How To Choose A Facial Cream

According to studies by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), the average woman applies around 168 chemicals to her body daily sourced from about 12 different personal care products, like makeup, lotions, and shampoos (1). At Dr. Green Life Organics, we believe skin care doesn’t need to contain toxic ingredients to be effective (quite the opposite!). Most skin does best with simple, consistent, and gentle support, using formulas that respect how skin functions.

This article walks you through how to choose a facial cream based on what your skin needs.

At its core, a facial cream is designed to support the skin on your face, which has different needs than the skin on the rest of your body.

The skin on the face is:

• Thinner and more delicate
• Exposed daily to sun, wind, and environmental stressors
• Washed more frequently
• More likely to react to irritation

As such, the primary purpose of a facial cream is to:

• Help maintain hydration
• Support the skin’s natural barrier
• Keep skin comfortable and resilient

Beyond basic barrier support, many people also have aesthetic goals, such as wanting skin to feel smoother, look more even, or stay balanced throughout the day. A well-formulated facial cream can support these goals without relying on harsh or aggressive ingredients.

Across thoughtfully formulated creams, you’ll usually see a few core categories:

Look for creams made with a hydrating base like aloe vera leaf juice to provide hydration without drying or stripping the skin. Hydration matters for all skin types, including oily and acne-prone skin.

Oils and butters in facial creams help slow moisture loss and support the skin’s natural lipid layer, which plays an important role in hydration and comfort. Some formulas feel richer and more protective, while others feel lighter and absorb more quickly — largely due to the types and ratios of these ingredients.

In our Dr. Green Life Organics facial creams, lipid support comes from thoughtfully balanced ingredients such as:

• Coconut Oil, used to support moisture retention and skin comfort
• Mango Seed Butter, included in smaller amounts to support softness and the skin barrier
• Jojoba Seed Oil, a lightweight oil that closely resembles the skin’s natural sebum

These ingredients are used in different ratios depending on whether a formula is meant to feel more hydrating, balancing, or nourishing.

If you have acne-prone skin, you may see the term comedogenic when reading about skincare ingredients. Comedogenicity refers to an ingredient’s potential to clog pores, based on laboratory testing. These ratings are general guidelines and do not account for formulation, ingredient concentration, or individual skin differences (2).

In general:

• Jojoba seed oil is considered non-comedogenic
• Mango seed butter typically falls in the low-to-moderate range
• Coconut oil can be comedogenic for some people when used alone or applied heavily. (Note that when coconut oil is used within a facial cream, it is balanced with other ingredients, which often makes it well tolerated and supportive for many skin types.)

You might like this article, too: Managing Teen Acne: A Holistic Approach

While all our facial creams share a foundation of gentle skin-supportive ingredients, each formula also includes select botanicals or functional additions chosen to align with its specific purpose.

To learn more, read this article: Meet The 10 Essential Oils Handpicked For Our Skincare Line

Skin type isn’t fixed. Hormones, stress, weather, travel, illness, and sleep can all influence what your skin needs. These tips can help you choose a face cream that matches those needs.

If your skin feels tight after cleansing, looks flaky, or becomes easily irritated, a hydrating face cream is usually the best fit. These formulas provide additional moisture and support the skin barrier, helping skin feel more comfortable and resilient.

Some people may not need a hydrating face cream year-round, but find it especially helpful during colder weather, postpartum, after travel, or anytime skin feels dry or depleted.

If your skin feels oily shortly after cleansing, looks shiny by midday, or is prone to congestion, a balancing face cream can help hydrate without heaviness. These formulas are designed to provide moisture while supporting oil balance, and they tend to feel lighter and sit well under sunscreen or makeup.

Balancing creams are often helpful during warmer weather, periods of hormonal shifts, or anytime skin feels hydrated but easily overwhelmed by richer products.

Our nourishing face cream offers a middle ground between lighter balancing formulas and richer hydrating creams. These formulas provide steady moisture and barrier support without feeling too heavy or too light, making them a good option for combination or sensitive skin.

Our nourishing cream works well for daily use, both morning and night. 

Choosing the right facial cream works best when it’s paired with consistent, appropriate cleansing.

Keeping the skin clean helps remove sweat, sunscreen, makeup, and environmental buildup that can interfere with how a facial cream absorbs and performs. At the same time, cleansing should be gentle enough to avoid stripping the skin’s natural oils or disrupting the skin barrier.

Shop our botanical facial cleanser here: Literally The Cleanest™ Botanical Facial Cleanser

When choosing a facial cream, ingredient quality matters, not just for how skin looks and feels, but also for long-term skin and overall health. The skin is a permeable organ, meaning ingredients applied topically can be absorbed into the body, a consideration that is especially important for infants, children, and during pregnancy and lactation.

Many conventional skincare products rely on ingredients like synthetic fragrances, parabens, PFAs, petrolatum, and harsh surfactants to improve shelf life, texture, or scent. While these ingredients are common, they are not necessary for effective skin care.

At Dr. Green Life, our skincare formulas are made without parabens, PFAs, sulfates, phthalates, petrolatum, SLS, or synthetic fragrances. Instead, we rely on thoughtfully selected botanicals and functional ingredients to support skin health without adding unnecessary chemical burden.

If you’d like to learn more about common toxins found in skincare products and why we choose to avoid them, you can read more here: 5 Common Toxins in Skin Care Products 

A well-formulated facial cream supports hydration, helps maintain the skin barrier, and keeps skin comfortable.

Different creams serve different needs. Our hydrating cream is best when skin feels dry, tight, or depleted, while our balancing cream works well when skin feels oily, shiny, or easily congested, and our nourishing cream offers a simple everyday option for combination or sensitive skin.

Skin needs can change with weather, stress, hormones, travel, and life stage, so the right cream may shift over time. Choosing a face cream made with thoughtfully selected, natural ingredients helps support the skin without adding unnecessary stress or chemical burden.

1. Faber, S. (2020, May 5). The Toxic Twelve Chemicals and Contaminants in Cosmetics | Environmental Working Group. Environmental Working Group. https://www.ewg.org/the-toxic-twelve-chemicals-and-contaminants-in-cosmetics

2. Draelos ZD, DiNardo JC. A re-evaluation of the comedogenicity concept. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2006 Mar;54(3):507-12. doi: 10.1016/j.jaad.2005.11.1058. PMID: 16488305.