Toners have been the hotness for a while now, ever since the Korean Skincare Routine took social media by storm all the way back in 2017. If you’d like to review what Skin Actives had to say about the Korean Skincare Routine, check out our blog post on it here. Ever since those halcyon days we’ve had toners on the mind. And so have a lot of others now that you mention it!

Toner is one of those products that divides people’s opinions. 

On one hand, you have people who swear by it and insist that without a good toner, your skincare routine is lacking. “It’s essential!” they say. 

On the other hand you have those who see toner as far less than a fundamental foundation of your daily skincare routine. By some, toner is seen as maybe a fine step, but you can skip it all the way over to, a harmful idea that is best avoided.

To understand your relationship with toner, you may have been relying on the advice of your best friend or favorite social media personality. But what you need to really decide on whether this controversial step is right for you is 1.) an understanding of what a toner is and what it does 2.) an understanding of your own skin and its chemistry. 

What is Toner?

At its most fundamental, toner is a specialized cleanser. 

As Dr. Sivak puts it:

“A toner is a liquid, mostly water, with additions like ethanol or surfactants, used to remove oils and sebum. The objective: to strip the skin of oily substances and whatever else a cleanser may have left behind.”

So, on some level, what we’re looking at here is a post-cleanser, cleanser. 

And it’s designed to target oils, which we understand, can be a problem for some. So oil removal always sounds good. But do you need to remove that much oil? How much is too much? We’ll tackle that idea in just a minute. But for now let’s digest another critical aspect of the toner controversy.

If we can presume that a skincare product has a valid, necessary, non-harmful function, then it stands to reason that we can consider it worthy of induction into our daily routines. However, we then have to examine how the product goes about achieving its stated objective.

This comes down to ingredients. 

We might look at all those names on the side of a bottle or jar and not have a real, solid, serious understanding of what is that we are looking at. But scientists do. It’s their job to understand the mechanism of action for various active ingredients and how those mechanisms will interact with your skin in a way that is desirable and healthy.

Now, not everyone who formulates a product is weighing your health as heavily as they are weighing the perceived desirability of the outcome. This means that in the skincare industry, you can find products that work, but that outcome might be purchased at the cost of your long term skin health and well-being.

Toners to Avoid

Many toners are formulated with these “the ends justify the means” menatilities, or at the very least, “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

There are four ingredients you want to avoid in a toner. If you see them, put them back on the shelf and move on. If you have them on your counter already, throw them in the bin.

Their ingredients are:

• Ethanol
• Methonol
• Benzyl alcohol
• and Isopropyl alcohol

Yeah, that’s right, these are all alcohols. Now there are some that will tell you that alcohol is no big deal! We think that they are completely, totally, 100% wrong.

Alcohol is, by its very nature, drying. This can lead to the super tight feel that perhaps some toners are known for. But oil removal and drying are easy to overdo. It’s one thing to get your oil production under control, to a point where it’s not bothering you with unsightly blemishes, it’s another thing entirely to actually damage your skin in the process.

And another thing alcohol is known for is its intensely aggressive, oxidizing properties. 

That just won’t do.

In the long run, the battle for your skin health is about antioxidants. We’re here to fight free radicals and their physical aging effect. But you can’t do that if you are applying harmful oxidants to your skin, twice a day every day. This is why we get so concerned about the conception of an “essential” toner step.

Sebum Production and Your Skin

Now on to understanding your skin, so that we can understand the relationship between your body and your toner.

So, we’ve already discussed that toner’s purpose is to cut oil and remove sebum. We’ve also discussed that in skincare, there is such a thing as too much. 

So can you remove too much oil and sebum? The answer is very clearly: yes. The fact of the matter is that oil and sebum production are vital functions of your body’s health manifesting from millions of years of evolution. 

Sebum is a waxy, oily substance produced by the sebaceous gland within a skin cell. These glands are tiny, beyond microscopic, with as many as 900 sebaceous glands per CENTIMETER of skin! Sebaceous glands are more common in the skin of the face and scalp and entirely absent from the palms of your hands and soles of your feet. Sebum itself is composed of lipids, triglycerides and wax esters.

After decades of study, evolutionary scientists remain divided about the precise function of sebum production but one thing is clear, sebum is meant to protect your skin barrier from the harmful effects of the environment.

Skin oil is defined as the sebum that emerges from your skin, combined with dead skin cells, and the detritus that your body collects as it moves about in the environment. Not very fun sounding, but again, some of it is vital to skin health. Sometimes too much oil production can lead to acne blemishes.

The end point is that from an evolutionary point of view, we need sebum and we need oil, we just don’t need too much. These naturally occurring chemicals are vital to overall skin health and each one of us needs to examine our skin routine and really ask, “is two cleansing steps really necessary?”

Skin Actives and Toner 

After all that, Skin Actives still offers a toner, why?

Well, as we said before, not only does toning remain an incredibly popular step in skincare routines all over the world, but it doesn’t have to be a bad one for you.

Alcohol based toners rely on astringent properties to tighten pores, but you don’t need these caustic chemicals and free-radicals!

Rose water and neroli water can serve the same functions that you might be looking for from your current toner. Rose water has naturally astringent properties as well as serving an antibacterial function that can aid against the development of blemishes. Meanwhile neroli water can help to rebalance the skin’s pH, one of the core attributes people are looking for in a toner.

Rose water and neroli water also smell great! You can find these ingredients and more in Skin Actives’ great line of toners. From our Nourishing Floral Toner, to our Vitamin C Toner to the extra boost of our Advanced Ageless Anti Aging Hydramist, check out everything that we have to offer in this category.