Use the Skin Sim app to guide your seasonal skin care
The Skin Sim app simulates seasonal changes in drying stresses on skin at a reference house in your community. It uses an indoor air model along with historic climatic data from NASA to reconstruct these stresses.
The app presents two diagnostics for evaluating these stresses. The first is the Dermal Hydration Deficit. The hydration deficit represents the difference between the skin’s water content at an optimum value of 60% relative humidity and the content at an indoor humidity below 60%. The Dry Skin Index is based on a thermodynamic property of water vapor. I is calculate from indoor temperature and humidity.
How can Skin Sim help you improve your skin care?
A motivating force behind Dermidia is the recognition that 1) as we age our skin becomes more susceptible to indoor drying stresses, and 2) these stresses change seasonally, but we can’t sense them directly. Therefore, we need tools to guide our skin-care practices over the course of a year.
One such tool we developed is the app Skin Sim, which is available from Google Play and iOS App Store.
The adjacent screen shot depicts the simulation results from the app for a location that has a large number of days in which the Dry Skin Index is above 5. Perhaps the biggest surprise is how the drying stresses increased rapidly in the early fall after the humid summer months. This is apt to be a time when people begin experiencing dry skin without necessarily knowing the cause.
Conversely, stresses begin to let up in late Spring, which means that your skin-care should change as well.
You can become more knowledgeable about the seasonal drying stresses impacting your skin care by using the Skin Sim app.
Discover patterns of dermal drying stresses that matter to you. Prepare and respond accordingly!
Dave Layton, Owner, Dermalapps LLC
Action items
It is quite easy to use the Skin Sim app–download from one of the app stores and type in your location.
- Pay particular attention to the number of days above DSI levels of 5 and 6, as these elevated levels increase the risk of dry skin formation.
- Identify times of year in which the Dry Skin Index is rapidly increasing or decreasing.
- Consider how to compensate for these changing stresses by applying moisturizing lotions/creams to areas of skin prone to dryness.
- Don’t forget about room humidifiers as another way to reduce drying stresses when indoor humidities are low.
For more personal, timely and relevant information on the drying stresses impacting your skin, consider getting the DSI Sense. This sensor constantly tracks the dermal stresses in your residence so that you can adjust your skin-care practices accordingly. Avoid the seasonal surprises that other face. Compensate for the increasing susceptibilities of aging skin to indoor drying conditions by the proactive use of moisturizers and room humidifiers.
