The Benefits Of Moisturizer

Moisturizing is an act that we have implemented into our everyday lives. We moisturize before we go to bed, when we wake up and throughout the day. It can be said that moisturizers are a necessity. To keep our skin smooth and healthy, we must constantly moisturize. However, we must also protect our skin from UV radiation that comes from the sun, which is why nowadays most moisturizers contain sunscreen with an SPF of 30, 50 and more. The skin stays smooth by maintaining a certain amount of water. Moisturizers contain water and oil. Moisturizers usually use emulsion systems, which are mixtures of oil and water. The skin consists of three layers: the epidermis (outer layer), the dermis (middle layer), and the hypodermis (inner layer). The epidermis is the part of the skin affected by moisturizers, since cosmetic products target the cells in that section and are generally not able go past it into the dermis. The way

However, we must keep in mind that oil and water do not bind together naturally. The atoms in water have a slight positive and negative charge, therefore they bind with other charged atoms. Since oil is uncharged, water cannot bind to it. Therefore, a chemical binds both oil and water, this element is called a surfactant. A surfactant must have two parts, one that binds water and another that binds oil. Water, an oil-based component, and a surfactant must undergo a process that thoroughly mixes them together. To be sure that the final product is water-based, we must add more water than the oil component, so that mixing them will produce an aqueous phase with little amounts of oil dispersed throughout. Choosing which surfactant to use, affects the ratio of water to oil that can be mixed. For moisturizers, the surfactants typically used are amphoteric surfactants and nonionic surfactants; fatty acid alcohols such as cetearyl alcohol or stearyl alcohol, are the simplest non-ionic