THE ORDINARY | MARINE HYALURONICS

This review was originally part of my blog article titled, My Winter Empties 2020: Serums, Cleansers And Toners From Drunk Elephant, Skinfix, Paula's Choice And More! You can still catch the full piece here.

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Spring has certainly sprung here in New York City. And, reflecting back on my skincare journey over the past three months, it’s apparent that I was heavily focused on hydration. More than any other winter season of the past, I took pains to prevent dehydration throughout the day. In both my AM and PM routines, I hydrated like a madman. A dry madman!

No matter what you do, in the low-humidity air of a cold winter’s day, it can be challenging to maintain proper hydration levels and keep skin from experiencing trans-epidermal water loss, or TEWL. As I’ve shared, TEWL is perhaps the least understood, yet most pro-aging skin condition.

We aren’t conditioned to understand the effects of dehydration on the skin. Especially as those effects relate to aging of the skin and the visible signs of aging — including fine lines, wrinkles, uneven skin tone and sensitivity. Lack of sufficient water in the skin’s upper layers compromises the most basic of skin functions, including defending against environmental damage and the desquamation process — or cell turnover.

MY FAVORITE HUMECTANT SERUMS FROM PAULA'S CHOICE, THE INKEY LIST, GHOST DEMOCRACY AND MORE

Read here.

What Is Trans-Epidermal Water Loss (TEWL)?

There’s an excellent article on the health website Skin Better titled, What Is Transepidermal Water Loss and Why Is it Important? available here. In the piece, the author defines TEWL as follows:

“The skin is comprised of three primary layers: the epidermis, the outermost layer; the dermis or middle layer; and the hypodermis, the undermost layer. When water passes from the dermis through the epidermis and evaporates from the skin’s surface, this is known as transepidermal water loss (International Journal of Pharmaceutics).
While TEWL is a process that your skin naturally regulates, certain factors that can damage the skin’s barrier function can also affect TEWL levels. Circumstances such as injury, low-humidity weather conditions and topically applied products that dry out the skin can impact TEWL.
To achieve this, combine humectant and occlusive skincare ingredients.
Transepidermal water loss can contribute to a variety of dry skin conditions, and although it is a natural process, there are ways that you can help your skin stay moisturized and hydrated. Hydration refers to the water content of the skin, whereas moisturization is the skin’s ability to retain those water molecules. Therefore, your skin needs both elements to maintain desirable levels of TEWL.
To achieve this, combine humectant and occlusive skincare ingredients. Humectants help to draw moisture to the epidermis, either from the air if it is humid enough, or from the underlying dermis in low-humidity conditions. Because water content that is drawn from the dermis can be lost through TEWL, it’s important to combine the use of humectants with occlusives. Together, these ingredients create a reservoir of moisture in the epidermis and act as a barrier on the skin to help prevent TEWL by sealing in that moisture. The occlusive agents simultaneously keep pollutants, toxins and harmful bacteria out (Skin Therapy Letter).”

With that, let’s have a look at one of my favorite humectant serums — one that got me through the last three months…

The Ordinary | Marine Hyaluronics

It’s so hilarious to me that given how much I love this product, and how many bottles of it that I’ve been through, that I’ve never fully reviewed it before — at least on the blog. I’ve included it in my IG Stories and in glimpses of my skincare routines, but I’ve never actually taken the time to go in depth about why I love The Ordinary’s Marine Hyaluronics so much. And why I have so many of them in back-stock as I write this!

Marine Hyaluronics has a super special place in my skincare routine, quite unlike every other product in my day. It’s actually among the first two skincare products that I use each morning, way before my actual AM routine kicks off.

What Is Hyaluronic Acid and What Does Hyaluronic Acid Do for Skin?

I found an excellent, albeit wonky, article on Hyaluronic Acid titled, Why Science Says Hyaluronic Acid Is the Holy Grail to Wrinkle-Free, Youthful Hydration.

This bit stood out to me, in particular:

“The benefits of hyaluronic acid on the skin has to do with its molecular weight and concentration. In this case, size matters! The molecular weight refers to its mass, or how big the HA molecule is. This is measured in something called unified atomic mass units — daltons, or kDa for short.
HA between 50 to 1,000 kDa is the most beneficial for skin, with about 130 kDa being the best, according to the most recent human studies. Anything higher won't make too much of a difference. Anything lower might cause inflammation. How did we get this number? When you look at studies, you'll see a pattern, but one of the most thorough studies looked at HA with different molecular weights, including 50, 130, 300, 800, and 2,000 kDa.
After one month, they found that treatment with 130 kDa HA was the most effective, increasing skin elasticity by 20 percent. Both the 50 and 130 kDa groups had significant improvement in wrinkle-depth and skin roughness after 60 days. All the other molecular weights still improved elasticity and skin hydration, just less so. You can read more about this molecular weight analysis from the original breakdown here.”

Every morning, Orpheus and I wake up around 4:30-5. (He’s a cat and I’m an old human.) Of course, he gets fed immediately since he always seems to be starving to death.

I turn on the coffee maker and head to the bathroom for, let’s say, my skincare preview. I have two concerns that need to be addressed immediately: under-eye puffiness and dehydration.

So, my first-thing-in-the-morning go-to products are The Ordinary’s Marine Hyaluronics and the brand’s Caffeine Solution 5% + EGCG.

The Ordinary’s Marine Hyaluronics is the most watery humectant serum I’ve come across. I think that’s why I love it first thing. It absorbs immediately, like a toner. And since I’m concerned that I’m dehydrated, the most I ever am throughout the day, I want it to sink in and get to work immediately.

(By the way, I nearly always get back into bed right after applying it — with my coffee and the quite sated Orpheus.)

Despite what the name implies, it’s not exactly made with Hyaluronic Acid. Rather, it’s infused with marine humectants in the form of what Deciem describes as “exopolysaccharides from skin-friendly marine bacteria, Hawaiian red algae, glycoproteins from Antarctic marine sources, micro-filtered blue-green algae, and several health-supporting amino acids.”

I love my Marine Hyaluronics! I don’t recall when I started using it but it’s been years — and I’ve likely been through 50 bottles of it.

SHOP THE BLOG: Purchase The Ordinary Marine Hyaluronics for $6.80 here.

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