Attacking your Stretch Marks with Emollients

Do you know what an emollient is? The odds are good that you have an innate understanding of the process, but since in today’s cosmetic advertising is quite frequently eschewed and instead replaced with the more commonly known term “moisturizer”, the odds are good that you may not get your money’s worth when shopping for emollients. Here are five facts about emollients that will keep you in the know!

1.An emollient is a cosmetic substance that may be used to actively soften the skin. In doing so, the skin is calmed, and attacking irritants are sought to be alleviated. You will find that emollients are most commonly used when dealing with dry, chapped skin. By and large, an emollient is a single-substance cosmetic.

2.A moisturizer, on the other hand, is a cosmetic substance that seeks to add moisture to the skin with the help of a number of different agents that may seek to trap water in the skin, add oils, or combine any number of natural or chemical emollients in addition to known hydrating substances. Thus, a moisturizer will usually contain any number of different compounds.

3.Attacking your stretch marks with emollients has become one of the best known courses of actions today. Humectants in particular are quite often reputed to be of greatest value when seeking to lessen the appearance of stretch marks by reducing their visibility.

4.You may know humectants from the function they have in hair conditions and you know how they feel on the skin as you massage the product into your hair. When used on the skin you will most likely be utilizing derivatives of glycerin and polyols. Humectants take a careful working into the skin but once properly worked in they will remain in the skin and indeed soften it to an amazing extent, thus permitting the scar tissue to become less visible over time. When combined with a properly followed exfoliating regimen, application of high quality humectants is nary unbeatable in the fight against visible stretch marks. In addition to the foregoing, when it comes to attacking your stretch marks before they are formed, humectants are also of highest value!

5.Emollients that act as lubricants do not nearly have the same effect in the fight against stretch marks, but they still provide some benefit. Protecting the skin from rubbing against itself – which is especially true for thighs – and thus form an irritation which reddens the skin and causes the stretch marks to become more visible, lubricants will ensure that friction is reduced to a minimum.

Please remember that even though emollients will actively promote healthy skin, these substances cannot make stretch marks go away. Granted, they act beneath the immediate surface layer of the skin, but if you will remember, stretch marks originate in the dermis, which is located well beneath the surface of the skin and thus will not be directly affected by the softening of the top layers of skin. Nonetheless, attacking your stretch marks with emollients to decrease visibility of the marks is a worthwhile effort.

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