Barrier Function
Silk for Skin Health
Our skin is our largest organ and a highly complex barrier designed to protect our bodies from environmental stressors. Every day, the wonder of our skin protects us from the sun’s rays, from environmental pollutants, from bacteria and viruses, and in order to protect us as well as it can, this barrier maintains its own health.
Ordinarily, this process works well, but when skin barrier function is compromised, our skin health suffers and we can experience all manner of symptoms which show up as irritation, redness, sensitivity or even skin dullness.
Factors Contributing to Good Skin Health
Our skin is in its optimum condition up until our mid twenties. After that, owing to the natural slowing of cellular regeneration and the depletion of collagen, our skin becomes more susceptible to environmental damage and more so with stress and illness.
Eating well, sleeping well, keeping hydrated and avoiding alcohol and nicotine all help with maintaining skin health but there are ingredients within skincare that can contribute to good skin barrier function.
The Barrier Function of Silk
In order to see what something in nature is capable of, we can look at the function it performs. In nature, the function of the silk cocoon is to act as a barrier, and the primary function of a barrier is protection.
As a barrier, it must protect against the harmful rays of the sun, environmental aggressors, viruses, bacteria and threats. Silk is proven to be highly protective when applied to our skin and induced DNA damage.
If the barrier (cocoon) is breached or compromised, it must be able to repair itself swiftly.
The silk cocoon is therefore able to protect, heal and renew itself in order to fulfil its function as a barrier.
Silk Lends Our Skin its Barrier Function
Silk has a long history as a wound healer in the medical community. Its first documented use was by the Ancient Greeks within wound healing and it is still used today after surgery and within sutures for eye surgery.
There are a number of reasons why silk has been used by medics for wound healing. Silk is highly biocompatible and is accepted by the human body. Silk has a long history of use internally, which reassures that it is perfectly accepted when applied topically.
When silk is applied to skin, it forms a film over skin and begins its biological activity. As the film is formed, silk begins to draw moisture and as a peptide, it initiates a chain of events leading to collagen synthesis.
In clinical studies, when silk was applied to wounds, each stage of the body’s wound healing processes was accelerated and when the wound was ‘sealed’ by the body, the resulting scar was neater than the control group which was not using silk. This is because the application of silk resulted in new skin cells forming in a more orderly fashion.
Silk leads to More Resilient Skin
When silk is applied to skin, not only does it synthesise collagen and hydrate the skin, it also increases hydroxyproline (OHP), which is an amino acid and the major component of collagen, giving collagen its elasticity. This helps the skin to rebuild stronger and more stable collagen and connective tissue.
More About Us
Learn about our founder and our approach to skin care using the science of Silk.
As a company based on a highly renewable, natural resource, we are compelled to draw inspiration from the Earth and have processes in place to respect it.