What is a Moisturizer?

Dry Skin (Left) vs. Moisturized Skin (Right)

Even as the months get warmer, moisturizing every day is a must! But what exactly doesa moisturizer do for you skin, what’s in a moisturizer, and how do you choose between the many out there? We break it all down for you!

How does it work?

The role of moisturizer is to bind moisture into the skin and prevent water from evaporating from the skin. Water naturally evaporates from the skin. Thus, a moisturizer is needed to replace this moisture-loss.  This is crucial to healthy skin and to off-set skin aging.

What’s in a moisturizer?

Seaweed is found in all of our moisturizers and there is a reason why! Seaweed naturally has the ability to bind moisture into the skin. Specifically Alginic Acid, a polysaccharide, helps to lock moisture into the skin. Seaweed also has vitamins minerals and amino acids, making it extremely nourishing for your skin as well.

Seaweed is just the start, however, when it comes to how moisturizers should be formulated. We use a combination of humectants (substances that helps to retain water and lock moisture in the skin) along with emollient ingredients which help to soften and soothe the skin. To top it off, we go above and beyond, unlike products like Vaseline, by adding a bevy of antioxidant ingredients. Why? Because we want your moisturizer to also help protect your skin from free radical damage that leads to premature aging (lines, wrinkles, sun spots).

Choosing the RIGHT moisturizer

Pick a moisturizer based on your skin’s needs right now. If you have aging skin, you want a rich moisturizer that also has peptides, such as our Vita Cura Triple Firming Cream. Natural Shea, Mango and Cocoa Butters are emollient ingredients that have conditioning and smoothing benefits. These ingredients help to make up for the loss of oil production that happens as you age. Peptides help stimulate collagen production, which also declines as you age, and is why skin starts to sag and develop wrinkles. Another concern related to aging skin is hyperpigmentation. If you have dark spots from over exposure to the sun, acne scarring or hormonal aging, you want to use a daytime moisturizer with natural brightening ingredients and zinc oxide like our Biolight Brightening Daytime Protection Cream and a reparative night cream with these ingredients like our Biolight Brightening Overnight Cream.  Zinc Oxide will help protect your skin from the sun to prevent further discoloration.

Even if you have oily skin you should still use a moisturizer – it’s just a matter of picking the right moisturizer for you, such as an oil-free moisturizer. If you have breakouts, a moisturizer for acne skin should have zinc oxide to provide anti-bacterial activity and help absorbs excess oil that is the cause of breakouts.

For more tips on finding the right moisturizer for your skin, browse our collections by skin type: http://www.repechage.com/professional-products/skin-care/