How a warming planet is wreaking havoc on your skin
It's not just UV damage: Pollution and rising temperatures can cause everything from fine lines to eczema flare-ups. We asked experts how you can protect yourself.
As dermatologist Maria Wei biked to her University of California San Francisco clinic one day in November 2018, she looked up at the white flakes drifting from the sky. She quickly realized it wasn’t snow falling, but ash.
“It was ash from the 2018 Camp Fire which was 175 miles away,” says Wei. “I was wondering what the impact was on my lungs…and then I questioned, what about my skin?”
Wei saw the effects firsthand. Over the next few weeks, her clinic at the University of California San Francisco treated a spike in patients reporting skin issues. She saw cases of eczema soar in San Francisco, along with clinic visits for psoriasis and general complaints about itchiness.
Climate change is making the planet hotter and worsening air pollution caused by natural disasters such as wildfires. But how do these changes affect the largest organ on your body—your skin? And can you actually build a skincare routine that shields your skin from the extremes of a warming planet?
“The effects of climate are more powerful than any skin care product,” says Harvard Medical School dermatologist Arianne Shadi Kourosh.
Here’s what dermatologists say you can do—and what won’t make a difference—when it comes to protecting your skin.
How excessive heat affects the skin
As global temperatures rise, excessive heat is causing existing skin conditions to become inflamed, increasing skin cancer risk.
“Skin is our largest organ, and it’s the primary interface with our environment,” says Eva R. Parker, dermatologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee.
A 2024 review by the International Eczema Council showed that severe heat and sweating can make people scratch more, aggravating eczema symptoms, which Parker sees in her patients in Tennessee. Extreme heat and sweat also exacerbate psoriasis and facial flushing from lupus, says Parker. She adds that these issues are appearing earlier in the spring and later into the fall because hotter days are beginning earlier in the year and lasting longer into the fall.
(Extreme heat may age you as much as smoking or heavy drinking.)
Third-year Harvard medical student and study author Natalie Baker has also seen how heat affects skin conditions in Boston clinics during unusually hot summers. One patient with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a type of cancer that can cause rashes and scaly skin, told Baker in her clinic visits the itching was “absolutely unbearable” during the summer.
Patients suffering from hidradenitis suppurativa, a condition that causes painful abscesses on the skin, also reported more severe symptoms during periods of heat and humidity which creates a breeding ground for bacteria and can cause skin irritation as the abscesses create friction against clothing. “I have patients in the clinic who say, ‘I’m on the edge of my seat all summer just waiting for myself to flare again,’” says Baker.
TIP: Keep cool and hydrated. Dermatologists recommend staying as cool as possible to prevent exacerbating these skin issues. When outside during heat waves, broad-brimmed hats, long-sleeved Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF) shirts, and staying in the shade when possible both keep the body cool and protect the skin from sun damage. Dehydration from fluid loss through sweating can also make the skin drier and more irritated, so staying hydrated is key.
How air pollution and wildfire smoke damage the skin
As climate change makes wildfires more frequent and intense, the air quality effects are far-reaching, just like the flaky white debris Wei saw in California seven years ago.
“Many, if not all, inflammatory diseases will be affected by air pollution including wildfire smoke,” says Wei. When wildfires burn they release pollutants like fine particulate matter which can trigger oxidative stress, damaging the skin. Since the skin’s barrier function is already impaired in eczema patients, air pollution is more easily able to enter the pores of the skin and cause irritation. In psoriasis patients, air pollution causes an inflammatory response, where the body’s immune system releases inflammatory chemicals into the bloodstream that trigger a skin flare-up, says Wei.
(How wildfire smoke affects your body—and how you can protect yourself.)
Kourosh also noticed an unusually high number of patients with eczema flare-ups when Canadian wildfires shrouded Boston in smoke in June 2023. Eczema’s peak season is typically the winter months when the air is drier, so a flood of eczema patients in June was unexpected, says Kourosh. The clinic would normally see under 20 patients in a summer month for eczema, but during the wildfires this number jumped to 160.
Even more surprising, Kourosh says patients who’d never dealt with skin issues were suddenly reporting irritation. Wei’s team in San Francisco saw the same thing in 2018, so they tracked online searches in the region before, during, and after the Camp Fire, observing a sharp increase in searches about itching coordinated with the spike in dermatologist visits.
(How wildfire smoke can permanently damage your brain and body.)
Kourosh explains that when issuing public recommendations to stay indoors and use an air purifier during the Los Angeles wildfires early this year, she thought of many of her own patients who couldn’t afford or access these preventative measures.
“They may not have resources,” says Kourosh. “Their job may require day labor outdoors; they may not have that luxury [to stay inside].”
People without access to indoor filtration systems, for example, are more likely to have existing skin conditions and allergies triggered by wildfire smoke, according to a preprint published earlier this year that reviewed 40 recent studies on climate impacts and skin health.
But routine exposure to periods of smoke may also cause long term damage to the skin. Wei’s research team at University of California San Francisco is reviewing studies around the world on skin cancer in firefighters, and although the analysis is not yet completed, Wei estimates there’s about a two-to-threefold increase in risk of skin cancer in firefighters compared with the rest of the population.
TIP: Use antioxidants, sunscreen, and moisturizer. For a skin care routine that considers air pollution, Kourosh recommends starting the day with a serum that includes antioxidants, followed by a moisturizer with ceramides, and a mineral-based sunscreen.
Minerals in some sunscreens like zinc, titanium, and iron oxide don’t just protect against sunlight, but also provide a shield against pollution, says Kourosh.
Algae and green tea leaves are trending in the world of anti-pollution skincare for their anti-inflammatory and antioxidantproperties.
Products that contain Vitamin C also claim to prevent collagen degradation that may be caused by air pollution, and studies have found that some plant extracts, like from ginseng, camellia, and brown algae, do protect against oxidative stress.
For your nighttime skincare routine, Kourosh suggests using a cleanser to wash pollution off the skin, followed by a moisturizer with ceramides to restore the skin’s barrier which may have been degraded throughout the day.
There’s some debate about whether using moisturizers provides an extra barrier against pollutants, or whether it traps pollutants to be stuck on the skin, says Wei; dermatologists report this area needs further study.
The future of climate skincare
Gut health is linked to skin health, and probiotic treatments are becoming more popular to treat skin conditions, says Parker, although research is still emerging on the connection and the effectiveness of probiotics to treat air pollution damage.
(Probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics. What’s the difference?)
Dermatologists say monitoring air quality and preventing damage during those poor air quality days is key to protecting your skin. Keep windows shut and wear a mask and protective clothing if you go outside.
(What the Air Quality Index measures—and what to do when it’s code red.)
“Learning to adapt to these environmental changes is essential,” says Parker.
But these solutions may not help everyone. Inflammatory skin conditions are common in marginalized populations who may not have access to air conditioning, or who work outside all day, and extreme heat creates a favorable environment for bacterial growth compromising the skin's natural defenses.
Dermatologists also advise caution around specific products’ claims to climate-proof your skin. Experts recommend checking if your favorite skincare brands have conducted clinical trials, to ensure that the benefits they claim are in their products are backed by scientific evidence.
Although the intersection of climate change and dermatology is a newer research field, “seeing the progress we’ve made just in the past five or six years that I’ve been in this space… keeps me excited for the future of the field,” says Baker.
