Dry skin is produced by two factors. One is the damage to the skin's protective barrier which produces excessive water loss through the skin. The other is a great diminution in the proportion of the skin's water-holding sugar and protein molecules, the complex proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) molecules.

Many skin moisturizers and emollient products offered by the major skin care producers delay the healing process of irritated and flawed skin and make the situation worse by inhibiting biological skin repair. New computer instruments have demonstrated that several popular moisturizers increase skin damage in ways comparable to skin irritants. Nor are skin barrier products an answer, such as those containing petrolatum and lanolin.

What our skin requires is to shield its surface and to heal the skin from within, by putting the skin in a situation in which normal skin repair can happen.

Most if not all the popular moisturizers and emollients currently offered by the main skin care producers contain high concentrations of detergents and detergent-like chemicals, ignoring many years of solid evidence that such detergents degrade the skin's innate protective function and harm the skin. Also, several of the dyes and optical diffusers used to give the appearance of healthy skin are harming to skin.

Nature Treats Dry Skin Issues

Lipids and fats in the skin confer the epidermal defense to transcutaneous water loss. These lipids in the upper skin area called the stratum corneum are disposed in layers called lamellae. The lower skin layers contain more typical fats such as triglycerides and phospholipids while the upper layers contain more ceramides, cholesterol and free fatty acids.

Waxes and oils seal the skin's surface and prevent exaggerated water loss. Cosmetic moisturizers eliminate the skin's protective barrier and hydrate (wet) the skin proteins but have the long-term effect of harming the skin.

A skin-care solution is only as effective as what it contains and how those ingredients can aid your skin function better. In fact, moisturizers (or any skin-care solution claiming to have an effect on skin repair, wrinkles or sagging skin) should definitely contain an elegant combination of antioxidants, cell-communicating components, and intercellular elements as they help skin keep a healthy level of hydration, build collagen and prevent cellular damage.

Not the popular dry skin products that have been in the market since the 1920's, when the cosmetic industry started to sell oil/water/detergent products for moisturizing instead of the vegetable oils that had been employed for thousands of years. This was comparable to the fallacious campaigns, we may all remember, that aimed to stop women from breast feeding their babies and encouraged their replacement with artificial infant formulas sold for profit.