Hydrated skin is healthy skin and moisturising is the best way to hydrate your skin from the outside (water is essential to hydrate from the inside).

When you moisturise your skin, you help to turn over dead skin cells. As a result, your skin looks more youthful, and you decrease your chance of forming wrinkles as you age.

Knowing what type of moisturiser to use is critical. Moisturisers are the barrier of protection you provide your skin from all of the elements you come into contact with on a daily basis. Too much sun, wind or dryness has an adverse effect on your skin, leaving it parched and dehydrated. If you want to determine which moisturiser works best for you, it’s important to know the difference between lotion, cream and body butter based on your skincare needs.

What’s the difference, really?

While body lotions and body creams offer similar benefits for our skin, there is one major difference in the composition and that is the water content.

A body lotion is basically a moisturiser, prepared by combining a higher content of water than oil. It is usually lighter and non-greasy therefore, our skin can readily absorb it. Lotions can effectively moisturise skin and they are ideal for all skin types, including even moderately dry skin. During the summer months lotions tend to be more popular due the light weight factor.

Body creams are not so different from lotions, as they are also a combination of oil and water. The main difference between these two products is that body cream contains more oils thus giving it a thicker consistency than body lotion.

As we love body lotions, we’ve actually added one to the June 2019 Out’n’Proud Gay Pack and if you hurry up, you might still get this in your box! It retails for $10 / 7 EUR / 6 GBP, so it’s a great deal!

Is one better than the other?

Lotions and body creams are both excellent choices for the skin and there is no one moisturiser that is the best choice for everyone. Often, finding out which one suits you better is a matter of trial and error. Try one and if it does not appeal to you, then try something all together different.

Sometimes your skin type plays a role, whether it be oily, dry, or a combination. It may also be possible to have dry patches of skin on one part of your body and oily spots on another.

It is recommended that you use a combination of different moisturising products to optimise the benefits of each. For example, you might want to try one of the new body washes that helps add moisture to the skin and then go with a moisturising oil, or lotion and/or cream, after you finish your bath or shower.

In order to get the most benefit from your after bath moisturiser, apply it when your skin is still damp and then pat your skin dry, as opposed to rubbing it.

You also might find that a light lotion or cream is fine for the daytime hours, but you may require a thicker cream at night before you go to bed.