The Best Face Moisturizer for Your Skin Type

Best Face Moisturizer — Key Ingredients

Whatever your skin type, there are a few ingredients to look out for when it comes to selecting a moisturizer.

• Hydration-boosting superstars: These include hyaluronic acid, glycerin, and ceramides. Hyaluronic acid “traps” water in the skin, helping to increase the skin’s moisture levels. Glycerin boosts hydration and ceramides support the skin’s barrier strength. These ingredients are a cornerstone of almost any moisturizer, but especially so for those with dry skin.

• Emollients: These super-hydrators are another moisturizer must-have. They include shea and cocoa butter, coconut oil, and plant oils. These ingredients thwart water loss, increase skin softness, and give a silky, radiant look.

• Antioxidants: Antioxidants protect and heal skin from environmental factors, and can even potentially prevent skin from future damage. We so deeply believe in the protective powers of antioxidants that all Tatcha moisturizers include them.

Best Face Moisturizer — How To Apply Morning and Night

Now that your face moisturizer interest is piqued, make sure you’re applying your hydrator correctly. Morning and night, after cleansing, using an exfoliating liquid or essence (if using), and applying a serum (if you partake), use a pearl-size amount of moisturizer and place it onto your palm. Apply a dot to each cheek, your chin, and your forehead. Then, using your fingertips, massage gently into the skin. Our founder Vicky Tsai recommends applying moisturizer with clean fingertips or a soft brush, and always applying with upward and outward strokes on the face.

Without any further ado, here are the best face moisturizers for you, based on your skin type.

The Best Moisturizers for Balanced Skin

If you tend to not be either dry, oily, or sensitive, your ideal moisturizer is most likely a hydrating gel cream. This will provide comfortable hydration, but won’t coat the skin in rich creams.

Try: Our bestselling The Silk Cream is perfect for almost any skin type, thanks to a trinity of fermented Japanese superfoods, which restores healthy-looking radiance. The visibly firming moisturizer also has a complete liquid silk protein, which parallels the amino acid structure of human skin to hydrate your skin’s surface.

The Best Moisturizers for Dry Skin

Those with dry skin need extra emollients, ceramides, and peptides to soften the skin’s surface and drench it with hydration. Dry skin loves pampering, so restore it with hydrating moisturizers, rich masks, and protective facial oils.

Try: The Dewy Skin Cream is the best moisturizer for dry skin. The rich, moisturizing cream plumps skin for a dewy, healthy glow — thanks to the antioxidant-packed Japanese purple rice, algae, hyaluronic acid, and our superpowered Hadasei-3 Complex (a trinity of Japanese superfoods that restore healthy radiance). The rich texture increases hydration, radiance, plumpness, and overall texture and firmness.

The Best Moisturizers for Sensitive Skin

If you have sensitive skin, it most likely reacts to certain products or environments, creating itchy, uncomfortable, irritated flare-ups. Or you may find particular ingredients chronically trigger discomfort and redness. Those with sensitive skin may even experience common skin conditions, like rosacea, eczema, psoriasis, and hives. When you have sensitive skin, it can feel like your skin’s entire identity, but you still may have oily, dry, or balanced tendencies. No matter your skin type, sensitive skin ideally needs to avoid synthetic fragrances and aggressive treatments. Your ideal moisturizer is most definitely fragrance-free and hypoallergenic.

Try: The Indigo Cream, which was awarded the coveted National Eczema Association Seal of Acceptance, making it one of the best moisturizers for sensitive skin. This multitasking, fragrance-free, and velvety-rich cream delivers therapeutic relief and long-lasting hydration for sensitive skin. The advanced, cushiony texture helps relieve skin, leaving it visibly softer and smoother, thanks to colloidal oatmeal. Colloidal oatmeal is a FDA-designated skin protectant, which helps relieve minor skin irritation and itching caused by sensitivity, eczema, and rashes. The formula also includes Japanese indigo, which is proven to calm and soothe skin. This silky cream is ideal for all skin types, but particularly great for skin that shows signs of eczema, dermatitis, rosacea, and/or allergies.

The Best Moisturizers for Oily and Acne-Prone Skin

Moisturizers probably aren’t top of your list if you have oily skin or acne-prone skin, but hydrated skin is healthy skin, even for those with acne or excess oil. A lightweight, non-comedogenic formula is the best moisturizer for both skin types.

Try: The Water Cream is balancing and lightweight, making it great for those with acne or oily skin. The clarifying gel-cream releases a burst of hydrating nutrients and pore-refining botanicals for healthy, balanced skin. The unique formula delivers deep hydration, without leaving skin sticky or greasy. And the cream employs a few powerful botanicals, including wild rose (for visibly smoothing texture) and leopard lily (to control excess oil and clarify skin). It also has the trademarked Hadasei-3 to weightlessly restore skin’s radiance.

The Best Moisturizers for Mature Skin

A nourishing and intensely hydrating cream can help boost healthy aging. Look for rich creams that revitalize very dry skin, as well as options packed with antioxidants and ceramides to protect, nourish, and support the skin’s barrier.

Try: Tatcha’s newest moisturizing innovation can practically do it all. The Indigo Overnight Repair is a cushiony cream that visibly calms irritation, strengthens the skin’s barrier, and balances the skin’s natural microbiome. Even after just a single night of use, the treatment has been shown to improve skin’s radiance, softness, and suppleness, as well as improve texture and tone. It’s ideal for mature skin, but has been shown to strengthen and hydrate any skin type, too.

Whether you need a moisturizer for sensitive, oily, mature, or dry skin, there is a face cream that will provide nourishing protection for you. The key is to first discover your skin type, thus unlocking your dream formula. From there, just apply twice a day, morning and night, and get glowing.