Understanding a Moisturizer

A moisturizer is a skin care product that hydrate your skin with and/or prevent the loss of oils from skin. It keeps your skin soft, smooth and maintains its radiant glow. Moisturizers are one of the most commonly used products for skin care.

In this post, we would discuss about the benefits of using a moisturizer, the mechanism of action and about different formulations of moisturizers available in market.

Benefits of a moisturizer:

• A moisturizer hydrates your skin, prevents loss of oil from the skin and replenish moisturising elements in upper layer of skin.
• Daily use of a moisturizer keeps your skin soft, smooth and maintains its radiant glow.
• Daily use of a moisturizer prevents dryness of skin and defies visible signs of skin ageing.
• Moisturizers help to heal dry skin and skin diseases as eczema, psoriasis etc. 
• Moisturizers serve as vehicle for common skin-care products as sunscreens, anti ageing creams, fairness creams etc.

How does a moisturizer work and what are its basic ingredients?

There are many ways in which moisturizers work to achieve a common goal of increasing water content in outer layers of skin. These may work as:

Occlusive ingredients

These prevent water evaporation from skin as petroleum jelly or Vaseline, paraffin, squareness, dimethicone, oils as mineral oil, sunflower oil, olive oil, jojoba oil etc.

Skin barrier components

Skin barriers components act by maintaining the integrity of skin barrier by providing fatty acids as linoleic acid, ceramides and cholesterol.

Humectants

Humectants have high water absorbing properties. These absorb water from environment and circulation, thus hydrating the skin. These include glycerin, urea, hydroxy-acid as glycolic acid and lactic acid, propylene glycol.

Emollients

Emollients soften and smoothen skin. These fill the spaces between desquamating skin cells and yield smooth surface. These include petrolatum (Vaseline), lanolin and mineral oil.

Collagen and polypeptide ingredients

These replenish the protein content of skin.

Different formulations of moisturizers

Moisturizers come in many formulations as ointments, creams, lotions, gels and serums.

Ointments

Ointments are semi-solid preparation rich in lipids like Petroleum jelly or Vaseline. These are very greasy, suitable to be applied on very dry skin, lips and soles. But it should not be applied on face as it occludes pores and increases pimples (or comedogenic).

Creams

Creams are semi-solid preparations, containing both lipids and water. Oil and water content of creams varies in different preparations. More the oil content of a cream, the more greasier, moisturizing and more pimple prone (comedogenic) it becomes.

Lotions

Lotions are liquid preparations containing more water than lipids. These are less greasy and less moisturising too.

Serums

Serums are water-based light-weight preparations. These have the least amount of moisturising ingredients. These contain higher concentration of active ingredients like antioxidants, peptides, skin brighteners meant for deeper penetration.

Gels

Gels are semi-liquid preparations containing water and oils held in gelling material. These liquefy on application on skin and then dry leaving the coat of active medication on skin. These are non greasy, easily absorbed, non-comedogenic, but these are less moisturizing.

In our next post, we would discuss how to choose best moisturizer for your skin.

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