Here's the Real Reason Your Skin Gets Red and Sensitive

Anyone with sensitive skin knows the struggles with redness. Even when you think you've miraculously gotten rid of your flushed skin for a night, you wake up the next morning and there it is again, glaring back at you. Was it because you washed your face so late at night? Or was it because you tried a new recipe for a make-it-yourself mask? Is it actually rosacea, or is your complexion just taking the rosy-cheek thing to a whole new level? 
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You're not treating the true cause of your redness. "There are many creams on the market that promise to correct redness but often fail to address the underlying issue. For instance, redness from dry skin needs a completely different treatment than redness from rosacea," says Lotika Singh, a New York City dermatologist. "In some cases where the redness is caused by dilated blood vessels, lasers are the most effective coarse of treatment, and topical creams often fail to produce any results."

You're washing your face with a foaming cleanser. Washing your face in the morning and at night is essential for healthy skin, but using the wrong cleanser can further irritate it, making it more red and inflamed. Many foaming cleansers are formulated with ingredients like sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laureth sulfate, or ammonium laureth sulfate. These are surfactants used to cut oil from the skin, but they are particularly harsh and will strip skin of its water and oils, leaving it feeling tight and more irritated. A good rule of thumb: more lather, more drying. Always use a sulfate-free cleanser that won't dry out skin. More specifically, look for cleansers with hydrating and soothing properties, such as those containing allantoin.

You're using too many exfoliating products. Moisturizers, scrubs, and astringent toners with glycolic acid are problematic. Overly vigorous exfoliation with these products can also traumatize the superficial blood vessels of the skin and make them more prominent, which is the opposite of what you're trying to achieve. If you overexfoliate, you'll have to backtrack into laser treatments or color-correcting green tinted moisturizers to correct or mask the dilated capillaries.

You're stripping your skin instead of protecting it. Rather than exfoliating, start by repairing the barrier. Look for products with skin-repairing ceramides to seal the cracks between skin cells.

You think natural ingredients will work better than medications. Many of the patients are nervous about using prescription medications or seeking out advice from a dermatologist for their condition because they fear potential chemicals that can burn or further irritate their skin. So they will turn to options they consider safer or more natural, only because they mistakenly believe that what's safe to eat must be safe to put on their skin, or because they are found readily without a prescription. Not only does this practice typically delay improvement in their skin redness, it can even worsen the condition when substances that are considered natural have an inappropriate pH for skin or trigger skin allergies, creating more redness and inflammation. In reality, redness can be a sign of inflammatory skin conditions, including rosacea or seborrheic dermatitis, and will respond beautifully to medication that has been specially formulated and balanced for these sensitive-skin conditions.

You cover up redness by tanning.  Many patients will try to work on a 'perfect tan' to help mask the appearance of redness. This is the exact opposite of what works best. Lots of facial redness can be attributed to rosacea, which actually flares tremendously with sun exposure. Not to mention what it does to your skin cancer risk. It's tough to get rid of redness quickly, but adding a daily moisturizer with SPF of 30 or more that doesn't irritate your skin is a great way to reduce the flaring that comes from sun exposure.

Source from https://www.allure.com