In my opinion, it’s virtually impossible to prepare an elegant, pleasant-to-use moisturizer at home
unless you are a really gifted cosmetic chemist. To whip up a jar of day cream, you will need to do
some extensive shopping, mostly online, and then spend about an hour steaming, double-boiling,
blending, and whisking. I did it a few times, and while the outcome was perfectly natural, it just takes
too much time, and the resulting goop won’t necessarily look like something you’d enjoy applying to
your face daily. So instead of preparing a moisturizer from scratch, you can try to improve the
existing green products with skin actives of your choice. The following are my recommended
moisturizing products, rated from one to three leaves, with three being my favorite.
The emollient sunflower oil in Burt’s Bees Carrot Nutritive Day Crème contains added
linoleic acid. Other oils from wheat germ, avocado, grape seed, and carrot seed nourish skin and lock
in moisture, while rosemary extract, vitamin E, and milk proteins calm the complexion. The only two
drawbacks to this lightweight cream are the high content of potentially irritating balsam peru and an
abundance of beta-carotene that may stain your collars or pillows. This cream can be mixed with
many active ingredients, such as coenzyme Q10, green tea extract, and a pinch of alpha-lipoic acid
(ALA).
Weleda Iris Day Cream is a basic day moisturizer that you can also use at night. Formulated
with organic jojoba oil, beeswax, and bio-dynamic Iris germanica root extract, this flower-smelling
lotion provides a great base for many active ingredients such as L-carnosine, green tea extract,
hyaluronic acid, and most synthetic peptides for collagen synthesis.
If you need a lightweight moisturizer to go under a heavy sunscreen, consider Pangea
Organics French Chamomile & Orange Blossom Facial Cream. Originally formulated for oily
skin, this featherlight serumis basically lavender tincture with organic plant oils, vegetable glycerin,
and sugar emulsifiers, enriched with extracts of burdock, elderflower, witch hazel, and chamomile.
Packed in a convenient pump bottle, it comes in a box stuffed with seeds that you can plant in your
organic garden. This lotion blends well with such active ingredients as yeast beta glucans, copper
peptide, Indian pennywort (Centella asiatica), and ellagic acid.
CARE by Stella McCartney 5 Benefits Moisturising Fluid is a heavenly scented, lightly
hydrating, firming, and healing fluid lotion. I use it during the summer, and it provides an excellent
base for mineral foundations. Based on garden cornflower water, plant-derived fatty alcohols,
sunflower seed, and soybean oils, this rich yet lightweight moisturizer delivers the goodness of
sixteen (!) antioxidant and calming essential oils, as well as sodium hyaluronate. Packed in an airtight
bottle, it requires no preservatives. This also means you won’t be able to add any additional actives
to the mix, but this cosmetic product is very good by itself.
Moisturizers by Dr. Hauschka are in a class of their own. They don’t travel into the eyes
(so you can use them around the eye area), they are just the right texture (feeling great under makeup),
and they don’t contain essential oils for added scent. I love using Quince Day Cream (the fashion
industry favorite) in the summer, under mineral makeup for sun protection, Rose Day Cream in the
winter and on my baby’s bum, Tinted Day Cream all year around, when I feel like wearing just a
hint ofmakeup, and Moisturizing Lotion anytime my skin misbehaves. These moisturizers come in
handy (albeit smallish) tubes, so if you want to blend them with active ingredients, you’ll need to
transfer creams to a glass jar. Not sure if it’s worth it: most Dr. Hauschka creams do not mix well