Moisturizing care: how to hydrate your skin?
Moisturizing the skin is one of the 3 essential steps in any skincare routine. facial careIt's a simple step, but more complex than it seems. However, when you consider the number of cosmetics available to moisturize the skin, it's easy to get lost. In this guide, I'll explain how to effectively moisturize your skin and give you my product recommendations.
best moisturizing cream for oily skin
best moisturizing cream for dry skin
best moisturizing cream for sensitive skin
best moisturizing cream for normal to combination skin
How do I moisturize dehydrated skin?
To answer this question, let's take a look at the principles of good skin hydration, whatever your skin type. We'll start with a bit of physiology. In the dermis, water is transported directly by blood vessels, as the dermis is highly vascularized, and water is captured by hyaluronic acid molecules, which are present in large quantities in the dermis.
The dermis is the skin's water reservoir. This water is bound, so the quantity of water present in the dermis hardly changes. However, unlike the dermis, the epidermis is not irrigated by blood vessels, and the epidermis hydrates by drawing water from the dermis via a cellular diffusion mechanism. The water then diffuses through the epidermis to the skin's surface, where it evaporates.
Now we understand that to have well-moisturized skin, it's all a question of the epidermis, and in particular the stratum corneum, as the upper layer of the dermis remains virtually unchanged. So, to properly moisturize your skin, you need to either improve the diffusion and absorption of water in the epidermis with humectants, or repair the skin barrier with emollients, or use an occlusive to create a protective hydrolipidic film to prevent water from evaporating.
That's why I'm going to talk to you now about humectants, emollients and occlusives. You can see that different types of cosmetics contain different percentages of humectants, emollients and occlusives in their composition, but we'll come back to that later.
Moisturizing and nourishing cosmetic ingredients
Humectants In cosmetics, as we've just seen, humectants are used to attract water temporarily to the surface of your skin, whether it's water present in the environment if you're in a country with high humidity, or water present in the dermis, which is our water reserve, or simply water present on the surface of our skin if we've just rinsed our face or applied an essence or lotion. There are many humectants, the best-known being glycerine, hyaluronic acid, sugars, amino acids, urea, lactic acid, aloe vera and many more... (The list is very long).
Emollients are fats whose main action is to fill the spaces between corneocytes in the stratum corneum. They repair our skin barrier and also have a small occlusive action.
Emollients include ceramides, an essential component of intercellular lipid cement. Thanks to their ability to repair our skin barrier, they improve water retention in the epidermis. Other well-known emollients include squalane, vegetable oils and triglycerides.
Occlusives achieve their effect by creating a hydrophobic barrier on the skin's surface, reducing insensible water loss through the epidermis. By creating an impermeable film on the skin's surface, occlusives hydrate the skin indirectly, so they should be applied to slightly damp skin. The best-known occlusives are mineral oils, vaseline and paraffin, but also butters such as shea butter, waxes such as beeswax and silicones. The most effective can reduce 98%'s insensible water loss by blocking water evaporation from the stratum corneum. Others, such as dimethicone, are occlusive, but only reduce water loss by 20 to 30%, making them an interesting occlusive for combination to oily skin if present in small quantities.
Some emollients are also occlusives, so you may find ingredients in different categories depending on the type of classification.
In what order should you apply your moisturizing products?
- We use humectant-rich products such as lotions or moisturizing serums to draw water into the epidermis.
- We seal this water to the surface of our skin with emollients and occlusives, using a moisturizing cream in the evening or a sun cream in the morning.
But of course, we adapt this scheme to our skin type: we won't use the same products if we have oily, dry or combination skin. Facial skin care for women and men All of the products presented can therefore easily be used as part of an effective beauty routine.
- 1- How to moisturize dry skin
- 2- How do I moisturize normal to combination skin?
- 3- How to moisturize oily skin
- 4- How to moisturize sensitive skin
Moisturize your skin according to your skin type:
How to moisturize dry skin
For people with dry skin, if you really want to moisturize your skin, you need to start layering several moisturizing products in succession.
Don't hesitate to layer different products: moisturizing lotionserum, cream.
With dry skin, it's important to use not only your water-based moisturizers but also creams containing emollients and occlusives to seal all that moisture into the skin. The rule of thumb is to always start with your water-based products like moisturizing essences and serums, then apply a moisturizing cream containing plenty of effective emollients and occlusives. I also recommend keeping a balm on hand if specific areas become very dry.
How do I moisturize oily combination skin?
For combination skin, it's important to prevent both excess sebum and the dryness that can set in on other areas of the skin.
When it comes to products, gel creams or light moisturizers are ideal for combination skin, as are essences and moisturizing serums, of course. However, remember to add a richer cream to the driest areas if you need to.
When it comes to cleansing, we give priority to our driest skin areas, and the right cleanser for combination skin is a gentle cleanser that won't irritate your dry skin areas, rather than using a more powerful cleanser that's better suited to oily skin areas.
How to moisturize oily skin
For people with oily skin, creating a skincare routine is a real challenge, and the temptation is to over-cleanse and under-moisturize. And most people with oily skin think they don't need to moisturize, but oily skin is not the same as moisturized skin.
So an effective way to moisturize your skin is to use very light products with plenty of humectants and few emollients or occlusives. Here are 3 cosmetics for oily skin.
A few more tips from Beautydecoded
Skin moisturizing should also be age-dependent, as our epidermis becomes increasingly dehydrated over time, whether we're men or women. The presence of numerous allergens tends to create dehydrated skin, in which case organic creams with aleo vera can help. And I haven't mentioned it yet, but you need to use SPF 50 sun cream every day. Another mistake is not doing enough moisturize your lips or its eye contour. A well-balanced organic diet also helps to hydrate the skin. I've also added several articles to this one which I'm sure you'll find helpful:
Does drinking lots of water hydrate your skin?
3 common misconceptions about hydration
Is hyaluronic acid the best moisturizer?
Well-moisturized skin not only enhances radiance and slows the appearance of wrinkles, it is also better able to withstand powerful cosmetic active ingredients such as retinol, exfoliating acids and vitamin C, which are certainly effective, but also place great demands on your skin's barrier.
A guide to moisturizing dry skin with the right serum or cream
A guide to moisturizing oily skin with the right serum or cream
A guide to moisturizing sensitive skin with the right serum or cream
Moisturizing cosmetics can be purchased in drugstores or delivered over the Internet.
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