Nowadays, moisturizers belong to the most popular cosmetic products. According to Prof. Dr. Navarini, however, the human skin is able to moisturize itself. Thus, there shouldn’t be any biological reasons for the application of moisturizers.
In our project, we investigated the efficiency of moisturizers on 36 female participants, who were divided into two groups (15-20 and 40-55 years old). Over a period of three weeks, the participants were only allowed to use their regular moisturizer on one side of their face. The individual skin care routine was only practised on the right side of the face, whereas the left side had to stay free from any cosmetic products except for water, makeup and makeup remover. The skin changes were measured on the basis of five symptoms of dryness: itching, sheds, wrinkles, redness and sensation of dryness.
The results have shown that the discontinuation of the application leads to an increased dryness at first. However, all the symptoms nearly disappeared within the three weeks. Therefore, we have come to the conclusion that the application of moisturizers disturbs the natural skin barrier function but the skin is able to regenerate.
