How to supercharge your skin in your sleep

Have you ever woken up from a night’s sleep and felt… rough? Skin Inc, leader of customised skincare solutions, bills itself as a brand for busy urbanites—the kind who multi-task, listening to podcasts while working out. Mums who express milk while chairing Zoom meetings. Women and men who eat lunch at their desks between back-to-back calls because there’s 101 other things on the to do list that need their attention. Skin Inc know their clients intimately because they are their own target market. Through data from their Skin Identity Check, Skin Inc discovered that 92 per cent of its consumers were stressed out, with 71 per cent spending over six hours a day in front of a screen, and 65 per cent running on less than six hours sleep a night. If you can relate, welcome, this is a safe space.

The not-so-great news is that a lack of sleep, increased exposure to HEV blue light even as you’re scrolling in bed (revenge bedtime procrastination, anyone?) compounds into a complexion that’s stressed and sensitised—dull and fatigued with a weakened skin barrier that’s more vulnerable to pollution, UV damage, free-radicals and allergens.

“While we sleep, the skin switches to recovery mode. This natural activity reverses and repairs at least some fo the damage done to the skin during the day,” says Dr Donald L. Bissett, a chemist and biochemist with over three decades in skincare research. “During sleep, blood flow to the skin increase, skin temperature rises, skin cells regenerate, and collagen rebuilding occurs.”

“Skin is so active during sleep, it is more receptive to anti-ageing cosmetic ingredients that provide the building blocks for recovery.”

And as we ignore our iPhone’s ‘bedtime’ alerts or binge on just one more episode of Bridgerton, we’re missing out on our skin’s prime hours for rest and repair. As we sleep, the body works to rebuild collagen, while regenerating skin cells and stimulating antioxidant enzyme production, according to Skin Inc. Keep scrolling TikTok in your PJs every night, and soon you’ll discover that this may manifest on your face as skinflammation and the visible signs of premature ageing including fine lines, dehydration, dullness and areas that are rough or sensitive to the touch. We also know that stress and the inability to effectively wind down drives up cortisol levels in the body, disrupting your skin barrier and immunity. In a bid to minimise the effects that these lifestyle and environmental factors take on our skin, Skin Inc offers its My Nightly Dose Custom Recovery Sleep Mask.

The intensive night treatment comes in two texture formulations: The fragrance-free Custom Recovery Sleep Mask in a hydrogel and hydro cream. The hydrogel, formulated with hyaluronic acid, caffeine, witch hazel, zinc PCA, sodium PCA and even natto gum is recommended for oily skin types that wish to reduce the appearance of pores and oil, while smoothing the skin. The hydro cream base, however, is a winner for dry or dehydrated skin types (or those in an air-conditioned bedroom or arid airplane environment, if travel for leisure ever becomes a thing again). It combines vitamin B3 with brightening licorice, ceramides, hyaluronic acid, squalane, caffeine and more to bathe the skin in antioxidants and hydration while refining the look of enlarged pores.

The goal here is to reverse the damage of the day while amping up the recovery of your skin’s health and immunity via five unique Serum Booster shots.

In classic Skin Inc mode, the five booster shots contain its proprietary caviar-like encapsulation technology, with a concentration of 1,000 microcapsules in each vial. Every booster shot contains up to 17 nutrient-rich actives that work to enhance overnight recovery as you sleep.

Customising your own overnight mask takes less than a minute and parched, fatigued, even sensitive skin types will be able to feel the comfort and hydration it provides almost instantly. Happily, it’s not a single-use mask: there’s plenty of product inside to tide you over for the long nights ahead. And, after having applied two generous layers of the Hydro Cream with my own cocktail of Age-Proof and Soothe, my skin is starting to feel zen and excited for the promise of tomorrow’s glow already.