Skincare Basics – Lesson One – Drop the Moisturiser Now!

This year, we want to help you get educated on your skin and treatments. Rather than tell you which products are best, we want to explain to you the scientific background of how your skin, body or organs function to explain why certain treatments are suitable for you, and, more importantly, why they work and give you the results you want. Kicking off this series is our Skincare Series. Where we explore moisturisers and explain why we think they are essentially the route of all evil!

We have all been there. Skin gets dry, we reach for those beautifully scented face oils, thick moisturisers and new age products that promise to moisturise our skin, reduce lines and wrinkles and helps us face the world with glowing skin. Facial oils are often marketed as secret elixirs to help you restore youthful skin. But do they?

Dr Zein Obagi, one of the leaders of the dermatological field started researching this decades ago. He wanted to understand how the skin works, what ingredients help the skin and which ones hurt the skin. What he found was astonishing: Moisturisers will damage your skin.

When your skin is dry, it is sending a signal deep into your skin to hydrate it. This would be when your skin sends vital nutrients and moisture up to the top cells of the skin to restore its appearance. It is a natural process or function of your body’s largest organ. However, what we have been trained to do over many years, is reach for those moisturisers and hydrate our skin: what you are actually doing is creating a world of problems!

Firstly, you are sticking down those dead skin cells by hydrating them. Instead we should be encouraging our skin to remove them by exfoliating them away. But even more worryingly is what changes biologically when we do this. The skin cells, deep within our skin get the signal that the surface of the skin isn’t dry, it doesn’t need those vital nutrients to re-hydrate it. So they stop working. They stop sending those nutrients and moisture up to the skins surface. The result: you skins function slows down, your pores get clogged, the lack of nutrients leads to premature ageing, the production of collagen and elastin is slowed down, we get fine lines and wrinkles…. The list is endless!

Dr Zein Obagi’s solution is simple. DROP THE MOISTURISER! Start using active ingredients to wake your skin up, get those skin cells working and get your skin functioning the way it should. Start investing in your skin and the payback is healthy skin that is smooth, firm, even colour, hydrated and strong.

To learn more about ZO Products click here or contact us now.