The Green Beauty Guide: Your Essential Resource to Organic and Natural Skin Care, Hair Care, Makeup, and Fragrances (31 page)

Do We Really Need a Moisturizer?

No matter what your skin’s condition is, you need a moisturizer, which today serves more purposes than simply keeping your skin hydrated. For oily, blemish-prone skin, moisturizers deliver antibacterial and soothing agents. For mature, wrinkled skin, they add an extra dose of softening and antioxidant ingredients. All of us benefit from sun-shielding mineral components and antioxidant enzymes, vitamins, and oils that protect our skin from a less-than-pure environment.

How do moisturizers help? They form a film on your skin that reinforces the barrier ability of the epidermis, helping to prevent transepidermal water loss. They contain certain ingredients that attract moisture from the environment, and they contain healing substances that soothe irritations and neutralize free radicals.

Some moisturizers can actually prevent and reverse wrinkles. Just a few years ago, such a notion would cause a few eyebrows to skeptically rise, as many experts argued that moisturizers applied to the top layer of the epidermis do not change the physiology of the skin and do not prevent wrinkles from forming deep inside. While a simple moisturizer can relax fine lines caused by facial tightness, many advanced ingredients such as coenzyme Q10 and its synthetic and more potent colleague, idebenone, as well as certain peptides, plant extracts, and amino acids, can relax wrinkles and even reverse them. This is especially true when these ingredients are used diligently in effective concentrations and in conjunction with the meticulous use of sunscreens, a smart diet, and positive lifestyle changes. Classic components of antiaging moisturizers, such as alpha hydroxy acids and vitamins, can also help to stave off premature aging.

How Moisturizers Work

Every good moisturizer is made of five ingredient groups:
emollients, humectants, emulsifiers, penetration enhancers,
and
active ingredients.
It’s good to know and understand how these ingredients work so your expectations of your moisturizer will be reasonable, and the next time you buy a new hydrating lotion or serum, you’ll be armed with the latest knowledge.

Traditionally, moisturizers were believed to work by slowing down water loss from the epidermis by locking it in with film-forming agents. Water originates in the deeper skin layers and moves upward to hydrate cells in the stratum corneum, eventually being lost to evaporation. Every day we lose up to one pint of water through the pores! The higher the water content in the epidermis, the more pliable and wrinkle-free the skin will be. Moisturizer is the most important antiaging step and must be used consistently, no matter how old you are. “Take care of the skin you have; it is meant to last a lifetime,” says Anne Dolbeau, the founder of organic spa line Inara.

Moisturizers work together with the skin’s own hydrators, such as natural moisturizing factors and sebum, to maintain the skin’s protective barrier. They increase water content, reduce water loss, and preserve skin’s youthful appearance. Moisturizers also hydrate by providing water directly to the skin.

Emollients

Emollients, the biggest group of ingredients in moisturizers, soften, heal, and hydrate skin by preserving the water content of the epidermis. They also lubricate by creating a “skin slip,” the feeling of smoothness following moisturizer application, and eliminate that dry, tight-feeling skin. Emollients fill the cracks between clusters of dead skin cells with molecules of fatty acids and alcohols. Let’s take a look at some of the best natural emollients. You will need to know them to make informed choices when buying a new cream or lotion.

Phospholipids are contained in living human and plant cells. Along with cholesterol, they preserve the integrity of the skin cell membranes. Lecithin, derived from eggs or soybeans, is an excellent emollient phospholipid. Ideally, lecithin should be obtained from non-GMO sources.

Many people think that plant oils moisturize the skin. That’s not exactly true. Oils seal the cracks in the skin’s upper layer and lock in the moisture, but they do not deliver any moisture directly. Plant oils can also repair a damaged skin barrier. Some oily emollients penetrate skin better than others. Look for olive oil and squalene from olive oil, as well as castor, jojoba, and coconut oil.

Mineral oil and petroleum jelly are often used to mimic the action of natural emollients. Once a cure-all for skin disasters from burns to wrinkles, the glory of Vaseline (the commercial name for petroleum jelly) is fading, even though many celebrities attribute their glowing skin to this medicine chest staple. Instead of penetrating between dead skin cells, petrochemicals
form a waterproof plastic film on top of all the debris on the skin’s surface, locking in the bacteria, dead skin cells, sweat, and sebum. No wonder acne thrives in such conditions!

Humectants

Humectants are the next most important ingredients in moisturizers. They attract moisture from the air by bonding with water molecules and then releasing water gradually. Glycerin and sorbitol (sugar alcohol), when derived from natural sources, are the best green humectants. Sugars are able to attract water in two ways: they enhance water absorption from the lower layers of the skin into the epidermis, and in humid conditions, they also help the skin absorb water from the external environment. Unlike petrochemical propylene glycol, which is not recommended for use on damaged skin, all naturally derived emollients and humectants have low potential for irritation (Johnson, Cosmetic Ingredient Review Expert Panel 2001).

Emulsifiers

Emulsifiers hold together all moisturizer ingredients. Normally, oil will not mix with water, but beeswax, when heated, turns oil and water into a smooth mixture. Green emulsifiers include lecithin; plant-derived waxes cetearyl alcohol, cetearyl glucoside, and cetearyl olivate; coco caprylate/caprate from coconut; cholesterol; and algae extract.

Penetration Enhancers

Penetration enhancers allow the active ingredients in the moisturizer to be absorbed into the skin. The best natural penetration enhancers are water and essential oils, such as menthol and chamomile, glycerol, cod liver oil, squalene, linoleic, oleic, and arachidonic acids.

Active Ingredients

Today, moisturizers do much more than preserve the delicate water balance in the epidermis. They protect our skin from photodamage using sunscreen ingredients and antioxidants; they increase cell turnover with mild alpha- and beta-hydroxy acids; they heal blemishes and curb inflammation with antibacterial additives such as tea tree oil, zinc oxide, or various plant extracts that have antibacterial effect; and they can actually reverse damage done to our skin and prevent premature aging using novel ingredients such as peptides, human growth factor, cytokines, and good old vitamins and minerals. Many active ingredients multitask. For example, zinc oxide acts as a physical sunscreen while helping to prevent acne blemishes. Green tea extract prevents skin aging on many levels. Many active ingredients synergize, or act in sync to provide a combined effect. For example, vitamins C and E work better together than separately, and catechins from green tea improve the sun protective qualities of mineral sunscreens.

When buying a new moisturizer, you should always check a product’s ingredients; when in doubt, test it on a patch of skin first to make sure it doesn’t cause any adverse reactions. Also, be aware that just because a product has a certain ingredient listed on a label, that doesn’t necessarily mean it has enough of it to produce visible results.

What About the Texture?

When we choose a moisturizer, we can’t help but think in terms of skin type. Younger skins need gels, while combination skins can use lotions. Dry, mature skin requires a heavy artillery of creams and serums. As before, let your current skin condition be your guide. If you feel that a lightweight cream can do a much better job for your face, then go for it. Some thick creams are less heavy and occlusive than oil-rich lotions.

All creams and lotions are called cosmetic emulsions. Lotions are oil-in-water emulsions, while creams are water-in-oil emulsions. There are more complicated emulsions, such as oil-in-water-in-oil, serums, gels, sprays, and milks.

Moisturizing lotions tend to be thinner and more suitable for daytime use, especially if you wear makeup. Creams are generally made with heavier fats and waxes and are often applied at night.

How Many Moisturizers Do We Need?

In general, any product that hydrates the skin on your face will do the same for the rest of your body. However, better facial moisturizers usually contain a higher concentration of active ingredients. Even if you choose to improve your existing moisturizer, would you waste $100 worth of colloidal gold to dilute it in ten ounces of body lotion and get a concentration that will nullify all the goodness of this precious extract, or would you rather infuse your facial cream with this potent ingredient and see real results?

Of course, you can use many body products on your face and vice versa. Wou can take a perfectly green body lotion—the one without preservatives, synthetic fragrance, and mineral oil—and turn it into a powerful facial cream by adding antioxidants and soothing plant extracts. Be creative. Your only limitation may be the price (the ingredients in facial creams are probably too expensive to lavish on your entire epidermis) and texture (many body moisturizers, especially those for hands and feet, are too heavy; extra oils could travel into your eyes or even clog your pores).

It’s impossible to stock a moisturizer for every condition of your skin. This way, you will need an artist’s brush and loads of time to precisely apply an oil-absorbing, pore-tightening gel on your nose, an antiaging, lightening serum and a coating of SPF on your cheeks and forehead, a rich antiwrinkle cream around your mouth and on your neck, and a lightweight antioxidant serum under your eyes. Who has the time or money to do that daily?

I firmly believe that a good, decently formulated moisturizer can be safely and beneficially used on all areas of your face. If you have a challenging skin problem, simply add a face oil blend or a serum suitable for this condition. The following products contain a lot of antioxidant and soothing agents that help regulate sebum production, relieve inflammation, and prevent premature aging. You will find more about antiaging green skin care and green ways to handle acne later in this chapter.

Green Product Guide:Moisturizers

In my opinion, it’s virtually impossible to prepare an elegant, pleasant-to-use moisturizer at home unless you are a really gifted cosmetic chemist. To whip up a jar of day cream, you will need to do some extensive shopping, mostly online, and then spend about an hour steaming, double-boiling, blending, and whisking. I did it a few times, and while the outcome was perfectly natural, it just takes too much time, and the resulting goop won’t necessarily look like something you’d enjoy applying to your face daily. So instead of preparing a moisturizer from scratch, you can try to improve the existing green products with skin actives of your choice. The following are my recommended moisturizing products, rated from one to three leaves, with three being my favorite.

The emollient sunflower oil in
Burt’s
Bees Carrot Nutritive Day Crème
contains added linoleic acid. Other oils from wheat germ, avocado, grape seed, and carrot seed nourish skin and lock in moisture, while rosemary extract, vitamin E, and milk proteins calm the complexion. The only two drawbacks to this lightweight cream are the high content of potentially irritating balsam peru and an abundance of beta-carotene that may stain your collars or pillows. This cream can be mixed with many active ingredients, such as coenzyme Q10, green tea extract, and a pinch of alpha-lipoic acid (ALA).