How can you possibly determine which are rip-offs and which actually work? How can you be sure that the 3 oz bottle of skin care moisturizer cream (priced at $34.99) isn’t the same stuff as the $3.99 bottle of Jergens at Wal-mart?

I’ll make it easy for you. Here is a crash-course in skin care cream ingredients. I’ve listed 2 ingredients your skin is crying out for, and 2 ingredients your skin has nightmares about. With just these 4 tips, you’ll be able to weed out 95% of the thorns and come out with a rose.

2 Things Every Skin Care Cream Should Have

Babassu

Babassu is a natural wax that softens and soothes your skin. It’s important because it creates a moisture-barrier around your skin that keeps out dirt and grime, but yet allows the skin valuable “breathing” room. It’s a natural product that comes from the oil extracted from the Babassu palm (in the Amazon). Many manufacturers will attempt to save a dime by replacing Babassu with mineral oil (one of the 2 no-no ingredients listed below).

Vitamin E (in the form of natural alpha-tocopherol)

Vitamin E has a long-proven record of protecting your skin from damaging free radicals found in pollution, UV radiation, poor nutrition, and aging. The best form of Vitamin E found in your skin care cream should be alpha-tocopherol. Most skincare products (including the expensive ones at department stores) use a synthetic form of alpha-tocopherol. Besides being less effective in synthetic form, manufacturers will only put a dash in each skin care cream product (.1% to .2%), making it practically meaningless. It is also a natural preservative that prevents your skin care moisturizing cream from going rancid before you’ve finished using it. Again, many well-known skincare lines will use parabens to preserve their product. Parabens are NOT good for your skin! In fact, they are one of the two ingredients your skin care cream definitely should NOT have in it.

2 Things Your Skin Care Cream Should NOT Have

Parabens – (look on the label for methyl, propyl, butyl, and ethyl parabens)

These chemicals are widely used in expensive (and cheap) skin care creams to give the creams a longer shelf-life. They are super cheap and widely available. Some studies have suggested that they could cause cancer (particularly breast cancer) and affect estrogen levels over long periods of time.

Mineral oil – (also written on the label as liquid paraffin, paraffin wax, or petrolatum)

This petroleum by-product is super cheap and used by companies to coat the skin and “keep in moisture”. Unfortunately, it also keeps in toxins, encourages acne break outs, and strips away the natural oils that prevent premature aging. Even worse, any mineral oil derivative can be contaminated with the cancer-causing PAH’s. Stay young longer by avoiding products using mineral oil or other petroleum by-products.

In evaluating your skin care cream, keep this question in your mind: Could you eat your skin care moisturizer cream? (I’m not suggesting you do, just asking if you could.) If you recoil in horror from putting those ingredients in your mouth, why would you put them on your skin? After all, it’s going to be absorbed and enter your body just as if you had eaten it.

Crack open that cabinet and pull out your skin care cream. Flip it over and look at the ingredients label. If your skin care moisturizer cream is missing those two important ingredients, and if it uses mineral oil and Parabens instead, it’s time to find a new skin care cream.

You can spread effective skin care cream and eat it too. Synthetics not only damage your skin’s health in the long run, they are simply not as efficient in treating your skin in the long run. (But they are cheaper! This is why so many skincare manufacturers use them!)

Babassu and Natural Vitamin E are just the tip of the iceberg. There are a whole host of other ingredients that bring will bring out the best in your skin care cream.

Phytessence Wakame, Maracuja, and Crodamol OP come most immediately to mind. You can find out more about these amazing botanical ingredients (and where to find a skin care cream with them inside) at my website linked below.

For men, skin care can be something that they never consider. The closest they may come will often be the use of an aftershave so that they smell better. However there are good reasons why they ought to consider high quality skin care for men.

You see skin care isn’t just about looking good, although more and more men are also becoming interested in their looks. But skincare for men is also about health. Because our skin is the biggest organ in our bodies, and just like other organs our skin is affected by age, and can become unhealthy.

Often if our skin is unhealthy that’s a reflection of our general state of health. Unhealthy skin, unhealthy inside. So serious skin care for men, or for that matter women, doesn’t just involve the use of high quality skin care products, though of course that’s essential.

Good mens skin care involves a total approach. If unhealthy inside equals unhealthy skin, then healthy inside equals healthy skin. And this is equally true for women. So good diet, including plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, and a good exercise regime both contribute to overall health, and good skin health.

And there’s 2 things that men should never do if they want to maintain overall skin health. The first is to smoke and the second is to avoid sunburn. Both are extremely damaging to the skin, and both can lead to serious skin problem.

Smoking, for example causes vascular problems, and poor blood circulation is not good for the skin. And sunburn can lead to serious skin problems, including skin cancer.

So men, like women, should take care of their overall health as a part of a good skin care routine. Good skin care for men starts exactly where it starts for women.

And for men, skin care should also involve the use of high quality skin care products and anti aging products. Men also should be able to maintain healthy skin that keeps adequate levels of moisture, for example. And which has good levels of collagen and elastin, 2 essential skin proteins that help maintain skin complexion, suppleness, youthfulness and skin elasticity.

As men age their skin loses skin collagen and skin elastin, and it’s essential to replace these. Using a skin care product that has collagen and elastin in it won’t replace the lost collagen and elastin as the molecules of these 2 skin proteins are too large to penetrate the skin, so remain on the surface.

But modern science has found a way to stimulate the skin to produce more of it’s own collagen and elastin, and the best skin care products in the world contain ingredients that will replace lost collagen and elastin like that. Way more effective than trying to replace them by adding them to the bottle and hoping they go in, which they won’t.

So for men, as for women, a total approach is needed to skin care. Serious skin care for men requires a healthy lifestyle, avoiding smoking and sunburn, and the use of the worlds best skin care products.

The worlds best mens skin care products aren’t found on the shelves of your local department store, just as the worlds best womens skin care products aren’t found there either. You have to track them down, they’re made by a small niche skin care company.

So men, skin care is important. Be serious about skin care for men, and you, and your skin, will be healthy and look great, and serve you well into old age.