So, there it sits on the desktop, this ridiculous, ever-growing collection of moisturizers, seemingly endless bottles and stand-up tubes that rise like little mountain peaks amid the stacks of floppy disks and piles of papers.
There’s the tall squirt bottle of Keri lotion, billed as “moisture-rich therapy,” which might be true, judging by the way it makes fingers slide off the keyboard. There’s the oh-so-cutesy Nivea spray, whose nozzle could drive a woman crazy the way it spins around, spraying the room instead of dry skin.
And, for sheer kinkiness, there’s “Udderly Smooth,” a moisturizer originally designed for cows, whose directions begin, “Wash udder and teat parts thoroughly . . .”
American women spend billions a year on moisturizers in hopes of looking younger, healthier and more smooth-skinned.
Are they wasting their money?
Not completely, dermatologists say, at least in the narrow sense that it’s a good health practice to keep skin moist. Skin is a crucial barrier against infection that is more easily invaded once it becomes dry or cracked. Of more concern to most people, well-hydrated skin does look and feel better to the touch.
But moisturizers can indeed be a waste of money in the sense that something that costs $30 or more an ounce may not keep skin any moister than a big glob of Vaseline, though the high-priced spread may go on more easily and smell nicer. In fact, a January report in the Wellness Letter at the University of California-Berkeley, as well as an extensive Consumer Reports investigation last year, reached just that conclusion.
Why don’t moisturizers, like wines, generally get better the more they cost? Because most moisturizers, despite their baffling array of ingredients, work basically the same way: They trap water that’s already inside the skin, as opposed to adding moisture from the outside.
“Moisturizers help seal things off and allow less moisture to escape,” said Dr. Tom Rohrer, a dermatologist at the Boston University School of Medicine.
To accomplish this, moisturizers are made up of “some combination of oil and water,” said Dr. Richard Glogau, a dermatologist at the University of California at San Francisco. “You can go from pure oil at one end to pure water at the other.” The more oil it contains, the better the moisturizer is at trapping trap water beneath it. The more water it has, the lighter and easier it is to rub in and disappear.
“Once you get away from the basic combination of those two agents,” Glogau said, “everything else is aimed at making a moisturizer feel better to the skin at touch or making it smooth on better. . . . But that doesn’t really affect the way a moisturizer prevents evaporation of water.”
If it’s so simple, why, then, do moisturizer manufacturers bombard us with technical-sounding words like liposomes, humectants and the like? The answer, of course, is marketing, or as the US Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the cosmetics industry, puts it, “cosmetic puffery.”
“The average consumer has no idea what these things mean,” said one FDA spokesman who asked not to be named. “People throw out these terms because they seem mystical or magical.” And the FDA lets such pseudo-scientific hype slide, he said, unless it can prove in court that the cosmetic labels are downright “false or misleading.”
Dr. Melanie Grossman, a dermatologist in private practice in New York City, puts it more bluntly: “The FDA doesn’t regulate this stuff. So companies can claim whatever they want.”
How, then, does a winter-wizened or sun-scorched consumer begin to unravel the mysteries of moisturizers? One good place to start, perhaps surprisingly, is the industry itself, specifically, Martin Rieger, an organic chemist who consults for the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association, a trade group based in Washington.
Asked how moisturizers work, Rieger pulls no punches: “Moisturizers are stupid materials. They have no brains. They pick up water from wherever they can find it, steal that water and hold onto it. They will not let this water go and give it back to skin cells, no matter how attractive that concept may appear. They don’t really penetrate the skin. I take a very dim view of some of the claims made for moisturizers.”
Take humectants, substances such as glycerine that attract water and hold it against the skin. “I have very little faith in humectants,” Rieger said, though dermatologists, Rohrer of BU among them, say humectants can make the skin somewhat more moist in some people.
Occlusives, on the other hand, substances like petroleum jelly and oils, are quite effective. “They are heavy, greasy and work precisely because they sit on top of the skin and preclude evaporation of water,” Rieger said. The downside is that, because they coat the skin so well, occlusives can leave a residue that many people don’t like, said Dr. Diane Berson, a dermatologist at New York University School of Medicine. They can also clog pores and lead to acne.
In addition to humectants and occlusives, moisturizers often contain emollients and other ingredients designed to make the skin feel slick and soft, though they have nothing to do with moisturizing per se. Some manufacturers add silicone, for instance, to make a moisturizer more slippery; others add dispersing agents like soaps to make the oil in a moisturizer break down into smaller particles.
Some manufacturers also add liposomes, delivery vehicles whose job it is to bring a substance into the skin. The trouble is, if liposomes are too big to penetrate the skin – and many are – whatever product they are carrying won’t get in, either.
Many moisturizers also contain collagen. In its natural form, this fibrous, connective tissue is important for maintaining firm, healthy-looking skin. But collagen that’s taken from cows and then slathered on human skin does not penetrate because the molecules are too big. The same goes for elastin.
“It would be wonderful if we could replace old, damaged collagen and elastin with a cream. But, unfortunately, at this point, it is physically impossible,” Rohrer said.
Sadly, the news on wrinkle reducers and anti-aging creams is no cheerier. Moisturizers that claim to get rid of wrinkles or reduce the appearance of age really don’t – all they do is plump up the skin momentarily, despite manufacturers claims of clinical trials to the contrary, Rohrer said.
What does help with wrinkles is Retin-A, or Renova, dermatologists say, but that is a genuine drug that is regulated as such by the FDA and is only available by prescription.
On the plus side, there are ingredients in moisturizers that may be genuinely effective. Vitamins E and C, for instance, are antioxidants that combat the oxygen free radicals that can damage skin. They may also penetrate the skin and combat free radicals from the inside.
Alpha hydroxy agents such as glycolic acid work, too, dermatologists say, penetrating the skin and making it look more moist and healthy by helping it slough off dead cells on the surface. That’s particularly important for older people since their skin has less ability to slough off dead cells on its own.
As for that cheap old trick, drinking water to make your skin look better? Go ahead, dermatologists say. But water probably only makes your skin look better if you were dehydrated to begin with, and most people aren’t.
The bottom line, Rohrer said, is that “most moisturizers don’t penetrate your skin. They only penetrate your pocketbook.”
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them, said Grossman. But don’t break the bank to do it. Buy something that you will really use, she said, nothing too thick and goopy. And nothing that will wind up in the garbage. Or behind the piles of papers on your desk.