How to Moisturize | Skin Care 101

Welcome back to another Skin Care 101 blogpost, today we’ll be talking about how to moisturize, the most simple step of all skincare routines.

Moisturizing is arguably the most popular step in skincare after cleansing. But there are a lot of misconceptions around it. In this post we are going to explain why moisturizing is important and how to do it.

Let’s start !!

Step 1: Find your skin type.

To moisturize your skin properly, you first have to know your skin type.

It’s important to moisturize your skin. Even if your skin is super oily, that doesn’t mean that you’re producing enough hydration across your face. It’s a popular misconception, but in reality it doesn’t matter if you have oily or dry skin we all need a moisturizer.

A moisturizer will help solve the problems that you’re facing with hydration.

If you use the right moisturizer, your skin is going to even out over time. Making it less dry or oily and more “normal” (which is just another way of saying low maintenance).

Step 2: Find a good moisturizer

It may sound easy, but there are a few steps in finding your perfect moisturizer.

Lets break it down:

Ingredients are very important. When it comes to moisturizers, it is important that you know which ingredients the product is using. However you do not need to know what every single thing means on the back of the label. In my experience, for moisturizers, there’s only a few things that you need to avoid:

• Alcohol: usually labeled under SD alcohol – natured alcohol or isopropyl alcohol. It’s going to strip your skin of hydration and can cause really bad reactions or sensitivity. Moisturizers aimed toward more oily skin types tend to have a high amount of alcohol so make sure you look.

• Fragrance: It tends to be super irritating and can be damaging to the skin. Contrary to popular beliefs, a product is not fragrance free just because it doesn’t have the word “fragrance” in the ingredients list. If you want to know more about that keep an eye on our Skin Care 101 series. We will write a post about fragrance and how you can decode your ingredient list.

Why do I need to moisturize?

There’s a thing called transepidermal water loss. I know that sounds very sciency but stay with me.

Transepidermal water loss is the process of water leaving your body. Often times water leaves our bodies through skin. Through this process, we tend to see dehydrated skin. We will look dry, we’ll see an increase in aging and loss of firmness and start to see fine lines and dark spots and other issues.

Simply, because of water escaping our body the purpose of a moisturizer is to keep that water and hydration locked into the skin. So we aren’t increasing the risks that come with the Transepidermal water loss as much.

When it comes to moisturizers you don’t need a lot of active ingredients and really powerful things that are gotta fight against aging. You can take care of those issues in the treatment phase of your skincare routine.

For a moisturizer it should just focus on keeping the hydration level of the skin. It should make sure that the water doesn’t leave you body and that you are good to go!!!

Types of moisturizers

There are multiple types of moisturizers out there. Each type works best for a certain skin type.

Then there’s gel to cream moisturizers. These are best suited for people with combination skin. People who have oiliness in certain areas or dryness in other areas. And I’m not gonna lie It’s not fun trying to address different hydration levels in different areas of the skin. So that’s why I recommend two different moisturizers for people with combination kin.

If you want to get extra fancy we can talk about daytime and nighttime creams.

They do the same thing (hydrate your face) but there are key differences.

Daytime creams tend to be a little bit more lightweight. The formula tend to focus on protecting your skin and ensuring the hydration. While nighttime creams tend to be a little bit heavier formulas and ingredients like retinol and hyaluronic acid that can help repair skin while we sleep.

I personally have to say if you struggle with oily skin, something that helped me a lot is using a bit of a heavier moisturizer at night. Nothing too crazy, but enough to really hydrate your skin. You will notice a long term reduction in oiliness.

Now that you found your perfect moisturizer let’s go onto step 3

Step 3: Applying moisturizer to your face

A lot of people who work at cosmetic counters will say that you have to apply your moisturizer in a very particular way. Only sweeping upwards, only doing certain things across the face… Because if you move your face the wrong way it’s going to increase aging.

That’s a myth. The only way that your moisturizer can increasing aging is through its ingredients.

But there are application techniques to boost hydration and absorption.

Make sure you’re pressing firm enough so that the skin can soak it up but don’t be too harsh or abrasive.

Remember skincare is self-care. So think of it as a moment to have relaxing facial.

A huge tip that a lot of people forget make sure you moisturize your neck and your chest area. A lot of people don’t realize that the chest and the neck are the places that we experience a lot of aging. So it’s best to moisturize those areas to prevent aging as much as possible. and

Then a huge tip especially for people with oily skin. Pat the moisturizer into the skin. I noticed a huge result when I started doing this. I noticed that my products absorbed a lot better. My skin looked more even. It didn’t look more greasy. And my skin didn’t sweat out the product easily when it got humid.

Step 4: Sunscreen

None of this will matter if you are not using sunscreen. It won’t matter if you moisturize, cleanse, and exfoliate, if you do not use sunscreen you are going to have skin problems that include premature aging.

If you want to see my thoughts about sunscreen make sure to follow.

Now if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment bellow! See you on the next Post!!