How Often Should You Moisturize Your Body?

Moisturization of the whole body is one of the most important aspects of skincare – though it’s far more common to see people concerned with their faces primarily. With your skin being the largest organ in your body – we don’t see any reason to play favorites with which parts you treat. In this guide, we’ll help you get to the bottom of figuring out how often you should moisturize your body specifically.

Step 1. Determine Your Skin Type

Not all skin was created equal. Oily skin, dry skin, balanced skin, and combination skin – if you’re going to try and address your skin’s hydration, you need to first identify what kind of skin you have.

Why is this important?

Because it completely changes not only your moisturization habits, but also which types of products you can use (and how often). Here’s a quick guide to the various skin types:

Oily Skin

Oily skin is known for having enlarged pores and more blemishes than average. Scientifically, this is because of heightened sebum production (sebum is our body’s natural oil covering to protect the skin). As such, people with oily skin tend to have glossy faces, naturally shiny skin and visible pores.

Dry Skin

Dry skin is the direct opposite of oily skin – instead of heightened sebum production, people with dry skin have decreased sebum production. This results in tighter, dull and/or cracked skin. Having perpetually dry skin can reduce the level of natural protection from the sun and elements, leading to premature aging and permanent skin damage.

Balanced Skin

Most people call this the “normal” skin type, but that’s a bit disparaging for anyone with any other sort of skin so we’ll just refer to it as balanced 😊. Balanced skin types are the Goldilocks “perfect” mix of not too dry and not too oily.

Combination Skin

And just to make things even more difficult to classify – some people have a combination of different skin types spread across their bodies. You can use the above indicators to help figure out where on your body you have which type of skin. However, to make life easier, you can simply purchase products designed for all types of skin such as this incredible moisturizer.

Step 2. Determine Your Skin’s Needs

Now that you’ve (hopefully) figured out your skin type, you’re going to have to pick skincare products that cater specifically to the skin you have. Many skincare brands take the care to designate different products for certain skin types, but that doesn’t mean they’ve all done their research. You’ll have to be on the lookout for irritants listed in the ingredients especially if you have sensitive or dry skin.

Irritants can be a huge setback in your skincare journey. You’ll want to select natural and organic skincare. Be sure you choose either fragrance free (to avoid potentially harmful, synthetic additives) or ensure that it’s made using pure essential oils.

At Nefertem, we believe that skin care should ALWAYS be 100% natural. That’s why we use fair trade, unrefined shea butter, pure essential oils and organic plant oils in all our products. Gentle on sensitive skin and formulated to moisturizer EVERY skin type. Shop our products.

Step 3. Skin Type + Skin Products = Your Perfect Moisturizing Routine

Now that you’ve figured out your skin type and have found skin products that cater specifically to your skin, you can formulate a moisturization routine based on your body. Our advice is to base it on your own personal experience (trial and error), but you can use a few of our guidelines based on the experience of our customers as a base:

For oily skin, the natural inclination is to think you don’t need to moisturize since your body is already doing it for you. However, an overproduction of oil can lead to plenty of complications on its own, such as increased acne breakouts and blackheads. With your oily-skin products balancing moisture, you would likely want to aim for three times a day moisturization to avoid your skin taking over on its own. Once your oil production balanced out, of course, you could drop to just once a day, ideally after your daily shower.

For dry skin, the natural inclination might be to moisturize extremely often. However, your skin products should be designed for deep moisturization. Therefore, you could keep it at a much more manageable twice a day routine. Once in the morning and once in the evening. Same as above - once your oil production balances out, you can switch to once daily moisturizing.

Combination skin is much the same as above – twice a day, with products designed to soothe the particulars of your skin. Once your skin oil finds it own balance, drop to once per day, ideally after your daily shower.

In fact, twice a day moisturization is the rule of thumb for nearly everyone… except people who are lucky enough to have balanced skin types. For you lucky few – you can get away with once-a-day moisturization right out of the gate!

Your Body, Your Rules

Overall, moisturization is just another piece of the puzzle when it comes to forming an ideal skincare routine. You must take the time to understand your body and the products you put on it, and in it, in order to achieve the best results. But once you do, you’ll be well on the way to having youthful, glowing skin!