GHOST DEMOCRACY | FLOODGATE HYALURONIC ACID SERUM

This review was originally part of my blog article titled, My Favorite Humectant Serums From Paula's Choice, The Inkey List, Ghost Democracy and More! You can catch the full piece here.

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Throughout the colder months between October and March, I really struggle with keeping my skin from becoming dry and dehydrated.

In November, I kicked off the annual dry skin season with a pair of articles on the best face creams for dry skin and all skin types in the cold, leading with a piece titled, Winter Moisturizers Part I – Some of the Best Face Creams for Dry Skin and All Skin Types in Cold Weather. A week later, I rounded out my list of the best dry skin moisturizers in Winter Moisturizers Part 2 — available to read here.

In mid-December, I followed those up with a piece on my favorite hydrating face mists titled, Favorite Face Mists For Keeping Skin Hydrated In The Cold – Best Face Mists, Best Hydrating Toners For Dry, Dehydrated Skin.

Richer face creams and hydrating mists are indispensable, essentials in every winter skincare routine. And, at least with the moisturizers, are fairly common. But the one true essential for maintaining skin health in the harsh cold months is a really good humectant product, usually a Hyaluronic Acid serum.

While Hyaluronic Acid is far and away the most popular and most sought-after of humectants, it is by no means the only one. Humectant ingredients that are also effective at preventing trans-epidermal water loss and subsequent dehydration include: Beta Glucan, Butylene Glycol, Centella Asiatica, Polyglutamic Acid, Glycerin, Aloe Vera, Snow Mushroom and even seaweed.

I think it’s just that Hyaluronic Acid was the new, sexy humectant popularized in one-note serums — treatments focused on a single potent active ingredient. Brands like Deciem’s The Ordinary and The Inkey List were founded on ingredient education and super affordable one-note serums. Among the most sought after are The Ordinary’s $6 Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1% and the $8 Hyaluronic Acid Serum from The Inkey List — which I include in the line-up below.

Maintaining proper hydration levels year-round is essential if skin is going to function at its peak. Healthy functioning skin is better able to defend against external aggressors like pollution, UV, and free radical attacks. And healthy skin is better fortified against aging. So while it may seem slick to say that a humectant serum that helps keep skin hydrated is an effective anti-aging product, it’s not really a stretch at all.

Dry, dehydrated skin is certainly unhealthy; it can’t behave as it should. You may be asking yourself, as I once did, what the difference is between dry skin and dehydrated skin. Well, permit me to explore those differences.

What’s the difference between dry skin and dehydrated skin?

For the answer to that vexing questing, as I most often do, I turned to the experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team for insights. There’s a superb piece on the Paula’s Choice site titled, What is Dehydrated Skin & How to Choose the Best Products. Here is an excerpt:

Dehydrated skin often looks and feels like dry skin all over your face, but there's a major difference between the two: dehydrated skin is usually a temporary concern (with various surprising causes) and dry skin typically doesn't change over time. If you have dehydrated skin, your skin may also produce a normal or even excessive amount of oil on its surface.
"Dehydrated skin" is something we’re asked about frequently. It seems there’s a lot of confusion about what this skin concern is about. A major part of the confusion is that the term "dehydrated skin" is often used interchangeably with "dry skin" or "combination skin" but they are not the same! Dehydrated skin can occur in all skin types and is not exclusive to those with dry skin or combination skin.
The Difference Between Dry Skin and Dehydrated Skin
Having classically dry skin is easy to recognize. Dry skin frequently feels tight and dry, with no oil anywhere to be seen. This situation rarely fluctuates; skin feels dry all year long. The dryness might get worse depending on the climate, season, or activity, but regardless of those things, without great skin care products, the uncomfortable dry, tight feeling will persist.
As mentioned above, dehydrated skin can look and feel similar, but there’s a major difference: Dehydrated skin tends to come and go, it does not persist.

With that, let’s take a look at a few of the best humectant serums for keeping skin optimally hydrated day after day…

Ghost Democracy | Floodgate Hyaluronic Acid Serum

It’s rare to come across a Hyaluronic Acid serum where you know the precise level of HA in the formula. I recall that the Skin Regimen 1.85 HA Booster I reviewed on my blog here contains, well, a 1.85% concentration of macro, micro, and cross-linked Hyaluronic Acid.

And in a previous article on some of my top Vitamin C picks, I noted that the Purito Pure Vitamin C Serum is formulated with 84% Sodium Hyaluronate liquid. Of course, that’s simply a blend of Hyaluronic Acid and water. A concentration of HA higher than 3% would turn a formula into a gelatinous, unusable mess.

To call out a 2% concentration of an active isn’t all that appealing from a marketing standpoint.

Even so, Ghost Democracy characteristically shares that its Floodgate Hyaluronic Acid Serum is formulated with 2.1% Pure Hyaluronic Acid, which is a legit level of the power humectant.

But honestly, I don’t really know what the functional level of HA in skin care is. I believe it’s between 1.5-2%. But I love to venturing down a Google rabbit hole!

In one of the most insightful articles I’ve found in Hyaluronic Acid titled, Why Science Says Hyaluronic Acid Is the Holy Grail to Wrinkle-Free, Youthful Hydration, I found these additional insights:

“Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a naturally occurring glycosaminoglycan found throughout the body's connective tissue. Glycosaminoglycans are simply long unbranched carbohydrates, or sugars, called polysaccharides.'

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HA is the main component of what gives your skin structure, and is responsible for that plump and hydrated look. You may have heard the chatter around collagen, but hyaluronic acid is where it’s at.”

That’s exactly why you read claims on Hyaluronic Acid’s ability to plump skin and treat signs of aging. Plump skin shows fewer visible fine lines and wrinkles.

The opposite of plumped skin is sagging skin, which naturally shows deeper, more numerous, and more pronounced wrinkles. Fascinating, right?

What is hyaluronic acid for skin?

I recently found an excellent albeit wonky article on Hyaluronic Acid titled, Why Science Says Hyaluronic Acid Is the Holy Grail to Wrinkle-Free, Youthful Hydration.

This bit stood out to me, in particular:

“The benefits of hyaluronic acid on the skin has to do with its molecular weight and concentration. In this case, size matters! The molecular weight refers to its mass, or how big the HA molecule is. This is measured in something called unified atomic mass units — daltons, or kDa for short.
HA between 50 to 1,000 kDa is the most beneficial for skin, with about 130 kDa being the best, according to the most recent human studies. Anything higher won't make too much of a difference. Anything lower might cause inflammation. How did we get this number? When you look at studies, you'll see a pattern, but one of the most thorough studies looked at HA with different molecular weights, including 50, 130, 300, 800, and 2,000 kDa.
After one month, they found that treatment with 130 kDa HA was the most effective, increasing skin elasticity by 20 percent. Both the 50 and 130 kDa groups had significant improvement in wrinkle-depth and skin roughness after 60 days. All the other molecular weights still improved elasticity and skin hydration, just less so. You can read more about this molecular weight analysis from the original breakdown here.”

But what about levels of Hyaluronic Acid, the unknown that lured me down the rabbit hole to begin with? I found this in the same article:

“If you're formulating your own products, or purchasing HA products that list the percentage, we recommend keeping the HA concentration below 2 percent. Why? A very low molecular weight of 5 kDA HA has the ability to penetrate the skin, which means it can potentially carry other unwanted ingredients, chemicals, and bacteria more deeply into the skin. If you have compromised skin, this might be bad news. Thankfully, on its own, HA tends to not cause allergic reactions since our bodies also make it.”

A very low molecular weight of 5 kDA HA has the ability to penetrate the skin, which means it can potentially carry other unwanted ingredients, chemicals, and bacteria more deeply into the skin. If you have compromised skin, this might be bad news. Thankfully, on its own, HA tends to not cause allergic reactions since our bodies also make it.”

With its 2.1% level of HA, the Floodgate Hyaluronic Acid Serum also contains a nice, healthy level of 4.0% Niacinamide to help brighten skin and flush out pores.

Curiously, there’s also 1.3% White Tea Leaf Extract — something I find intriguing. You often see Green Tea Extract in skin care but white tea?

Ghost Democracy shares this about their reasoning behind it: “One of the least processed tea extracts, white tea retains more of the plant’s antioxidants than black and green teas. High concentration of polyphenol and flavonoid content helps to reduce oxidative stress and protect skin.” Now that’s good clean skin care with a twist!

The Floodgate serum has a thicker, more pulpy texture that’s not the least bit sticky, which I found surprising. Oddly, it has a somewhat unappetizing odor to it which reminds me of the “hot dog water” smell that many people complain about over The Ordinary’s Marine Hyaluronics, one of my all-time favorite humectant serums.

SHOP THE BLOG: Purchase the Ghost Democracy Floodgate Hyaluronic Acid Serum for $34 here.

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