Your best bet is a gentle, lightweight body lotion. Ideally, it should be noncomedogenic and oil-free. Try to avoid body butters or lotions that are designed for very dry or scaling skin. They tend to be thick AF and can trigger breakouts.
Aim for a heavier moisturizer and look for ingredients like hyaluronic acid and dimethicone, which help keep skin hydrated. Glycerin, propylene glycol, proteins, and urea also help attract water to your skin. Lanolin, mineral oil, and petrolatum lock in moisture.
If you're in a pinch and you don't have a better option, you certainly can use body lotion on your face — but neither King nor Lipner recommends it, especially if you have oily skin or are prone to acne.
Vaseline is a moisturizing product that is safe for most people to put on their face. People can apply Vaseline to help with short-term skin concerns, such as temporary skin dryness or irritation. Vaseline is also suitable as a long-term moisturizer.
For most people, Vaseline is a safe and cost-effective way to lock moisture into skin. Even if you have skin conditions such as rosacea or psoriasis, it's likely safe for you to use Vaseline. Vaseline easily removes makeup, protects sensitive skin, and can even be used to help small cuts and bruises heal.
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.
If you over-moisturize, the leftover moisturizer just sits on your face. With nowhere to go, this extra moisturizer will eventually fill up the pores on your skin and clog them, resulting in the production of acne, whiteheads, and blackheads.
Lotion has a higher water content than moisturizer, and therefore does its work on top of the skin to cause some sort of effect, like preventing sunburn. Lotions certainly can carry vitamins and minerals, but ones that have a topical use; they're doing something on the surface on the skin, rather than penetrating it.
In general, creams are better for people with dry skin while lotions are better for those with oily skin. The thicker formulas lock in moisture and/or provide a protective layer to better keep skin hydrated and supple. Thinner formulas help prevent clogged pores and acne breakouts.
In cosmetics, skin toner or simply toner refers to a lotion, tonic or wash designed to cleanse the skin and shrink the appearance of pores, usually used on the face. It also moisturizes, protects and refreshes the skin. Toners can be applied to the skin in different ways: On a cotton round.
Lotions, creams, and ointments are just varying combinations of the two. Water alone is a weak moisturizer. It evaporates quickly and doesn't protect your skin. Vaseline, however, is straight petroleum, and remains sticky and gooey much longer than most people want.
Cetaphil products are suitable for cleansing and moisturising acne-prone skin - they will help to remove dirt and oil, hydrate your skin and be respectful to and gentle on the natural skin barrier. All of the Cetaphil moisturisers are non-comedogenic, so they won't block your pores.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
Dermatologists recommend CeraVe Foaming Facial Cleanser for people with acne as it works to cleanse the skin and remove oil, without disrupting the skin's protective barrier. It won't clog pores or dry the skin out, and contains niacinamide and ceramides to help calm and moisturize irritated skin.
"When the skin is dry, it can be more irritated and make acne look and appear worse," explains Rachel Nazarian, MD, a New York-based board-certified dermatologist. "With acne, the issue is inflammation in the skin—most acne responds better and improves when you calm it down. Therefore, moisturizing is helpful."
Overall, there is no clear winner. It just depends on the needs of your own skin. If you experience dry skin, oily skin, acne-prone skin then CeraVe might be the clear choice. However, if you experience sensitive skin the Cetaphil is the better option.
What pros say: The fact that it is so gentle, and doesn't have active ingredients, is exactly why dermatologists love this stuff. “It's a basic gentle cleanser, so it's not necessarily going to clear acne or target signs of aging, but dermatologists often recommend it for this exact reason,” Shah says.
It hydrates well and soothes the skin. The Cetaphil lotion has non-comedogenic properties which allow it to be used by people with acne and oily skin as it does not clog the pores or cause breakouts. It is light on the skin and is absorbed without causing build-up.
If you really need to moisturize your face, body lotion can work, in a pinch. Still, some types will probably offer a little more benefit — not to mention a lower risk of side effects. Moran recommends a lighter lotion, especially if you have more oily facial skin.
In the beauty and skincare industries, however, most do recognize that the word moisturizer implies a product that has the express purpose of adding moisture or locking moisture in the skin, and lotions have a higher water content and a broader swath of skin-soothing applications.