A skin cream is basically a blend of oil and water. To produce a light cream, you start with an oil-in-water emulsion. To make a richer cream or a salve, you reverse the proportions, producing a water-in-oil emulsion. So the ingredients are essentially the same, it’s just the proportions that are different. To make sure the mixture of oil and water holds together over time and doesn’t separate, you add an emulsifier. Emulsifiers bind together liquids that are partly hydrophilic (attracted to water) and partly hydrophobic (with an affinity for oil). Skin cream can be compared to mayonnaise, in which the yolk functions as an emulsifier, keeping the oil and the liquid together. So the only ingredients you need to make a skin cream are oil, water, and an emulsifier. However, as we all know, there are plenty of other names on the list of ingredients. Some ingredients in today's skin care products include alpha-hydroxy acids, beta hydroxy acids, hydroquinone, retinol, kojic acid, copper peptide and more. We'll talk in other blog in more detail about their effects on wrinkles, fine lines, age spots and other skin problems.

An individualized approach is crucial to finding the right skincare products with the right ingredients for your skin. This takes a little extra time, and yes, it involves reading the ingredients list, but it's worth it. The most important factor in determining what skincare products will work best for you is knowing your skin. It is not that the products are bad necessarily, but sometimes we use the wrong product for our type of skin.

If you're going to buy a product based off a friend or influencer's recommendation, you shouldn't just pay attention to how good their skin looks now, but instead what type of skin they were dealing with to start out. That will give you a more reliable indicator for how well the product will work for you.

Checking the ingredients list is still the best way to go, no matter how many positive reviews or stars the product has online.