What Makes a Great Moisturizer?

In these days of budget consciousness, are there any ways of making sure the moisturizers you buy for your skin care routine are the very best for the money you pay? There are, and although I don't sell any skin care products myself, here are some suggestions for making sure the moisturizer you buy is the best for your skin.

Any cosmetics chemist can tell you that there are at least 50,000 possible ingredients to put in moisturizers. Estee Lauder alone sells 300 different anti-aging skin care products. The first thing to know about any great moisturizer is:

If the manufacturer of the moisturizer tells you that one single ingredient works for anybody's dry skin all the time, beware.

It's true that alpha-lipoic acid, beta-hydroxy acids, grapeseed extract, green tea, beta glucans, mushroom extracts, and kelp all help moisturize dry, itchy, flaking, sun-exposed or winter-weary skin. But there is no single ingredient that is the absolute best for every moisturizer all the time.

So how do you know what makes a great moisturizer?

Great moisturizers bind water to the skin. They contain water-binding agents, known in the industry as natural moisturizing factors or NMFs. These are the ingredients that repair the intercellular matrix, that is, the scaffolding or connective collagen of the skin, and retain water in the skin as a whole.

What are some NMFs? Look for lecithin, cholesterol (yes, it's good when it goes on you), collagen, elastin, glucose, sucrose, fructose (once again, we are talking about topical application), phospholipids, glycogen, glycosaminoglycans, glycosphingolipids, polysaccharides, and hyalouronic acid, just to list a few. Every great moisturizer has a great NMF.

But an NMF is not the same as a humectant. The purpose of a humectant is to draw water to the skin, not so much to keep it there. Skin cells that are not damaged don't need humectants, but skin cells that have been dried out by sun, heating, or air conditioning need that extra boost. But a humectant without an NMF is meaningless. It's not enough just to draw water to the skin, you have to keep it there.

Another component of a great moisturizer is antioxidants. Often viewed as a panacea for skin problems, antioxidants not only help the skin avoid and repair sun damage, they keep skin cells in literally good shape, plump and round and well hydrated. Just a few of the skin cares that are showing in skin care nowadays are vitamin A (which may be labeled as retinol or retinyl palmitate), vitamin C (usually in the more readily absorbed form ascorbyl palmitate), vitamin E (not just alpha-tocopherol but also other tocopherols and tocotrienols), coenzyme Q10, curcumin, alpha-lipoic acid, rosemary bioflavonoids, and various green tea extracts.

The third component of a great moisturizer is an anti-irritant. As a general rule, any skin care products that makes your skin feel all tingly is irritant, not anti-irritant. Look for ingredients that help the skin heal--and that you don't feel when you apply them. Some possibilities are aloe, allantoin, burdock root, bisabolol, grape extract, glycyrrhetinic acid (licorice), chamomile (although be careful if you have hay fever), white willow, and willow bark.

And, finally, every great moisturizer contains a great lubricant, or emollient. The lubricant that's most like the sebum in human skin is lanolin. Other emollients include olive oil and other plant oils, shea butter, cocoa butter, petrolatum, emu oil, mink oil, and cholesterol.

Emollients may be labeled as stearates, myristates, palmitates, and triglycerides. They possess a waxy texture but given the finished product a silky feel. Silicones are also used as emollients and to "waterproof" the skin, but you get the most skin protection from a combination of silicones and a plant oil or lanolin.

There are literally millions of potential combinations of these ingredients. Just like there is no one best chocolate truffle, there is no one best moisturizer. Just make sure your moisturizer contains an NMF, an antioxidant, an anti-inflammatory, and an emollient, and don't hesitate to return any product that does not work for you.