Here are some differences between emollients and occlusives. The key to identifying the best skin care products for your skin is to understand the difference between dry skin and dehydrated skin.
Many genetic and environmental factors affect your skin barrier. UV radiation, aging, diet, stress, humid and dry environments, and many other factors play an important role in the delay in repair of the epidermal barrier.
So it’s important to understand when to use moisturizers and when to use humectants. So, basically moisturizers create a protective barrier that locks in hydration and prevents water loss.
For a better moisturizing experience, it is important to know that there are two important moisturizing ingredients that work together to protect your skin, namely emollient and occlusive.
What Are Emollients?
Emollients are essential moisturizing ingredients that not only help provide instant lubrication, they have also been shown to promote barrier repair.
Emollients are generally lipids and oils that play a major role in filling the gaps between the desquamated corneocytes, thus keeping the skin soft, smooth and moisturized.
Emollients are designed to increase the water content indirectly by creating an occlusive layer on the surface of the skin, thereby keeping it supple, so that the skin feels more comfortable.
The ingredients go deep into the skin to help soothe and hydrate it, while keeping moisture trapped with a protective film, providing an instant moisturizing feel.
Simply put, emollients are important skin conditioning ingredients that you can find in your moisturizing products.
What Is Occlusive?
Occlusive is a skin conditioning agent that creates a physical barrier on the skin to trap moisture and prevent it from evaporating.
So, they help maintain the water content of the skin to lock in hydration. They tend to be heavy, oily, and work best when applied to slightly damp skin.
Vaseline is a good example of an occlusive moisturizer. Known occlusive ingredients include petrolatum, cocoa butter, dimethicone, lanolin, squalane, shea butter, and mineral oil.
Occlusives are often combined with ingredients to help improve flavor, especially for dry or damaged skin. Occlusive is great for people with very dry, irritated skin, or those who have some sort of skin condition like eczema or the like.
Difference between emollient and occlusive
Common Materials
There are three types of ingredients you can find in moisturizers: occlusives, emollients, and humectants. Emollients are generally lipids and oils that play a major role in filling the gaps between desquamated corneocytes.
Ingredients such as plant oil, mineral oil, shea butter, petrolatum, fatty acids, isopropyl palmitate, etc., are common examples of emollients.
An occlusive is a skin conditioning agent and known occlusive ingredients include petrolatum, cocoa butter, dimethicone, lanolin, squalane, shea butter, mineral oils, silicones, waxes such as carnauba or beeswax, and so on.
Skin care
Emollients are designed to increase the water content indirectly by creating an occlusive layer on the surface of the skin, thereby keeping it supple, so that the skin feels more comfortable.
Simply put, emollients restore the skin barrier to make the skin surface smooth providing an instant sense of moisturizing.
Occlusives, on the other hand, are moisturizing ingredients that create a physical barrier on the skin to trap moisture and prevent it from evaporating. So, they help maintain the water content of the skin to lock in hydration.
Those are some of the differences between emollients and occlusives. I hope this article was helpful to you! Thank you for visiting.
