Colin's Beauty Pages

I came across a thread on an internet forum the other day where someone was asking if anyone could recommend them a good hand cream.  There were a pretty diverse set of products suggested. The trouble is that it isn’t really a question of if a cream is good or bad – it is much more important to know whether it suits you and your life style.

The way a cream works is mainly by creating an oily layer on the surface of your skin that keeps moisture in, giving a moisturising effect, and protecting you from things you come into contact with.  If you do a lot of hand washing of dishes keeping your skin well oiled is probably a good idea.  The best creams for this are ones with a lot of oil.  The oil has the effect of both holding moisture into the skin by forming a barrier and it will also give some protection from things like detergent and salt that are harmful to the skin.

There is another way skin creams can help.  The skin contains a number of components that tend to hold moisture in.  The most common one is probably glycerol, but hyaluronic acid is another one that gets a lot of interest. The interesting thing about these molecules is that they have a definite optimum level at which they work.  This will vary from person to person and probably varies over time as well.  Adding a bit of glycerol might have no benefit at all for some people, but for someone whose skin is deficient it might be a really effective, and possibly the only effective, way of significantly increasing moisture levels.

I noticed on the thread that triggered off this post that several posters were very positive about Neutrogena’s Norwegian formula hand cream.  (I have never worked out the significance of the Norwegian bit – is it supposed to be the cream used by whalers or something?)  The interesting thing is that this product has a very very high level of glycerol, much higher than is typical.  I also know that many people find it fairly hopeless, but some rate it as the best skin cream going.  I think what is going on here is that, without knowing anything about the science involved, people have worked out by trial and error what works for them.  If you suffer from dry skin but find that most skin creams don’t work for you it might be worth giving this one a try. If it does work for you it is likely that  your dry skin is generally due to a lack of humectancy rather than a weak barrier function.

But for most people it is the barrier function that matters and what you are looking for is something that will form a layer on the skin to hold the moisture in.  If you have really dry skin this could be as simple as applying vaseline.  Vaseline is very simply mineral oil, and mineral oil is one of the best ways of really sealing the skin.  Neat vaseline is obviously not very elegant and can leave the skin feeling pretty sticky.   There are several creams that deliver a lot of mineral.  Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion is one option here.  E45 Cream and Oilatum Cream are other options.

Mineral oil is one of those materials that get a bad press.  I tend to agree that it won’t do much good and might even be very slightly harmful when applied to skin that isn’t dry.  But I really fail to see what the problem with it is generally.  I have not yet come across a single convincing piece of evidence that suggests it is harmful.  I don think that some companies that are keen to portray themselves as green like to make out that conventional products are more harmful than they actually are.  If a company’s pitch purely on its green credentials it makes me wonder whether they have anything positive to say about their products.

Having said that, the alternative to mineral oil is some kind of vegetable oil.  There are a number of these that are widely known.  It would be interesting to compare how well the different ones work, but I haven’t found any studies on this.  The most widely used ones are fractionated coconut oil, which is called by the amazingly confusing name of capric/caprylic triglycerides on the ingredient listing, almond oil and peach kernel oil.  These all work fine.  The fractionated coconut oil is the purest and the best option for simply giving an occlusive layer.  Materials like olive oil and shea butter are less widely used but I think that they work well and may well bring other benefits to the skin.

So to summarise my advice on choosing a skin cream:-

If you have very dry skin look for a cream with a high oil content like Oilatum Cream or E45, or even neat vaseline.  If these don’t work try Neutrogena Norwegian formula.  If your skin is dry but not seriously so you should find some benefit from most hand creams.  I would recommend one containing either olive oil or shea butter, or preferably both.  I formulated one for Artful Teasing that contains these, but there are others.  There is no reason you shouldn’t use more than one product.  I would also say that you get most benefit if you use the cream regularly, so get in the habit of applying it – don’t just wait for your skin to dry out.