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What’s the best treatment programme for a client with dehydrated skin?

Dehydration is not just about how much water your client is consuming. Firstly, we need to know how to identify dehydration in the skin, and then how to solve it.

Lines can happen in the skin just through dehydration alone. The collagen and the muscle tone might be healthy, but the client might still get dehydration lines, usuallly across the forehead and around the eyes, and they can happen at any age.

Hyaluronic acid lives in our dermal layer and that is our water reserve. It’s a glycosaminoglycan, or GAG cell, and these cells hold water within them. So it's very important that we have hyaluronic acid in the skin, as well as water. If we are putting a client on a hyaluronic acid product or treatment, then we need to team that with water sprays or ask them to drink more water.

Even if the client is drinking lots of water and using hyaluronic acid, this skin might not be able to hold on to that water, and that might be because they've got transepidermal water loss. This means that the water is leaking through the epidermal layers because they've got an impairment in their natural moisture factor. This is the lipid layer that lives on the surface of the skin and protects it from nasty pathogens, but also keeps the water in. So, we either identify the reason that a client is dehydrated or tick all boxes: get them to drink more water, hydrate with hyaluronic acid and repair the natural moisture factor.

To do this, we’d use ceramides, fatty acids and cholesterols to repair that lipid layer, and then hydronic acid, water sprays and even a change in diet. Fruit and vegetables can contribute to our water intake, so if you have clients that really don't like drinking water, then encouraging them to increase their intake of raw fruit and vegetables can help, as can drinks like herbal teas.

How does lavender oil work to soothe and heal skin?

Lavender, often regarded as the matriarch of essential oils, offers multiple benefits to both the senses and skin. With its sweet herbaceous aroma, its many positive effects range from encouraging restful sleep through to the improvement of breakout-prone skin, redness and sunburn. There are more than 400 types of lavender species globally, each with different aromatic scents and properties.

The linalyl acetate found within lavender helps to reduce skin inflammation, relieving the associated discomfort, making it a popular ‘first aid’ remedy for minor skin distress. With its generally neutral pH, lavender also assists with skin moisturising and conditioning, helping to rejuvenate mature or stressed-out skin.

Lavender's linalool content is ideal for targeting breakout-prone skin; its antiseptic properties help to combat the mechanisms that lead to breakouts, while also contributing to the reduction of inflammation and discomfort caused by the eruption. The cleansing actions of lavender are well regarded for balancing combination skin and creating equilibrium.

Research also shows that the chemical constituents within lavender can inhibit several neurotransmitters and receptors in the brain, resulting in the lowering of blood pressure, tension and the slowing down of busy brain waves. By simply diffusing lavender essential oil, the inhalation of its aromatic molecules has a deeply soothing and sedating effect, and, with its anxiolytic properties, has been found to reduce levels of nervousness, anxiety and depression.

The unique structure of lavender can also enhance the effects of other essential oils, and it is frequently found in different blends of aromatherapy products.