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Five Questions You Need to Ask Yourself Before Purchasing Moisturizer

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Daily use of facial moisturizer is recommended to be included in your skincare routine. Not only that it helps to hold moisture level on the outer layer of the skin thus preventing and treating skin against dryness, but they can also help to improve skin’s condition, tone, texture and imperfections.

But before you go to any beauty counter, ask yourself these five questions so you get the moisturizer that is best suited for you.

1. What is my skin’s moisture level?

It’s very important before you purchase any moisturizer, or skincare product in fact, that you understand your skin’s moisture level. Whether your skin is dry, normal or oily. Some people even have a combination skin where their skin is in general normal to dry, but their t-zone area is oily. In general, for those who have dry skin, you can pick a heavier cream that is oil-based, whereas for oily skin it’s suggested to choose water-based cream that is mattifying and oil free. It’s easier for normal skin as they can choose both oil or water-based creams but do choose one that is neither too mattifying nor hydrating. If you have an oily T-zone you can just moisturize lightly on that area or even skip moisturizer altogether. Instead tap the remaining moisturizer on your finger to that area to give minimal hydration.

2. What’s your skin’s true age?

Skin maturity is not related to your true age. Sometimes a person’s skin can be younger or older than their true age. Some skin age much faster than the rest. As you age, your skin tends to lose the elasticity and suppleness that it once had. It also becomes much drier because the oil-producing glands are not as active as they were before. For skin that have started to show signs of aging, you can choose moisturizer that gives added ingredients such as antioxidant that can give your skin a boost. As well as ingredients known to be very effective to combat wrinkles, for instance retinoids. Heavier and thicker creams are also much preferred to give extra hydration to your skin and prevent it from flaking and scaling.

3. Do you really need SPF in your moisturizer?

The fact is, most people don’t actually need SPF in their moisturizer because not only they use separate sunscreen but also because they tend to use the same type of cream for day and night. There are very few moisturizers that can accommodate your need for sunscreen during the day, the minimum that you will need would be SPF 30, where in most cases, day cream only provides SPF 15 protection. Selected few actually provide SPF 30 and above with broad spectrum protection.If you do use the cream from the same product line for day and night, skip the day cream and purchase the night cream to be used for day and night. Unless you’re using different kind of treatments for day and night, and you also don’t use separate sunscreen, then you would actually need SPF in your moisturizer.

4. Do you suffer from acne regularly or it just happens during hormonal breakout?

Sometimes people mistake the condition of their skin by thinking a hormonal led breakout as acne-prone skin condition. If your acne appear sporadically and most of the time only happen before, during or after your period cycle, then most probably the breakout is only caused by hormonal changes. You can just pick a moisturizer according to your skin’s moisture level. For acne-prone skin, choose a moisturizer that is labeled as oil-free, non-comedogenic or non-acnegenic. Oil-free products will feel light on an acne-prone and don’t feel greasy. Whereas heavier oil based products will most likely clog the pores for acne-prone skin hence causes unwanted pimples. Usually a lotion form moisturizer will be more preferred. Look also for ingredients such as AHA that is known for its exfoliating benefit to help improve your skin’s cell turnover therefore renewing your skin’s condition. And look for salicylic acid that helps to ease your acne-prone skin.

5. Do you often experience redness, rash or itchiness or any other symptoms of sensitivity on your skin?

If you easily experience redness, rash, itchiness or any other symptoms from change of temperature, weather or skincare then you most likely have sensitive skin. Contrary to the previous type of skin, you might want to skip moisturizer that contains AHA or BHA because you will only rip away a layer of your skin that you might want to keep. Ingredients such as chamomile, aloe or rose are known to be soothing on skin which you might want to look for in your moisturizer. Avoid moisturizer that contains fragrance, dyes, traces of alcohol or acid because they may be potentially cause irritation to sensitive skin.

Now that you’ve got all questions answered, you’re ready to visit the cosmetic counter to purchase your moisturizer. We suggest you to go to a department store where there are multiple cosmetic counters on the floor compared to a standalone store because that way you will have wide array of choices instead of just one brand. Want to know what moisturizers our editors are currently using? We’ll reveal it on our next article!

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