If you have acne you may be better using no moisturizer than using some of the big brands.

For those of us prone to acne the question of how to find the best moisturizer for acne prone skin is a difficult one. Whilst making sure your skin is well moisturized is very important for optimum skin care you may well find that the facial moisturizer you find on the shelves of your local store may actually make your acne worse.

Acne results when facial skin has an excess of sebum, the natural oil that is primarily responsible for keeping your skin will moisturized. It’s probably unnecessary to go into details of how this operates, because if you have acne you probably found out all about this already.

However it is important to consider how to moisturize your skin if you have acne. Because there are acne moisturizers on the market which can actually cause acne-prone skin to become worse.

This is because there are skin care products advertised as moisturizers for acne-prone skin that contain ingredients which block the pores of your skin. Blocking the pores can cause your skin to break out in more pimples.

And if you are using a daily moisturizer that blocks your pores you are better off not using one at all.

How could a moisturizer, or for that matter any other anti aging products such as skin anti-wrinkle creams, actually exacerbate your acne? It’s the ingredients they use in the products. Lets consider one of these ingredients commonly found in brand-name anti aging products. Petrolatum.

Petrolatum is a petrochemical product, in other words it comes from crude oil. You may know it as Vaseline, though it goes by a wide range of other names including petroleum jelly and petroleum wax.

If you search the Cosmetic Safety Database you’ll find petrolatum listed in hundreds of well known skin care products including facial moisturizers. It is included in these products because it is extremely cheap to buy.

However petrolatum has no moisturizing properties of it’s own, cannot penetrate the skin and merely works to prevent moisture loss. It does this by coating the skin with a very thin layer of oil. Just imagine putting Vaseline on your skin every day. Coating the skin in this way blocks the pores and increases the risk that you’ll break out in more pimples.

Not only that but these products can sometimes cause skin irritation or allergic reactions, something that any acne sufferer can do without.

There are also other chemical ingredients used in many mainstream anti aging products with similar risks for acne sufferers.

And if you use products like these, and you suffer from acne, you are better off not using a moisturizer at all.

However even better again is to use a healthy skin anti-wrinkle cream that moisturizes effectively without causing more acne problems. What you need is a dramatically different moisturizing solution than those mainstream big brand products you see advertised on TV.

The good news is that there are many natural substances, some examples being olive oil, jojoba oil and Shea butter which are excellent as natural moisturizers and which do not clog the pores, and which therefore do not increase the risk of breakout.

And there are excellent natural skin care companies which produce products which make use of natural, and safe ingredients such as these, and more, which work extremely effectively to improve the health of your skin and also to reduce the incidence of acne.

The best moisturizer for acne prone skin uses a wide range of such natural ingredients. The products of Xtend Life all work extremely well at improving skin health and reducing acne, and because they all use such natural ingredients, (and more), they all moisturize effectively because moisturizing is a big part of improving skin health overall.

Xtend Life don’t even make a moisturizer because they don’t need to, because all their products moisturize effectively. They work well for oily skin or sensitive skin, and if you use them consistently you will notice a reduction of acne on your face. Read the rest of this entry

Just about everyone knows about moisturizers, what do they do?

A  moisturizer ads moisture to your skin right? Well yes, but there’s more to it than that. What exactly does moisturizing do?

Your skin is the largest organ in, or on, your body. Skin is the interface between the outside and the inside. There are multiple organs within your body that help protect you from nasties that get in, but it’s your skin that is the first line of defence to protect you.

Your skin acts to filter out many nasties that you don’t want in your system. It’s not perfect, and doesn’t screen out everything, but it does a good job. You need a good barrier as the first line of defence.

And a good moisturizer helps keep your skin supple, moist and healthy, all of which contribute to that first barrier working as well as it can.

Healthy well moisturized skin helps protect you better from sunburn, for example. It helps protect your skin from dehydration, and improves your skin tone and skin texture. It also helps other anti aging ingredients that come from your skincare products or are even in your moisturizer itself work better.

What should you find in your moisturizer?

As you will know from reading our website we are strongly in favor of all natural ingredients in any moisturizer or other skincare or anti aging product. There are nasty ingredients in many mainstream moisturizers, for example Parabens which are usually used as a preservative. These are not good for you or your skin.

All natural ingredients which work extremely well as moisturizers include such naturally occurring ingredients as Shea Butter. Shea Butter comes from the seed of the Shea tree, and is an excellent natural moisturizer. It helps sooth inflamed skin, reduce skin blemishes and even help protect against sunburn. And it moisturizes very well.

Manuka honey is also has also been shown to be excellent for promoting skin health because of the high levels of natural enzymes which have good healing properties for skin. This honey is collected from the Manuka tree pollen, and only certain types contain the active ingredients.

Macadamia oil is also an excellent oil for moisturizing. It is readily absorbed into the skin, and penetrates deeply. It helps soften the skin and protect the skin cells from aging.

And there’s many other natural ingredientst that help moisturize the skin, and improve the overall level of skin health, suppleness and reduce skin aging.

You can find them in the skincare products from Xtend Life, a small New Zealand skincare company that makes what we consider to be the best skincare products in the world.

They use all natural ingredients, like those mentioned above, and more. Read the rest of this entry