Water Works: How the World’s Oldest Skin Care Ingredient Is Making a Comeback — vogue.com

Of all the It ingredients we’ve reported on over the years, none has seemed so curiously pedestrian as this: Water. Yet, despite its lack of flash, good old-fashioned H20 is as essential for great skin as it is for life on Earth. Without enough of it, “skin not only looks dry and haggard, it can’t adequately perform everyday functions, like exfoliation, making collagen, and self-repair,” explains New York City dermatologist Amy Wechsler. But while water has excellent moisturizing properties when applied topically in cream or serum, says the cosmetic chemist Ni’Kita Wilson, its effects are usually fleeting—it hydrates cells on the surface, then quickly evaporates.

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