What is a moisturized (The answer Will Surprise you)
A moisturizer should moisturize, right? But then what does an anti-wrinkle or anti-aging product do? What about a treatment or serum? Moisturizer is an overused term that has lost meaning over the years. With all the anti-aging, anti-wrinkling, lifting, firming, nourishing, organic, works-like-Botox, eye cream, intensive treatment, throat cream, and neck cream products touting their miracle formulations, it’s hard to know where moisturizers fit into the picture. In actuality, to be of any value for skin, and regardless of the name or claim, “moisturizers,” whether they are in cream, lotion, serum, or even liquid form, or labeled as some miracle anti-something or other formulation, must be filled with ingredients that maintain skin’s structure by reducing free-radical damage (environmental assaults on the skin from sun, pollution, and air), reinforce the skin’s barrier function, and help all forms of skin cells (immune cells, collagen, elastin) function more normally. When moisturizers contain the well-researched, effective groups of ingredients that can do these things they can maintain the skin’s natural moisture balance, and they are as close to “anti-aging” and repairing as any skin-care product you can get. Those categories of ingredients that can help skin do this are antioxidants, cell-communicating ingredients, skin-identical ingredients, and anti-irritants.
The days of plain, water-and-wax moisturizers are over, although many lines still sell such formulations to unwary customers. Using these antiquated formulations is like using computers made in the 1980s. That would be cheating your skin by not giving it the best that’s out there to help it (dare I say it) look younger.