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

Get the finest (and safest) organic and natural skin care products on the planet. HERE

Written by - Natural Health

(And make sure you read our page about Natural Skin Care, it's quite an eye opener about modern skin care products.)

Have you ever heard Shea Butter? Do you have any idea what it is and why you would want to find it in your skin care products?

Shea Butter is the fat from the seeds of the fruits of the Shea tree (which is found in Africa). It is extracted from the tree by the local population by a process of boiling and crushing.

Shea Butter is in fact quite edible, and is a yellowish looking fat which is used in cooking by many Africans as a cooking oil and is even used in chocolate in some cases as a substitute for cocoa.

However it has also been found that Shea Butter has some properties that make it ideal for skin care and anti-aging products, and it is used extensively in the Xtend Life range of skin care products.

Shea Butter is used as a moisturizer. It is in fact an extremely effective moisturizer, and is found in the best products for skin care and moisturizing in general.

For this reason it can be used for treating a variety of general skin conditions including dry skin, scars, acne, skin blemishes, chapped lips, wrinkles, itching, insect bites, eczema and, believe it or not, frostbite.

Shea Butter is rich in various vitamins, particularly vitamins A and E, and also has many essential acids which are beneficial to the skin. These are all part of the reason why Shea Butter is such a good moisturizer and it is, in fact, virtually identical to the moisturizers produced by the sebaceous glands in the skin.

It also has anti inflammatory properties beneficial to the skin, and even has a small benefit as a natural sunscreen.

Clinical studies have proven the efficacy of Shea Butter, showing that it can produce visible effects in the skin in as little as 4 to 6 weeks. Skin benefits include making the skin softer and smoother and more youthful looking.

For all these reasons Shea Butter is a product that should be in your skin care products. However, as with olive oil, you should only use Shea Butter that has been extracted by cold pressing rather than heating or chemical methods, as this is the method that best preserves the natural qualities of Shea Butter. Read the rest of this entry

Get the finest (and safest) organic and natural skin care products on the planet. HERE

Written by - Natural Health

(And make sure you read our page about Natural Skin Care, it's quite an eye opener about modern skin care products.)