Can Moisturizer Cause Acne? Plain and simple: excessively over-moisturizing your skin can cause acne. The reason being is that your skin will absorb what it needs to keep your skin looking fresh. The rest of the product then sits atop your face and forms a thin layer of oil, bacteria, and other ingredients.
Excessive moisturizer use can cause pimples or breakouts on the skin. Your skin absorbs what it needs and the extra product just sits on top of your face. This greasy layer attracts dirt and bacteria, which then gets accumulated in the pores and causes acne.
Why should you moisturize active acne? You should absolutely moisturize your skin even if you have active acne. It's an absolute myth that moisturizing your face will worsen your acne. In fact, moisturizers are necessary to keep acne-prone skin as relaxed as possible.
Dry out your skin.
Anytime you irritate your skin, you risk getting more acne. What to do instead: Use acne treatments as directed. If your skin feels dry, apply a moisturizer made for acne-prone skin.
Your skin needs moisture to heal and improve its appearance. The top layer of skin alone – the stratum corneum – can absorb three times its weight in water. If you suffer from acne scarring on your body (shoulders and back for example) moisturize with Vaseline® Intensive Care Deep Restore Lotion.
“Moisturizing your face helps to protect the skin's barrier from irritation. It also helps to reduce the development of dryness, or helps you to revive your skin from dryness,” says Marmur. Moisturizer creates a barrier between your skin and the climate, including cold, dry air that can further dry out skin.
Is it possible to use too much moisturizer? The short answer is, yes, you can use too much. Facial moisturizers are designed to be concentrated, and applying more of a moisturizer doesn't cause better skin results — sometimes it can even do the opposite.
If you are using multiple products on your face as part of a “12-step skincare routine,” you may be combining too many different products. Using too many products can definitely cause your skin to breakout. Not to mention that many skin care ingredients can lead to irritation and thus more breakouts.
It's a myth that moisturizer causes oily skin. In fact, if you're using acne treatments such as salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide, you definitely need a good moisturizer to keep your skin from drying out. Without moisturizer, any skin type will dry out.
“When the imbalance of water, lipids, and proteins is altered using moisturisers, the skin's ability to act as a strong barrier to protect our inner organs will be weakened,” he explains.
“When you use moisturizer every day, you run the risk of making your skin older, not younger,” he said to Refinery29. “If you apply a lot of moisture, skin will become sensitive, dry, dull, and interfere with natural hydration.”
Just as you should cleanse your skin twice a day, your face is calling out for moisture at least two times a day—in the morning and at night. You want to moisturize after every time you cleanse. This way, you can lock in moisture and keep skin from drying out.
"Skin's oil production peaks at midday, and there is less oil production at night. Therefore, when you lose that protective layer of natural oils, your skin loses more water, so it's important to replenish the water loss with a moisturizer overnight," says Sobel. "While you are asleep the skin goes into renewal mode.
So should you moisturize oily skin? YES, you need to moisturize your skin, even if it is oily and acne-prone. To understand why, let's take a closer look at what a moisturizer really does. Moisturizers don't add water to your skin, but rather help hold the water in the outer layer of your skin to keep it hydrated.
A moisturizer. That's right. Some moisturizers, which are supposed to keep your skin smooth and hydrated, can clog your pores. So if you have issues with clogged pores and breakouts, you'll want to choose your moisturizers wisely.
In short, yes. "A daily moisturizer is necessary to maintain your skin's moisture barrier and to prevent environmental damage to your skin," Weinstein explains.
Moisturiser cannot by itself make your skin dark or fair . Moisturisers are only meant to give the hydration a skin needs. In very humid climates, it is better to avoid moisturiser as a whole.
Aesthetic dermatologists have observed that habitual, daily moisturising over a prolonged period can actually age the skin. This induced ageing occurs because the same fibroblast cells which produce GAGs (the skin's moisturiser) also produce collagen and elastin, which help maintain the skin's elasticity.
Dr. Garshick says the most immediate signs are clogged pores, blackheads, and excess oil production. She advises moisturizing no more than two times a day, using a product formulated for your skin type.
They block water evaporation and can actually clog pores and increase acne. They can interfere with the use of drugs such as tretinoin (Retin-A) and alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs). Because dry skin reflects more ultraviolet light than hydrated skin, some dermatologists feel that moisturizers actually accelerate skin aging.
You could develop more wrinkles.
That's right: Leaving moisturizer out of your routine today could lead to deeper wrinkles later on. "When the skin barrier is compromised, which is what we see when it becomes dry, there's actually a low-grade chronic inflammation that occurs in the skin," warns dermatologist Dr.
There are lots of dubious claims and mysterious ingredients, but yes, by trapping water, moisturizing can help with dry skin. Dry skin by itself isn't a medical worry, although serious cases can result in cracks and fissures that invite infection and inflammation.
They make skin feel moist and relieve itchiness and tightness. But, says Dr Eckel, in reality, moisturisers make the skin 'lazy', so it becomes less able to hydrate itself. This means we need more moisturiser to relieve dryness, creating an expensive, demoralising cycle.