As the seasons change, many people use moisturizers to prevent dryness of their skin. The primary criteria for choosing a moisturizer often include recommendations, social media promotions, or the assumption that ‘more expensive must be better’. However, it’s crucial to select a moisturizer suitable for your skin type to see effective results. Over-moisturizing can even be harmful. Let’s explore some tips for choosing the right moisturizer to keep your skin hydrated during the dry winter season.
The Key to Winter Skin Care: Moisturizing
Moisturizing is so crucial to winter skincare that it’s no exaggeration to say it’s the key. The cold winter wind and indoor heaters tend to dehydrate your skin. Additionally, the secretion of sebum, which plays a role in protecting your skin, decreases, leading to dryness. It’s advisable to avoid anything that can damage the skin’s protective barrier, such as hot showers. Instead, lukewarm showers are recommended. After showering, you should make sure to apply moisturizing cream.
What Happens When Your Skin Dries Out?
When your skin dries out, it becomes tight and flaky. If dryness persists for a long time, not only can it lead to dead skin cells and itching, but it also makes your skin more prone to wrinkles and accelerates aging. Moreover, if you wear a mask, you are more likely to experience allergy reactions and produce dead skin cells.
Which Ingredients Should You Look for in a Moisturizer?
Moisturizing creams typically contain purified water, moisture, moisturizing ingredients, and emulsifiers as their base. They often include ingredients to strengthen the skin barrier and soothe the skin. Moisturizing creams supply moisture to the skin, while moisturizers additionally help retain that moisture. There are also products on the market that include functionality for skin whitening and wrinkle improvement.
Check the Amount of Key Ingredients
When selecting a moisturizer, pay attention to the key ingredients each product contains. Even though cosmetics often contain many different ingredients, the same ingredients are frequently used in the same type of product across different brands. As a result, the efficacy tends to be similar, but products with unique ingredients can become the choosing factor for consumers.
Is More Ingredients Always Better?
Not necessarily. A single cosmetic product typically contains anywhere from 15 to as many as 50 ingredients. While it may seem that more ingredients will show better results, if you have sensitive skin, you would need to test each one of these ingredients to see if they’re compatible with your skin, which is practically impossible. Therefore, you can’t say that a cream with more ingredients is necessarily better. It’s important to use a moisturizer with as few ingredients as possible, and that contains an appropriate amount of ceramides and fatty acids, which constitute the skin barrier.
Check the pH Level
An appropriate moisturizer should maintain the skin barrier function well and quickly restore a damaged skin barrier. For cleansing products or body cleansers, it’s better to use slightly acidic products. If you use a cleanser with a high pH, the skin barrier can get damaged, and once damaged, secondary skin inflammation can occur. Therefore, you should use a slightly acidic cleanser or body cleanser with a pH of about 4.5 to 5.5, and try to reduce the frequency of use as much as possible.
Colorless, Odorless, Low-Irritant Products are Better
For effective moisturization, it’s better to choose a colorless, odorless, low-irritant product. Certain fragrances or dyes can cause allergic reactions. Even without fragrances or dyes, allergic reactions can occur depending on the product’s ingredients or your skin condition, so caution is necessary. If you have sensitive skin, you should apply a small amount of moisturizer on the inside of your arm to test it. If there are no adverse reactions, you can then use it.
Is More Expensive Always Better?
Some people only look for imported or expensive products to use a better moisturizer, but these factors do not guarantee quality. Moisturizers can be divided into lotions, creams, and ointments with high moisture content. Therefore, rather than focusing on expensive products made with high-quality ingredients, it’s more beneficial to consistently apply a low-irritant product of the form that suits your skin at least twice a day.
What If You Have Atopic Dermatitis?
If you have atopic dermatitis, moisturizing is even more important and is highly recommended. If you suffer from severe dryness and itching, it’s advised to use ‘MD Cream’ instead of regular moisturizers. MD Cream refers to moisturizers that have been approved as medical devices and are formulated to exclude as many potential allergenic ingredients as possible, such as fragrances and parabens. When applying moisturizer, clean your hands thoroughly and apply it carefully to your neck by tilting your head, and to your elbow by bending your arm inward. This helps absorption.
What If You Don’t Moisturize?
While moisturizing can replenish moisture and reduce dead skin cells caused by dryness, over-moisturizing can block your skin. Healthy skin can maintain its moisture without the need for any other chemical substances. Therefore, instead of continually applying moisturizing cream, it might be beneficial to leave your skin alone for a while. Remember, moisturizing cream is just a functional cosmetic product designed to replenish moisture!
By. Shin Young Jung
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