Researchers Explain What The Redness On Your Face Actually Is
Key takeaways
- Author: Sela Breen May 10, 2026Assistant Health Editor By Sela Breen Assistant Health Editor Sela Breen is the Assistant Health Editor at mindbodygreen.
- This confusion led researchers to ask the question, do sensitive skin and rosacea share the same underlying mechanisms?
- Researchers recruited 30 participants: 15 with self-reported sensitive skin and 15 without.
Why this matters: practical guidance grounded in recent research or expert insight.
Author: Sela Breen May 10, 2026Assistant Health Editor By Sela Breen Assistant Health Editor Sela Breen is the Assistant Health Editor at mindbodygreen. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied journalism, international studies, and theatre.Image by i Stock Alona Siniehina May 10, 2026If your skin stings, burns, or flushes at the slightest provocation, you've probably wondered whether you're dealing with sensitive skin or rosacea. Both conditions involve facial redness and reactivity, making it difficult to distinguish between the two.
This confusion led researchers to ask the question, do sensitive skin and rosacea share the same underlying mechanisms? Or are they they distinct conditions that just happen to look similar? The findings were just published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Researchers recruited 30 participants: 15 with self-reported sensitive skin and 15 without. They measured the amount of tiny organisms that live on facial skin called Demodex Mites, as well as two antimicrobial peptides, cathelicidin and dermcidin, that play key roles in skin's immune defense. Demodex mite overgrowth and elevated cathelicidin are already well-established drivers of inflammation in rosacea. The question was whether sensitive skin follows the same pattern.