Reactivity · Entry 03
Sensitivity & redness
Sensitive skin is a nervous-system finding, not a skin type. Sensory nerve endings fire earlier than they should — usually because the barrier above them has thinned enough to let irritants reach them.
- How it reads
- Stings on application, flushes with heat, and calms slowly.
- Mechanism
- Sensory nerve activation and neurogenic inflammation
- Honest timeline
- Fourteen days to a measurable drop in flushing, if nothing new is added
- Often arrives with
- Compromised barrier · Blemishes
Processes involved
The biology
underneath
- TRPV1 activationThe receptor that responds to heat and capsaicin also responds to a compromised barrier. Once sensitised it fires at lower thresholds — which is why sensitivity escalates rather than plateaus.
- Neurogenic inflammationActivated nerve endings release substance P, which dilates vessels and recruits mast cells. The flush is neurological before it is immunological.
- The barrier–inflammation loopInflammation impairs lipid synthesis; poorer lipids let more irritant through; more irritant means more inflammation. Break it at the lipid step, not the redness step.
Why it happens
- A thinned or disordered barrier, letting irritants reach nerve endings directly.
- Vasomotor instability — capillaries dilate quickly and constrict slowly.
- Chronic low-grade inflammation, keeping immune cells primed to overreact.
- Over-exfoliation, fragrance load and hot water, in that order.
When to see someone else
Persistent central-face redness with visible vessels or small bumps may be rosacea, which needs a diagnosis and often a prescription. Cosmetics support it; they do not treat it.
What has evidence here
Each active carries its own entry in the library, with mechanism, origin and the products it appears in.
- Centella asiaticaStandardised extractmadecassoside 4%Titrated for madecassoside rather than sold as a generic extract. That titre is the whole difference.See the ingredient
- Chamomile distillateGrown · Transylvaniawater phaseBisabolol-rich, and the reason the texture reads as relief rather than as treatment.See the ingredient
- PanthenolBiotech3.0%Reduces redness and supports lipid synthesis — one of the few actives with data in genuinely reactive skin.See the ingredient
- Vitamin ENatural tocopherol0.5%Antioxidant, and it keeps the oil phase from oxidising into something the skin objects to.See the ingredient
Recommended ritual
Ritual calm
Three steps only. Every product removed from a reactive routine is itself a treatment — we take things away before we add them.