What are natural moisturizers and why is there such a strong movement towards natural skin products such as natural skin moisturizers?

Demand for natural moisturizers is growing fast, just as demand for all natural skin care products is growing faster than just about any other part of the skin care and anti aging industry. Lets examine why natural moisturizers are becoming so popular and what the best way is to moisturize successfully.

The first reason there are now so many people searching for an all natural moisturizer is that there is a gradual but growing awareness that many anti aging and skin care products contain ingredients which may be damaging to your health. There are many chemical and petrochemical ingredients found in so many of the skin care products that you will see on the shelves of your store every single day, and which you may well be using right now.

Facial moisturizers and body moisturizers are no exception. There are ingredients in these products that ought not be used in products which are applied to the skin. An example is mineral oil.

Mineral oil is a petrochemical product which is derived from distilling crude oil. Mineral oil is a clear liquid. Baby oil is 100 percent mineral oil.

Mineral oil has a range of health implications when used in any product which comes into contact with the skin. If you search the cosmetic safety database you’ll see that mineral oil is linked to allergies and immunotoxicity, cancer, bioaccumulation, organ system toxicity and irritation of the skin, eyes and lungs.

Mineral oil, as you will see from your search, is reported as being used in 563 moisturizers and 219 facial moisturizers. Often though, even though it is an ingredient in a product it will not be listed on the label as mineral oil. This is because it goes by a range of different names. For example it can be called liquid petroleum.

Mineral oil is commonly used in a wide range of skin care products, (and many other products including cosmetics, personal and other beauty products) for several reasons. The primary reason mineral oil is so commonly found in skin care and anti aging products is that it is incredibly cheap, in fact it is so cheap that it is cheaper to buy mineral oil than it is to dispose of it.

Mineral oil is added to moisturizers not because it has any active moisturizing properties but because it is intended to stop moisture loss. The expectation is that mineral oil will form a thin film of oil over the skin preventing moisture evaporating from the skin. This may be the case however the price that you pay is that mineral oil will coat your skin, clog the pores and may even lead to acne. It will also reduce the ability of the skin to eliminate toxins successfully.

People are more and more conscious of the range of chemical and petrochemical ingredients used in their skin care skin care and anti aging products. For this reason there is now a fast-growing market for natural facial moisturizers and natural body moisturizers.

There are many naturally occurring, mainly plant-based substances which have excellent skin moisturizing properties. Just because they are naturally occurring does not mean, however, that they are safe to use on your skin or in your body. There are many highly toxic naturally occurring substances. Snake venom is naturally occurring.

However there are also many natural moisturizers which are known to be safe and which are also known to have outstanding skin moisturizing properties. One well known one is olive oil. Olive oil has moisturizing properties and is eaten by millions of people, safely.

There are many other naturally occurring substances which have outstanding moisturizing properties and which are known to be safe to use on your skin.

There are 2 types of natural skin moisturizer. First there is the raw ingredient. Olive oil for instance. And some people will choose to use these types of natural ingredients in the natural form.

Whilst this may be one way to moisturize successfully it is rarely the best way to do so and can be messy. Just imagine smearing olive oil on your face every day.

The 2nd type of natural skin moisturizer is a product produced by skin care company that contains a range of these natural moisturizers that are known to be safe to apply to the skin and which are also excellent natural moisturizers themselves.

The obvious question is why don’t the big name skin care companies use these natural ingredients in their own products instead of such chemical ingredients as mineral oil? The answer is simple. Natural moisturizers, in almost every case, are way more expensive than ingredients such as mineral oil.

Here’s some examples of natural ingredients known to be excellent natural moisturizers.

1. Macadamia oil from the nut of the Macadamia tree. It’s oil is very like the oil (called sebum) produced by your skin and it penetrates the skin and hydrates it very fast.

2. Shea butter from the nut of the Shea tree found in Africa.

3. Vitamin B5, (called D-Panthenol). Helps repair skin tissue, acts as a natural sunscreen and is an excellent natural moisturizer.

There are many many more however we are sure you get the idea.

However moisturizing naturally is not just about using products with natural ingredients that help moisturize the skin. It is also about promoting better skin health because healthier skin produces it’s own moisture/oil more successfully as well.

There are also many natural ingredients known to help improve the health of the skin, often by promoting a better production of collagen and elastin in the skin, both of which help improve skin health and skin elasticity.

As we said it is perfectly possible in many cases, (though not all), to source these ingredients yourself however using them individually or trying to combine them into a home made natural moisturizer may not be quite as successful.

There are anti aging companies committed to making high quality skin care products using all natural ingredients known to be safe to use. One of these companies in particular, called Xtend Life, has a total commitment to using only the safest natural ingredients to produce a range of safe and highly effective skin care products.

Xtend Life do not make a moisturizer. The reason is that all their products contain a wide range of natural ingredients, all of which moisturize successfully and which promote optimum skin health. It is not necessary to buy a dedicated moisturizer from Xtend Life, and you cannot, because their mainstream natural skin care products will perform the job of moisturizing admirably.

As we said previously these ingredients are all much more expensive than chemical ingredients such as mineral oil so the obvious conclusion must be that the products of Xtend Life are very expensive. However they are not for one simple reason. The company chooses not to advertise on television, and the cost of marketing is one of the highest costs which are factored into the price of mainstream skin care products. That is why there are so many cheap chemical ingredients in these products, because if they were to use more expensive natural ingredients, and factor in the cost of television advertising, the price of the products would be beyond the reach of the consumer.

Xtend Life on the other hand, choose not to advertise but to direct a far greater proportion of their budget into product quality resulting in a higher quality product that most people have never heard of. Their corporate philosophy is that if they make the highest quality products possible they will, over time, become more and more well known and their sales will increase with repeat business. And in fact this is what is happening.

Xtend Life are so comfortable with the quality of their products that they even offer their customers a 100 percent money back guarantee.

So as you can see there are powerful reasons for skin care consumers to use natural moisturizers. They are safer and more effective than the chemical alternatives used in so many skin care products that so many of us know by name. Read the rest of this entry

One of the first things that tells you have have aging skin is the formation of undereye wrinkles.

Undereye wrinkles tell you your skin is aging. You know the ones. Those fine lines around the eyes that are sometimes called crows feet, the bags, dark circles and wrinkles around eyes that haven’t showen wrinkles before. These are the first signs of skin ageing.

What causes undereye wrinkles and exactly how do you remove eye wrinkles? You see plenty of eye wrinkles creams and other eye wrinkles treatments on the market but do they remove eye wrinkles successfully?

There is a range of causes of eye wrinkles. Puffy eyes and bags under the eyes are generally caused by poor fluid drainage.  Poor fluid drainage leads to a build up of fluid underneath the eyes causing that puffiness and dark circles that you may be noticing as you get older.

Loss of skin elasticity also promotes puffiness and circles under the eyes and in fact loss of skin elasticity is one of the major factors in the formation of wrinkles generally, including undereye wrinkles.

Some of these factors are common to all of your skin and some are specific to under eye problems. For example loss of skin elasticity is one of the overwhelming causes of deteriorating skin health with ageing. As you age your skin starts to lose its ability to restore essential supplies of collagen and elastin, 2 skin proteins that are very important in the retention of skin elasticity. This factor is common to skin generally.

However the build up of fluid under the eyes is not a factor in the deterioration of the skin on other areas of your face but is particular to the formation of undereye bags and puffiness.

Therefore it is important, if you are seeking a good eye wrinkles treatment, that you select an eye wrinkle cream that is specifically targeted to removing eye wrinkles. General skin care products may not be able to deal adequately with the problems that are specifically found under the eyes.

It is also important to understand that many of the mainstream skin care products, including many eye wrinkle creams, can contain ingredients which may damage your skin. We have written about that elsewhere on the site and if you are interested to find out more then read our article about dangerous ingredients in skin care products.

Because of the difficulty of combating a range of different causes of eye wrinkles most eye wrinkle treatments are not particularly effective. That’s the bad news but the good news is that there are products designed to reduce eye wrinkles that do work.

One ingredient that is essential in any eye cream for wrinkles is called Eyeliss. Eyeliss is considered to be about the most effective eye wrinkle treatment ever developed. It is manufactured in Europe and has been studied extensively and has been for some time the secret of the Hollywood stars. It is highly expensive however studies show noticeable reduction in bags under the eyes within 4 weeks.

The Electronic Retailing Self Regulation Program has recently studied some of the claims made for Eyeliss and concluded that the claims are justified.

Eyeliss works by improving the drainage of fluid under the eyes and reducing the fragility of capillaries, the breakage of which contributes to the fluid buildup. It also helps improve skin firmness and elasticity. This combined results in a lower build up of fluid under the eyes which helps reduce puffiness and bags under the eyes. It works extremely well.

However Eyeliss only targets one of the causes of undereye wrinkles. There is now a new product available  that significantly improves the outcome that you achieve. This product uses Eyeliss in combination with a range of other ingredients which, when combined together, produce a more overall and longer lasting effect. This product is the Eye Contour Serum from Xtend Life.

By combining Eyeliss with other ingredients that are common to their natural skin care range they are able to produce a product that stimulates the skin to increase its production of collagen and elastin thereby helping improve skin elasticity under the eyes. An improvement in skin elasticity under the eyes dramatically improves the result that you see in reducing wrinkles because loss of skin elasticity is the major cause of wrinkles.

Eyeliss, when combined with these other ingredients into the Eye Contour Serum, produces a result that surprises many women.

The natural skin care products manufactured by Xtend Life are what we consider to be the finest skin care products available. However as explained it is essential, when seeking to reduce undereye wrinkles, to use a product specifically formulated to deal with the causes of wrinkles under the eyes as well as the general causes of skin ageing such as loss of skin elasticity.

Their Eye Contour Serum does this extremely well. Read the rest of this entry