's How to Deal with It

Whether it's stress, habits, or excess processed foods, there's a high chance that your skin has changed due to some facet of quarantine life.

Here are five different reasons that your skin could be reducing in quality during this quarantine period, but keep in mind that there are many different factors that could be affecting your skin, and it could even be a combination of some found both on and off of this list.

This is a great time to listen to your skin, and do what is best in the moment, even if it goes against your typical "holy grail" products and routines.

Assess Your Habits

Due to the dismantling of the day to day habits for many individuals, it has become easier than ever to completely bypass one's skincare routines. Maybe it has become too easy to just start the day without a fresh, clean face, and then end the day without a fresh, clean face. Maybe you've skimped out on the moisturizer since no one might see you anyway. If this sounds like you, then your skincare hygiene may the the culprit.

Make sure that even during these trying times, you are keeping to your skincare rituals (especially your holy grail ones), as they will be the key to keeping your skin intact for this quarantine period. 

Assess Your Water Intake

Along with habit assessment, it's important to assess where water has been fitting in with your quarantine routines. For many of us, water consumption might exist as a habit that fit perfectly into every portion of our pre-quarantine routines and schedules. For others, you might drink water intuitively based on when you feel the need to hydrate yourself. Regardless, both types of individuals can be affected by the disruption of normal day-to-day life due to the pandemic.

Water, already, is an important substance to maintain adequate consumption of, but if you're worried about the quality of your skin then it's definitely even more important to be conscious of your water intake. It's completely possible that, maybe, you haven't been consuming as much water as you used to before quarantine.

Make sure you drink enough to keep your body happy, healthy, and regulated, but also to keep your skin hydrated from the inside out.

Assess Your Sunscreen Application

Yes, even if you're spending all day indoors for extended periods of time, you still need to apply sunscreen to your skin to protect from UV and UVA rays. This is especially important if you find yourself sitting closer to windows or laying in the sun indoors to feel that nice summer warmth on your skin.

Without applying these environmental protectors to your skin, you are still at risk for sun damage, skin cancer, and reduced skin quality. In addition, the sun's rays can increase inflammation and redness, and can cause post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (dark discoloration).

Assess Your Skincare Routine

It's definitely possible that the skincare products and routines that made up your pre-quarantine life could use an adjustment due to the changes in your routine that make up your quarantine life.

Maybe your skin could benefit from a once-a-day surfactant-based cleansing routine rather than a full morning and night cleansing routine. Maybe you need to implement a gentle/mild chemical exfoliant to help promote the sloughing of excess dead skin and to help to revive your skin. Maybe you need even more hydration in your daily routine that expected.

All of these changes, and more, could potentially result in better, happier, quarantine skin.

Assess Your Breakout Patterns

After playing around with skincare products for long enough, we can all learn and come to better understand our skin, the ways it breaks out, the reasons it breaks out, and the types of products our skin thrives on. However, if you're getting new, unexplained breakouts, it's very possible that factors like your mask could be causing your new breakouts.

Maybe your mask is irritating the area surrounding your ears, or maybe your mask is causing small pimples around your mouth and the other areas that it covers up when out in public.

For this, it's especially important to keep your mask clean and sanitized, one, because we are literally experiencing a pandemic, and two, because our masks can hold onto our day-to-day oils, bacteria, and anything else that we'd usually just wash off with our end-of-the-day skincare routine. By not cleansing our masks, we can potential put that bacteria onto our faces each time we wear it.

There are so many more ways that quarantine could be affecting your skin, however, this is certainly a great starting point to figure out what could be diminishing the quality of your skin during quarantine.