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What makes skin (more) soft?
How do oils, for example grapeseed oil, make your skin soft? I wonder if it is only the moisturizing effect/TEWL, or something else at play.
If not, vaseline should make skin more soft than oil and any other ingredient for that matter.
If yes, what ingredients of the oil make by what mechanism skin soft?
(hope this is not considered too basic a question)
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2 Replies
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First of all, you need to understand skin is an organ. There’s nothing simple about it.
Secondly, oils are very complex too. They are formed by many compounds like vitamins or aminoacids that will interact with your skin. Every oil has a different composition and it will interact with the skin on a molecular level.
Having that said, and to answer your question, the oil will provide the skin what it needs to function. In your case Grapeseed Oil is rich in vitamin E among many other things, which is an antioxidant, and the skin will “use” it.
And since every skin and every oil is unique, the interactions are infinite. And that’s pretty much why there’s this thing called “cosmetic chemistry” and a billion dollar industry that studies the components and the interactions.
Bottom line, don’t play around with your skin and don’t put on anything on it if it hasn’t been approved by a doctor or a cosmetic chemist.
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There is a whole list of ingredients that are known moisturisers, eg aloe vera, sorbitol, glycerine, glucam E20; and there is a whole list of emollients that can be combined with the moisturisers, to form products that work a lot faster and more effectively than simply creating a surface barrier with petrolatum.
You specifically referred to oils. I’ve been conducting experiments with oils for the last five years and while there is a lot of marketing hype, some oils and butters have a known drug effect due to their content of oil-soluble vitamins eg A and E. Organic forms of certain butters such as shea and kpnangan contain a lot of vitamin A; they are effective skin lighteners.
Other oils seem to have special benefits too; omega-3 for instance gives terrific moisturisation and fixes up damaged skin.
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