Ceramides, but better. This new launch is a game-changer for dehydrated skin

Time to get your lab coat and your nerd on, ‘cos we’re about to streak through skin school. Ceramides are the lipids which make up over 50% of the natural skin barrier. Effectively, they’re like the mortar between your skin cells, holding them together to create a strong, healthy barrier to keep the good stuff (like moisture) in and the bad stuff (like bacteria) out.

Our bodies produce ceramides naturally, but when our skin is dehydrated, irritated, inflamed, or growing older (always the way), the amount of ceramides we produce can plummet. This can lead to severe dryness and even dermatitis.

That’s where skincare comes in. Pick up a ceramide-rich cream, slick it across your face and bod and you’re good to go. The ingredient can be absorbed by skin and help to fill the cracks in the mortar caused by those factors above (irritation, dehydration, age etc). 

Except, ceramides are pretty chunky molecules (what with the heavy-lifting they do holding up our skin cells) so topically applied, ceramides can only sink a little way down into the layers of our skin. Which means, if you’re experiencing deep dehydration, you’ve only solved half a problem.

The good bit? Dove’s new DermaSeries range was specifically designed to combat this… and its pioneering Ceramide Activation System plays a blinder when combined with a magic ingredient – you. In place of dumping ceramides on top of your skin, the new range distributes the ceramides’ building blocks onto the surface of your skin instead. The dinky molecules can sink much further to deeper layers of your dermis and, once absorbed by the cells down there, they can kickstart them into action, enabling them to produce more ceramides for themselves.