“Diamonds are a girl’s best friend?” No, for some of us, miracle face moisturizers are. I mean, who says “no” to that Hollywood glowing skin type? Despite rumors, finding the right face moisturizer is not an impossible mission.
The recipe is simple, you need to keep an eye on the contained ingredients, instead of the packaging and empty promises.
Before you go hunting, for the best chemical free face moisturizer, make sure you memorized what you should avoid when buying a good product. It might seem simple enough to buy a moisturizer, but when you walk around the store shelves you may find yourself overwhelmed by the eye-catching packages.
The Moisturizing Ritual: 5 Common Mistakes
- Do not skip the allergy test. Despite the packaging saying this is the right face moisturizer for your skin, dermatologist recommends taking the allergy test before using the product, since preventing is better than cure.
- Correlate your skin type with the moisturizer’s purpose. Just because your everyone says it’s a good moisturizer, this does not mean it actually suits your skin characteristics.
- Do not use essential oils as daily face moisturizers. Essential oils are a great helping hand for skin problems like inflammations, acne, scars, dark spots. But they should be used as occasional treatments, not as stand-alone face moisturizers.
- The moisturizer does not go before serums or treatments. When following treatments for skin problems, make sure you apply the moisturizer after you cleaned your skin and used the serum or the prescribed treatment.
- Do not forget to apply an SPF face moisturizer even during cloudy days. Even though you cannot see the sun, its UV rays still affect your skin, causing premature aging.
The 5 Best Chemical Free Face Moisturizer
1. Retinol Moisturizer Cream for Face – with Retinol, Hyaluronic Acid, Vitamin E and Green Tea
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Despite misconceptions, a strong moisturizing cream that contains hyaluronic acid is suitable to help hydrate only a dry skin type. Some use it as a cream for all skin types, but this might create real struggles if applied on a greasy skin.
Glycerin and propylene glycol have an essential role in maintaining skin moisture, while ingredients like lanolin, mineral oils or Vaseline act as a barrier to dryness, retaining moisture in the epidermis.
Therefore, these ingredients do not go hand in hand with oily skin, as their texture might clog the pores. On the other hand, if your dry skin is prone to acne, in order to keep it away, specialists suggest avoiding facial hydration with lanolin, mineral oils or shea butter.
2. CeraVe Moisturizing Cream
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In the case of normal to dry sensitive skin, dermatologists recommend using a hypoallergenic moisturizing cream without perfume. Most moisturizing creams contain perfume to make the product more tempting.
And yet, dermatologists recommend to forget about fragrance moisturizers and keep an eye of the ingredient’s list, because the shorter the list of ingredients, the more the skin has to gain.
Do not forget that these fragrance components, which seduce you into rapidly looking for your wallet, are nothing but chemicals that load and, in time, harm your skin. They might cause serious skin irritations.
3. CeraVe Facial Moisturizing Lotion PM Ultra Lightweight
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Normal skin is neither too dry nor too fat, representing a balanced type between the two extremes. Thus, secretion of sebum is not abundant and, at the same time, the skin is not very vulnerable to environmental changes, managing to naturally adapt to temperature drops or humidity increases.
To maintain this hydration balance, use a water-containing moisturizer that has a soft, light texture (not fatty). Look for facial moisturizers rich in ceramides, as these molecules help the natural restoration of the skin’s protective barrier.
4. Facial Moisturizer, Organic and Natural Face Moisturizing Cream for Sensitive, Oily Skin
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Oily skin, one of the hardest skin types to deal with, is prone to acne and rash. Therefore, it needs special care. Although it has an abundance of sebum secretion, this skin needs hydration, especially after using cosmetics that remove sebum and soften the skin, such as toners, cleansing lotions, and exfoliating masks.
In addition to these situations, it is good to use the moisturizer immediately after bathing, in order to protect your skin from drying out when you, suddenly, step from a warm environment to a lower room temperature. For oily skin, it is good to choose a water-based cream and labeled as “non-comedogenic”. That means it will not clog your pores.
5. Garnier SkinActive Moisture
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Many people make the mistake of confusing mixed skin with normal skin. In fact, mixed skin is a combination of oily skin, usually in the T area (forehead, nose, chin), and dry skin (usually on the cheeks).
This means you cannot use normal skin cosmetics and, moreover, you cannot use a single cream all over your face, because you will have unpleasant reactions.
Inappropriate face creams can cause the appearance of pimples, blackheads and pore growth in the T area, while the dry skin surface will become irritated, red and itchy.
To cover both needs, that is, to not augment the excess of sebum and the dryness of the skin, you should use two different creams on each of the two portions of the face. Therefore, for dry areas, you will apply a smoother and slightly greasy cream, and for area T, apply a light cream without oil, but containing glycerin or hyaluronic acid.
Final Thoughts
Besides knowing your skin characteristics and avoiding harmful ingredients, when choosing a skin moisturizer, you should also consider the seasons.
If more moisture is required during summer, during winter, lipids-based moisturizers are needed to restore the skin’s natural structure. Therefore, you must schedule a change in your beauty ritual once a new season begins.
Do not forget the need to use sun protection moisturizers, since the exposed skin areas should always be protected, even when is cloudy outside. An SPF 15 face moisturizer is the perfect protection factor, blocking about 94% of the radiation.
