I find the CeraVe cream to be the best moisturizing cream for skin troubled by eczema. I found it some time ago after reading interesting articles about the benefits of ceramides. These fatty compounds should be good for people with a faulty skin barrier like eczema-patients since ceramides should fill the space between skin cells and act like mortar in a brick wall. Hmm… Sounds interesting…
On Amazon I saw thousands of positive reviews of the CeraVe-cream. After reading a lot of these reviews I had to try this cream and learn what this CERAMIDE was all about.
I bought two jugs of CeraVe moisturizing cream 340 grams from lookfantastic.dk. It was reasonably priced compared to a lot of other moisturizing creams made for eczema. These often tend to be quite expensive and thereby being unattractive in the long run.
Before we go my experiences with the cream we need to learn more about the main active compound in CeraVe creams, the ceramides.
Ceramides
Us with atopic dermatitis has dry skin and our skin barrier is compromised because we lack fats called lipids in the top layer of the skin. Ceramides are skin-identical compounds that are a normal part of our skin. In normal skin these fatty lipids represent approximately 50 percent of the top layer. They keep the skin resistant against allergens and inhibit water from escaping the body. Normal people can produce these lipids including ceramides to keep the skin barrier tight and sturdy. Eczema patients do not produce enough to fill the spaces between the skin cells and therefore the skin barrier becomes leaky.
By applying lipids and ceramides to the skin in the form of cream you can help the skin to hold cells together by adding these essential fats to the skin barrier.
As we age the skin becomes drier as the level of lipids in the skin diminishes. For that reason the importance of adding creams containing ceramides becomes more important as time goes on.
Ceramides can is made synthetically or from natural sources, but chemically they are the same. Together with other fatty lipids like glycerin, fatty acids, and cholesterol, ceramides can work wonders for eczema skin.
CeraVe cream is recommended by the National Eczema Association in the U.S.
My verdict
This is the best cream I have ever used. The cream is silky smooth to apply and absorbs quickly into the skin. My skin is now soft, moist and feels more robust than ever before. The use of steroid creams have gone down and for now I am in a period where I do not use them anymore. If this holds up in the long run we will have to see, but for now I am very pleased.
When I shower and use mild soap and salt my skin is now still oily and feel not as exposed as before. It seems like this cream in a way fills up the skin with oils, so the barrier is intact even after the shower.
I have been using the cream daily for a week after the shower, at high noon and before bedtime. In that short amount of time I can literally say that my skin has changed.
All in all I am very impressed and my skin just loves this cream. Hopefully it will keep doing its job at keeping the steroid creams at bay.
Read more about diet, skin care and much more in my book.
References:
National Eczema Assosiation – Moisturizers for Skin Diseases: New Insights