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- Everyone wants healthy, smooth, and soft skin. Dry skin not only looks dull and flaky, it also feels tight and itchy.
- The solution? A good moisturizer.
- Our favorite moisturizer for both face and body is the CeraVe Moisturizing Cream, but we've also chosen our best picks for different budgets, skin types, and needs.
Even if you have extremely oily skin, you need a moisturizer to keep your skin hydrated, healthy, and balanced.
Moisturizers help skin retain its moisture barrier, which is the outer layer of the skin called the stratum corneum. When viewed through a microscope, it looks somewhat like a brick wall, with dead cells making up the bricks and lipids - the primary three naturally found in skin are fatty acids, cholesterol, and ceramides - making up the mortar. Skin that is excessively dry loses these lipids, weakening the skin's defense mechanisms and opening it up to irritation, damage, and a flaky, dull appearance.
On the most basic level, moisturizers help heal dry skin by attracting and sealing in water, thus replenishing what is lost to the atmosphere. Choosing the right moisturizer, though, can be an exercise in frustration. The typical drugstore has hundreds of moisturizing products on the shelves, all claiming to improve your skin.
Luckily, we're here to help. We sorted through the seemingly endless drugstore moisturizers, tested them ourselves, and found the ones most recommended for a wide range of skin types, budgets, and needs.
Here are the top moisturizers you can buy:
Updated 6/7/2019 by Jada Wong: Updated copy, formatting, prices, links, and added Nécessaire Body Lotion as our pick for best moisturizer with clean ingredients.
Keep reading to learn more about all our picks.
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Disclosure: This post is brought to you by the Insider Picks team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners. We frequently receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising sales team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at insiderpicks@businessinsider.com.