Best Moisturizers 2021: Ingredient Series, Results, Review

Best Moisturizers: Hey everybody and today’s topic is on best moisturizers. Now moisturizers per se are not an anti-ageing ingredient because they don’t do anything at the cellular level to change your skin. I’m including them in this series because moisturizers are really good for your skin and they’re really good at helping your skin to look a little bit younger. If you want to know what is like the heavy-hitters the things that can really make a change on the cellular level in your skin, I would encourage you to read the entire series.

Best Moisturizers

I will link the entire series right up here as well as in the information box below the video so moisturizers. Basically function in a few different ways can help to attract water to the surface of the skin to add more water and more hydration to the skin but they can also trap water on the surface of the skin and keep it from evaporating. So the outermost layer of our skin is called the stratum corneum that is made up out of all dead skin cells, but dead skin cells have a purpose that it’s good that they’re there they protect us from sun and pollution and things like that. Those dead skin cells are super absorbent as you see anytime you take a bath and your fingers come out all pruney so those cells can absorb five to six times their weight in water and can expand threefold in volume.

Most Expensive Moisturizers 2021

The ideal water percentage in the stratum corneum is like between 20 and 30% to have your skin looking good. Supple a hydrated when the stratum corneum is dry the edges curl up, they look really dry and flaky it makes your wrinkles look twice as big. Since the stratum corneum is so good at absorbing water right after you get out of the shower right after you get on the tub right after you wash your face is the perfect time to put on your moisturizer.

While your skin is still damp this is one of the basic tenants of my entire skincare routine is that I like to moisture lock. I want to lock that moisture right onto the surface of my skin and to do that the type of moisturizing ingredient that you need they’re called occlusives. They’re the ones that basically form a bear on top of your skin and keep that water from evaporating so the most common occlusive ingredients that you need to be looking for in your moisturizers are shea, butter, cocoa, butter, mineral oil petrolatum paraffin wax dimethicone and other silicones cetyl alcohol stearic acid.  The most effective occlusive is petrolatum followed by lanolin mineral oil and then silicones.

Now with the exception of silicones, those top three have a tendency to be pretty darn greasy & they don’t really work very well as a moisturizer for day wear, but they’re great to use at night. They’re great to use especially on irritated dry chapped skin overnight when it doesn’t really matter what you look like you can just put a t-shirt on your pillowcase so that you don’t get grease all over the place. Just grease up and that will hold a lot of water into your skin and help your skin heal overnight. The other occlusives are much better for daytime moisturizers and you’ll see them mixed in with other moisturizing ingredients like other humectants and emollient to make kind of the perfect moisturizer.

So that’s the best one for fighting against transepidermal water loss. Then there are two other categories of moisturizing ingredients that can help in different ways. There are the humectants which are water-binding molecules they basically soak up water from either the air or your skin you know-how in the summer your skin. Just naturally looks plumper that is from your skin just pulling moisture from the air so in the drier times of the year or in drier climates. It tends to pull the moisture from the deeper layers of the skin which is why it’s so important to drink a lot of water and hydrate.

The humectant ingredients to look for on the label in your skincare are glycerin panthenol which is vitamin b5 propylene glycol hyaluronic acid urea sodium PCA and algae. I know a lot of people are concerned that if the humectants do draw the moisture from their deeper layers of the skin or from their body rather than from the air. It is going to be dehydrating as an effect that can happen so again lots of water.

That’s why you also need to combine a humectant with an occlusive so if you have a moisturizer that has both ingredients in it then that will help to lock the water onto the surface of your skin. So that it doesn’t just evaporate as quickly. Now the third category is the emollient they, don’t actually affect the water content of your skin. They tend to fill in the spaces between the cells and they help the skin to look less rough. To soften and smooth the look of the skin the more common emollient that you’ll see on a moisturizer. The label is either fatty (al co ho ls) or plant-based oils. Some of those are cetyl al..coh..ol, Cetera a..lco..hol sterile al..coh..ol stearic, acid olive oil, jojoba oil, sesame oil, sweet almond oil. Some other plant oils like, squalane and coconut oil in general oils aren’t great moisturizers.

They do work to help make the skin look a little bit smoother and, actually, a lot of the ingredients do double duty. Some of them are humectants and also emollient, some are occlusives and also humectants like dimethicone is a humectant and an emollient right. So those are the three big umbrellas of ingredients that you can look for in a good moisturizer some other things that, I like to look for are fatty lipids and one of my favourites is ceramides comprise 35 to 40% of the lipids in our skin naturally. But of course, as with everything we produce less of them over time, you can actually replace some of them by putting them on topically. They also work to protect and rebuild the skin barrier.

Best Moisturizers 2021

Ceramides are awesome there are lots of different types of ceramides it’s, unclear exactly which ones work the best in skincare. There is kind of a formula of three ceramides with cholesterol and something else that is supposed to work the best for replacing those fatty lipids. I look for that kind of group of things together in my favourite moisturizers another top ingredient and a lot of moisturizers is good old water by having water. The formula you’re putting water directly on your skin that your skin can absorb of course some of it will evaporate while you’re putting it on.

Now waiting for it to dry but some of it will be absorbed in your skin. It will also be locked onto the surface of your skin with the occlusives. Some of the humectants will use that water to bind to and to puff up and trap that water on the surface of your skin. When I’m looking for a moisturizer, I look for a few things, number one is I definitely look for those ceramides. I love a moisturizer with glycerin in it, I love a moisturizer with hyaluronic acid in it. I do like my moisturizer to have some anti-ageing ingredients in it. Another ingredient that, I love to see is niacinamide which is a really good anti-ageing ingredient, that’s very inexpensive.

Cheap Moisturizers

They can put in a lot of it and it will do a lot of good things for your skin. I want it to not have drying ingredients in it so any moisturizer that has st a.lco.ho.l denatured alcohol at the top or even the bottom of the ingredient list for me. I’m not going to use, it because st al,, co,, hol is one of the drying al co ho ls as we mentioned before. Just make sure you understand the difference between al co ho ls. When you’re looking at an ingredients list, I prefer products without fragrance.

The fragrance just bothers me, I can’t have, I can’t stand having my face smell like a fragrance. so I tend to go for things, that are fragrance-free. Fragrances can also be problematic as far as skin reactions and allergic reactions and skin irritations. Things like that, the other thing that’s important when picking a moisturizer is to understand your own skin. What type of skin you have drier skin people will need a thicker more creamy moisturizer.

Something that’s more inclusive and more emollient people with more oily skin might want a lighter weight moisturizer. Something that’s less occlusive that doesn’t kind of trap your oils on the surface of your skin. It’s whether you’re going to be using it during the day or during the night. A lighter weight moisturizer for day wears a heavier weight moisturizer for overnight so alright let’s get into products my all-time moisturizer.

CeraVe PM facial moisturizing lotion

It has all of my core ingredients that, I want this has water glycerin niacinamide. It has the ceramides at the right mix of the three O’s with the other two helper things. It has hyaluronic acid so, this one is awesome. Now I understand that it was recently reformulated slightly and I have the old one and I have the new one as well. They have all the same stuff so the new one still does have the niacinamide the glycerine the hyaluronic acid. The ceramides everything that was good in this one is still in this one. When my skin is irritated now this does sting it a little bit so. I’m not sure about that, I know a lot of people have looked to switch away from this it’s hard to find ceramides in inexpensive lotions. That product is fifteen dollars, at the drug-store and Amazon as well.

It is amazing I’ve been using it for years. I love it, so this is great for use during the day whether your skin is dry or normal or combo or oily. It’s a really lightweight lotion and I use this one at night in the summertime because I do have combination skin still. The moisturizer that I use overnight during the winter when it gets a little bit drier. It’s got water glycerin but it also has niacinamide. It’s got a peptide and it has hyaluronic acid so this is a thicker moisturizer. This is great for nighttime. I wouldn’t use this during the day unless you have super duper dry skin.

Olay Total Effects whip

Olay has come out with their whips version of these, they have a whipped version of this which of the whips. I prefer the Total Effects whip just because in order to whip them up. They added a lot of silicones a lot of dimethicone which as we know is a good moisturizing ingredient. So it’s fine to have it in there, but this is the one where niacinamide appears higher on the label. When they whipped up the Regenerist micro-sculpting cream niacinamide kind of dropped further down. The ingredient list so I do like the Total Effects whip better than the Olay Regenerist whip. If you’re not getting the whip one, I like the Regenerist micro-sculpting cream. This could be like a day where an option for people with drier skin and this would be a nighttime option for people with any kind of skin.

Paula’s Choice ceramide moisturizer

I was looking for another ceramide moisturizer because I think ceramides are so important to have in your moisturizer. Along with the other things so the one that I’ve been trying lately is Paula’s Choice clinical ceramide enriched firming moisturizer. Where this does contain the ceramides, the mix of the three ceramides with the other helper ingredients. It doesn’t contain the niacinamide and it doesn’t have hyaluronic acid. It has a whole mess of other stuff in it and has retinol. It has a few different types of vitamin C it’s got some grapeseed oil in there. It’s got panthenol it has glycerin you know comparing these two. I still like the CeraVe better I don’t really need the retinol. I don’t need vitamin C’s because I use separate retinoids and a separate vitamin C so for me.

Some of the stuff in here is a little bit of a waste on me. It’s a good moisturizer to get your ceramides in but, it doesn’t contain all the stuff that I’m looking for. So if you’re not into the Polish choice or the CeraVe you might want to get just a regular moisturizer. Then add a ceramide separately and I found a couple of products where you can do that. One is the Elizabeth Arden ceramide capsules, they basically come in these single-use little things. You open it up and you just smear that all over your face and your neck and everywhere else. Those are great, they contain ceramides. The three ceramides that you want with the mix and this is also in a nice moisturizing base that contains a lot of silicones.

I use it, I’ve been using these for about two months and I really really like them to get an added ceramide boost, where I don’t have ceramides in my night time moisturizer. I like to add a little ceramide boost and then another way to do it is with these little skin Inc boosters. These guys are so cute, this is a third of an ounce. I mean it’s kind of expensive $35 for a third of an ounce but you don’t use this as a regular serum. This is like a booster to add to something so what I’ve been doing this. I’ve been adding this to my O’Leary generous and then I got the ceramides in there, so it practically makes it into my CeraVe lotion but in a heavier weight.

The more occlusive formula you know I get out the amount that I’m using and then I mix it in with like one drop of this. That gives me some ceramides in there I feel like this product is such a great idea. They actually will sell you like three of these little boosters with a larger dropper bottle. So you can kind of custom mix your own moisturizer so the ones. I would be interested in are this one the ceramides the coenzyme q10 and the vitamin b5 and niacinamide.

It’s a really cool little kit where you can be your own little chemist they have ones with vitamin A. So retinol they have one with vitamin C the base formula that each of these is in already contains hyaluronic acid and glycerin. I thought that was a cool product so speaking of hyaluronic acid. I know some people just like a hyaluronic acid moisturizer only.