Budget Beauty Guide:Moisturizers

I often get the sense  that  my friends have an almost mystical faith in moisturizers.  While they avoid taxis and  stagger home  from Costco  with 10  pounds of rice, they  have faith that a $300 moisturizer  is the key to beautiful  young skin.  If  only it  was that easy.

First, a little back story.   Water is essential  for healthy skin.  It promotes normal  metabolism   and keep skin cells organized and flexible.  The mission of a moisturizer is to simply help the skin maintain a healthy water balance. The  most basic   water and oil formulas act  like Saran Wrap to prevent  evaporation of water from the skin.   And the  simplest moisturizers will do  just that.  But there are three affordable and effective ingredients which  crank up   water attracting and holding powers in a moisturizer.  Hyaluronic acid, ceramides and dimethicone, either singly or in combination,  dramatically increase  the value of a moisturizer to the skin.  These cosmetic   workhorses may not be sexy, but they deliver results.

Flip throught he pages of a magazine and  you will find ads for super spendy moisturizers pumped up with  exotic/expensive ingredients like  arctic cloudberry, marula oil or  alpha lipoic acid.  Some  work some don’t, but  the bottom line is that they are not essential to beautiful skin.  On the No-Nonsense Budget Beauty program  your anti-aging and antitioxidant needs are met with  glycolic acid, vitamin C  and affordable  microdermabrasion kits. 

Here are four nighttime moisturizers that you should apply over the anti-aging  products.   For normal and oily skin, dot on a pea size blob on your cheeks, forhead, chin and neck and blend into the face.  If  your skin  is dry, use the double app technique.  Once the first application has benn absorbed, dot and blend a second coat

I’ve four favorite moisturizers all at less than $15:

1. CeraVe PM ( Coria Laboratories)

This baby hits all the right notes:  Fragrance-free and non comedogenic, its packed with ceramides, and hyaluronic acid.  FYI its one of the few affordable moisturizers to offer this powerful water attracting  ingredient.

2.  Active Naturals Daily ProtectionMoisturizing Lotion( Aveeno)

This light, fragrance-free cream has  colloidal oatmeal to soothe sensitive skin and dimethicone to hold moisture.

3. Sensitive Skin Remedy ( Curel)

This a new product to my tool box.  It offers ceramides, dimethicone, super soothing  allantoin and antioxidant rich citric acid.   All this and fragrance and dye free too.

4.  Aquaphor ( Beiersdorf)

The first three moisturizers  are lighter formulations.  This is what I need and I’m reluctant to recommend products I don’t  use.  But when the weather turns cold and windy, my skin  turns dry and flaky — and I reach for Aquaphor.  Its the moisturizer that doctors give their patients after lasers and peels.  If its good enough for them its good enough for me.

If you  your skin is uber dry, try the double app method with Aquaphor.   Before going to sleep apply generously to  your face.  Allow the first application to sink in, then reapply.

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Q and A– Diluting Retin A?

Question:  I’m concerned that  that Retin A Micro .o4% will irritate my skin.  Can I mix it with  my moisturizer before  applying it?

Answer:    I’ve received this type of comment  so frequently I think it deserves a post of its own.  Mixing  Retin A ( aka tretinoin) with a moisturizer immediately reduces its concentration and  impast on the skin.  If you take a pea size dab of  .04% tretinoin with an equal dab of moisturizer, the concentration is now .02%– lower than any other prescription grade  tretinoin.  If there is more moisturizer than tretinoin, then the concentration is even lower  and the action on the skin will be very limited.  Then there is the issue of cost.  Retin A  Micro .04% runs about $300/tube.  If you dilute it to .02%  you will get more  for  your beauty dollar if you buy  .1% Retinol from Skinceuticals which clocks in at $100.

There are tried  and true  methods of reducing  risk of   redness and flaking with tretinoin products.  Start by choosing  a mild cleanser like Cetaphil and  wait  at least 30 minutes between washing your face and applying  tretinoin.  Ease into a tretinoin regimen  by applying it every other night for several weeks gradually working up to an every night routinue.  If redness develops, stick  with using it only three times a week.  Make sure  you avoid  other products that could cause irritation  including microdermabrasion, glycolic acid peels, exfoliating pads or grains and alcohol based toners.  At night  use a  moisturizer like CerVe PM ( which is brimming with ceramides and hyaluronic acid) over tretinoin to prevent irritation.   Commit to using  at least a 30SPF sunscreen  each and every  morning.  Tretinoin increases sensitivity to the sun  and you can get red and flaky even from sunlight through a window.  It will take at least  six weeks to produce a noticable difference.  Don’t be impatient and stick with the program.  I believe that tretinoin is the foundation of a stong anti-aging plan.  What ever else you do, tretinoin will  supply a daily  boost to skin cell growth that refines the surface and boosts collagen production-  all good things.

One final thought.  I also  hear from women  who apply their tretinoin OVER a moisturizer.  Please don’t do that.  Tretinoin is  one of a handful of ingredients that can actually pass throught he layers of the skin to  provide  real benefits to the lower, living layer of the skin.  Applying a moisturizer just blocks access to the skin and inhibits all the good that tretinoin can do.

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Are Ceramides the Key to Beautiful Skin?

I get frequent questions about individual anti-aging  ingredients. Can it REALLY reverse aging?  Is it natural?  Dangerous?   Last time, I reviewed idebone, a powerful antioxidant.  Today I’m evaluating ceramides.  I’ve seen it advertised  on a number of products and  thought it was finally  time to do a little research.

Here’s how it works: The cells of the top layer of the skin are held in place by fatty ceramides, a substance  which kind of acts like glue to keep the cells in order.  In addition ceramides hold onto water  molecules,  helping to attract and retain moisture in the skin.  And it will probably come as no great surprise that ceramide levels decrease as we get  older.  By age 60, we  have lost so much ceramide that the upper layer of the skin is 30% thinner.

Ceramides are used  lotions, creams and cleansers formulated primarily for dry skin, but there is some debate about how effective it actually is.  Conventional wisdom holds that it is very difficult for ingredients like ceramide to travel through the layers of the skin.    However  new research indicates that substances can travel down  the hair follicles and pores to reach the growing levels of skin  and make a diffference in  the health of skin cells. 

Loss of ceramides  is just one of the age related changes that occur to our skin– so  this ingredient  can’t do all the heavy lifting in anti-aging skin  care. However if dry skin is  constant problem a ceramide-rich product  can work effectively.

Ceramides are  expensive ingrediets and are usually found in higher end lines such as Elizabeth Arden Ultra Cold ( $60)  and Elizabeth Plump Perfect Ultra Night Repair ($65).  Now they are  also used in the very affordable line of CereVe products that includes CereVe Facial Moisturing Lotion PM and CereVe Daily Facial Moisturizing Lotion SPF 30 ( $12 for 3 ounces). 

Dry skin was not a daily problem  for me until I started using Retin A products.  Then flaking  and redness became a real issue. I was  standing in a drugstore looking for something, anything that would help when two separate women asked the sales person for CereVe.  Curious, I saw that it was fragrance-free, did not clog  pores and contained one of my all time favorite moisturizing ingredients– hyaluronic acid.  I didn’t know what ceramides were, but the other ingredients made it worth a try.  That night I  smoothed CereVe over my Retin A treated skin and  by morning, my skin felt better than it had in months.  I went back and bought the  daytime product  with sunscreen and now  use  both frequently in  by day and night routines.  I don’t know if its the ceremides or the hyaluronic acid, or maybe  the combintion of the two, but  CereVe products really delivered for me.   

If you have tried other ceramide products, I’d love to hear about your experiences.

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Anti-Aging Skin Care- The Fabulous Fourteen

When I started exploring anti-aging options a few months go, I had  just three go-to products.  It wasn’t that I didn’t care — I just didn’t know what my skin  truely needed. Too many times  I would be vulnerable  to  great sales pitch and find that the expensive “miracle cream”  either did nothing or  made my face break-out.  Now that I am testing out wrinkling fighting tools and techniques, I had to try out  an endless buffet of skin care products.  Trial and lots of error  has resulted in a group of cleansers, moisturizers and sunscreens that deliever on their  promises.  I call them my “Fabulous Fourteen” and today I have uploaded that list in the blog tab ” Beauty Tool Kit”.  I explain  how to use  them, how they  work and  how much they cost.  I have only one face and can’t try out everything, so I would love to hear about your go-to products.

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Moving Up to Big Girl Retin A

My  new  Retin A prescription (.1%) arrived this week and I am getting things in order to try it out.  I have my mild Cetaphil cleanser, Aveeno Ultra Calming Sunscreen for daytime and Fresh soy enriched moisturizer at night.  I’m a little anxious since  this is the first time  I have used a generic product from Canada but the cost saving were irrisistable.  My Retin A from the north  was $44 including shipping.  At my local CVS, brand name Retin A was almost $200.    I have big plans for that $150 difference.

I am  also doing a little experiment. Today, celebrity dermatologist Dr Neil Saddick  is examining my face with a Wood’s lamp which will highlight  the areas of  sun damaged skin.  I will  use my new big  girl Retin A and in a month, plan to  check the progress  with the Wood’s lamp again. When I first started to use Retin A, I could see   real changes in the mirror.  Now I want to see if there are genuine organic changes in the skin.  I will post these photos so that we  can all see.  

My new prescription is not only higher in concentration, it is stronger in formulation.  I’m a little concerned about irritation and flaking and  still looking for a heavy duty nighttime moisturizer.  Any recommendations?

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