What Does Moisturizer Do for Your Skin?

Moisturizing your face every day is essential to keep your skin hydrated and healthy. The skin is our body's largest organ and requires a lot of care to keep it looking and feeling it’s best.

Dry skin can be a tight, uncomfortable feeling, sore or tender to touch, and often itchy. It can appear red, scaly, or rough and has the possibility of developing into a more serious skin condition. Introducing a quality moisturizer–and using it–as part of your routine can help prevent that.

So, what exactly does moisturizer do for your skin? Some moisturizer benefits include soothing your skin, providing protection, and, of course, maintaining hydration.

All skin types, regardless of what condition you might have, can benefit from moisturizer. Keep reading to learn more about the benefits of moisturizing your face every day, and find a solution that can help you achieve beautiful, healthy skin.

• What Does Moisturizer Do?
• Benefits of Face Moisturizer
• How to Choose the Right Moisturizer
• Busting Moisturizer Myths
• How to Use Moisturizer in Your Skincare Routine
• Improve Skin Hydration & Repair Your Skin Barrier

What Does Moisturizer Do?

Before we do a deep dive into the answer to “What does moisturizer do?” we should first answer “What is moisturizer?”. Facial moisturizer is a lotion, cream emulsion, ointment, or balm formulated with ingredients that help your skin stay hydrated.

The basic job of moisturizer is to hydrate and add moisture to dry skin and help keep it from drying out again by hydrating the surface layers of the skin.

Face moisturizers mainly work in two different ways. They either create a temporary seal by trapping moisture in your skin or they restore lost moisture in the outer layer of your skin.

Some moisturizers go beyond hydration, like Barrier Pro™ Essential Moisturizer, which provides complementary skin barrier health by:

• Supporting the skin's microbiome balance
• Replenishing skin
• Preparing it to better defend itself with improved response to environmental aggressors

Benefits of Face Moisturizer

Using moisturizer can help improve your skin. But remember, the key to maximizing these effects is consistency. Here are a few ways moisturizer can help your skin:

1. Prevent Dryness

Environmental factors such as outdoor hot or cold weather, or even indoor heat and AC, can suck the moisture from your skin. But that’s where a good facial moisturizer comes in as it not only replaces moisture in your skin that has already been lost, but it helps prevent and fight future moisture loss.

Pro tip: Using a moisturizer on top of a serum helps lock in the serum's nutrients.

2. Slow the Signs of Aging Skin

It’s never too early to begin preventing future wrinkles and fine lines, and hydrated skin is the key to younger-looking, healthy skin. Giving your skin a dose of hydration can lead to a plump, firmness in your skin that is actually helping slow down the aging process. 

Moisturizers with anti-aging ingredients can improve skin tone and texture, soothe sensitive skin, and help the skin look firmer and healthier. 

Along with a healthy moisturizing routine, drinking plenty of water can help fight dehydration lines and dry skin.

3. Help Fight Acne

When your skin gets too dry, your glands produce more oil in an attempt to hydrate the skin, which can clog your pores and cause an acne breakout. Finding the right moisturizer for your skin type will help hydrate your skin properly and stop your skin from producing more oil than it needs and causing breakouts.

4. Prepares Your Skin for Sunscreen Application

Some moisturizers, like Barrier Pro™ Essential Moisturizer, can help prepare your skin for optimal sunscreen application. This is an important benefit as it helps you ensure you’re getting the best protection while you’re out in the sun.

Dermatologists recommend using sunscreen every day, even in the colder months. However, not all sunscreens are created equal, and some contain harsh ingredients that can dry out your skin. When purchasing a sunscreen, make sure it includes gentle hydrating ingredients, like a mineral sunscreen.

5. Soothe Sensitive Skin

Sensitive skin needs special attention and care, and it can take some time to figure out what moisturizers work best for your skin. Moisturizers containing soothing ingredients like prickly pear cactus extract can help relieve irritated skin and fight red, dry, or itchy patches. 

These are just a few of the benefits of moisturizing your face everyday.

How to Choose the Right Moisturizer

When trying to choose the right moisturizer, look for key ingredients that suit your skin type and ensure the most effective moisturizer benefits for any skin concerns. It’s important to note that not all moisturizers are created equal.

While many ingredient labels might have long lists that are completely foreign to you, there are some that are developed in collaboration with skin health professionals, like Barrier Pro™ Essential Moisturizer.

Colorescience Barrier Pro™ Essential Moisturizer contains healthy, rejuvenating ingredients that go beyond hydration for all skin types — even those with sensitive skin. By supporting the skin’s microbiome balance, Barrier Pro™ Essential Moisturizer replenishes the skin and prepares your skin to defend itself with improved responses to environmental pollution. Resulting in smoother, stronger, plumper, and more youthful-looking, healthy skin.

Take it a step further to elevate your skincare routine when you pair this moisturizer with our cleanser.

Colorescience Barrier Health Dream Duo features the Barrier Pro™ 1-Step Cleanser and Barrier Pro™ Essential Moisturizer. This duo supports your skin’s microbiome while hydrating and repairing skin cells and preps your skin to better defend itself against environmental aggressors and daily pore-clogging pollution. Leaving your skin stronger and more youthful looking.

When looking for a new moisturizer, one of the most important things is to avoid harsh chemicals or added fragrances. You’ll also want to make sure it’s non-comedogenic, meaning it shouldn’t clog your pores.

Busting Moisturizer Myths

With so many different types of products and different use recommendations for each, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Let’s debunk a few moisturizer myths and put some of the confusion to rest.

Myth 1: Only Moisturize If You Have Dry Skin

It’s never really a bad idea to moisturize your skin. Even if you have oily skin, skipping out on moisturizing can result in your skin overproducing oil and clogging pores in an attempt to hydrate the skin.

That said, if you have dry skin, you’ll likely need to moisturize daily and more frequently than those with combination or oily skin, but no one should leave moisturizing out of their skincare routine.

Myth 2: Applying Moisturizer Every Day Causes Your Skin to Lose its Ability to Stay Hydrated on its Own

The experts agree that daily moisturizer benefits your skin. Over time, as we age and suffer from sun damage, skin loses the ability to stay as hydrated as it once did naturally. Just like how your body needs help staying healthy and hydrated by eating food and drinking water, your skin needs help in staying hydrated.

Moisturizer doesn’t detract from your body’s functions; it aids where it might fall behind.

Myth 3: You Can Use The Same Moisturizer For Your Entire Body

While moisturizers work to hydrate your skin and do technically work for the majority of your body parts, it’s more beneficial to have different moisturizing lotions with specific ingredients and properties that work best for specific areas of the body.

Moisturizers that help fight dry skin on your hands, elbows, knees, or feet should not be used on your face as your facial skin may react differently and be more sensitive than the rest of your body.

Generally, you’ll want to use different moisturizers for your body and face, but you can even use moisturizers that cater to each body part.

How to Use Moisturizer in Your Skincare Routine

It can be difficult to identify which products are right for you to keep your skin both hydrated and moisturized. Luckily, Colorescience's Barrier Healthy Dream Duo does both and makes for the perfect simple-to-use regimen that's safe, and beneficial, for all skin types - including sensitive.

1. Colorescience Barrier Pro™ 1-Step Cleanser is formulated to remove makeup, mineral sunscreen, and dirt in a single step. This cleanser goes beyond just a clean face and supports the skin’s microbiome while balancing and gently refining skin texture.

2. Once you have finished cleansing your face of the daily pollutants, makeup, and other gunk, it’s time for Colorescience Barrier Pro™ Essential Moisturizer to help replenish hydration. This moisturizer helps strengthen the skin’s protective barrier and support and balance the microbiome, resulting in vibrant, more plump, and youthful, healthy-looking skin.

Clear skin requires attention, and using these products twice a day, a morning routine and a nighttime routine, can help you ensure you’re giving your complexion the absolute best care. Adjusting to a new routine doesn’t have to be a headache when it’s as simple as this.

Have other skincare treatments in your regimen? Learn more about how to use them effectively with a skin-cycling approach.

Improve Skin Hydration & Repair Your Skin Barrier

Take full advantage of the benefits of moisturizing every day to repair your skin barrier and improve skin hydration. All skin types can benefit from Barrier Pro™ Essential Moisturizer to hydrate your skin and achieve vibrant, healthy skin.