Having used a few products over the years, and having spoken to a few beauty aficionados, it appears that cream based products do reach a saturation point where they don't seem to work as well as usual - it could be a few months, or it could be a year. I've only started using oils on my face about two years ago and they seem to function better in terms of efficacy. I'm wondering if it's because cream based products do not work as well due to the size of the molecules compared to oils? Or perhaps there are other reasons. A: There are a number of reasons. Here is our perspective on oils.

Cream vs. Oil:

Creams are mostly waxes and water, with a few oils thrown in. The waxes form an occlusive layer on the skin, which helps to hold moisture in. There are two downsides to waxes: firstly, wax build-up may lead to clogged pores, and secondly, the wax barrier may prevent the oil component of the cream (the part of the product that actually benefits skin) from penetrating. This is probably why creams seem to deliver fewer returns down the road. They will work at first because they help to hold in moisture, but as time goes on the wax barricade may prevent oils from delivering nutrients, like essential fatty acids, to the skin. In addition, we do not create creams based on water and wax because waxes, not oils, are the one of the major causes of skin congestion.

Benefits of oils:

Compared to water, wax and synthetic fragrance-based products, oil blends deliver all of the benefits with none of the downside. The stratum corneum, your top layer of skin composed of dead skin cells held together by lipids (oils), is your environmental protection barrier, protecting against the elements. Lipids provide protection from environmental assault, and retain moisture at deeper layers of the skin. Lipid barrier damage occurs on a daily basis, so maintaining an effective barrier requires a continuous input of lipids to the skin. Compromised barrier function can lead to moisture loss resulting in dry, scaly or even cracked skin, bacteria-related acne, eczema, rosacea-type inflammation, atopic dermatitis and/or skin congestion, among other problems.

Benefits to different skin types:

Adding oils to the skin benefits ALL skin types, young, mature, oily or dry.

1. For mature skin: Besides maintaining the integrity of the lipid barrier, oils inhibit peroxidative and oxidative damage. The reason you should care about that is, in one word, wrinkles. Upon contact with light, lipids will undergo what is known as peroxidation. These peroxidized lipids lose their barrier ability and gaps occur in the lipid matrix, resulting in a loss of skin resilience and the formation of wrinkles.
2. For oily, blemish-prone skin: Lipids are a much better exfoliator than AHA’s that can strip your skin of oils. Scrubs, harsh soaps and other drastic treatments that strip off your topmost lipid barrier may aggravate a blemish problem by eliminating the protection your skin needs, and by encouraging your skin to produce more oil of the type you are trying to control, like excess sebum. Topical applications of fatty acids alleviate breakouts by re-stabilizing the lipid barrier, thus restoring anti-microbial activity on the skin’s surface. What’s more, because lipids dissolve lipids, oils actually break up congestion at the source.

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