No BS Beauty has reviewed more than 170 moisturizers. She named several of them outright category winners. Among them are Purito Deep Sea Pure Water Cream, COSRX Advanced Snail 92 All in One Cream, Klairs Midnight Blue Calming Cream, and Peach & Lily Peptide Pro Firming Moisturizer. Her overall approval rate on moisturizers is 75%.
What does No BS Beauty recommend in moisturizers?
The ingredients she keeps coming back to are ceramides, peptides, and barrier-supporting oils. Everything she approves is fragrance-free. She likes rich, thick textures, though she flags those as evening options rather than morning ones. Retinoids are vitamin A treatments that can cause dryness and flaking. For people using them, she recommends what she calls the sandwich method. That means layering a heavy moisturizer before and after each application to cut down on irritation. Her recommendations cover a wide range of prices, from a budget dry-skin pick at $15, all the way up to a SkinFix product she has said she grabs the moment she spots it at TJ Maxx.
In her words
"I gave this a nine. My only point lost was the jar packaging, but otherwise this is a wonderful product."
"This is their barrier restoring gel cream, it's also $54. This one is geared toward oily skin types or acne prone skin types. This one also contains an updated lipid barrier complex and then also contains several peptides, green tea, squalane, folic acid, no fragrance."
"It's not the most exciting ingredient list but it is a barrier-repairing moisturizer with a lot of barrier-repairing ingredients and ceramides and skin-identical ingredients. Sometimes for sensitive skin, simple is better. It provides hydration without leaving skin looking or feeling greasy, and once it soaks in it looks natural, great finish, and works nice under sunscreen. It delivers on the promises of replenishing your skin barrier for dewy plump hydrated healthy-looking skin."
"A jar like this will last a long time because a little bit of it goes a very long way. [...] It's nice. [...] It's felt really nice during this humid weather. There's some moisturizer you put on and you go out when it's really humid out and you can feel it on your skin. This stuff doesn't do that, so it's really nice for the hot and humid weather we've had recently. I love it for that."
"I've been using this, it's been at least a decade now, I want to say, which is crazy to think, but yeah, it's been a while. It's fragrance free, alcohol free. It's great for dehydrated skin. It's got snail mucin, which is really great for soothing skin and hydrating skin. It's a wonderful ingredient, but if you're allergic to certain shellfish, probably want to avoid it. But if you're not, it's just a wonderful ingredient. Instantly plumps skin, calms skin, soothes it, hydrates it."
"It's got ceramides and macadamia nut oil as well. [...] It's really [...] on the thick side, so I typically use this one as an evening moisturizer. Sometimes if you're going to use retinoids, this one's great for the sandwich method of retinoids to use a thick moisturizer, then use your retinoid and then another thick moisturizer to kind of seal it in and help prevent against dryness, flakiness, and all that good stuff."
How many moisturizers has No BS Beauty reviewed?
No BS Beauty has reviewed 171 moisturizers, for an approval rate of 75%. 129 approved, 24 mixed, and 18 skipped.
What has No BS Beauty skipped in moisturizers?
She approved most of what she reviewed. When she does say no, it usually comes down to texture or ingredient overload. She found The Ordinary Natural Moisturizing Factors + Phytoceramides too greasy and slow to absorb, staying shiny all day, and called that impractical for daytime. She also flagged niacinamide. It appears in so many formulas now that some people end up getting more than their skin can handle, and too much of it can cause dryness rather than fix it.
"First Aid Beauty Coconut Water Cream, this was in my travel bag [...] and it's pretty much empty and I opened it and there's like it was just dried up so there's nothing left of that."
"For beneficial ingredients it's got ceramides, vitamin E, acetyl glucosamine, mushroom extract, and chamomile, but a lot of those can be found in the Klairs Midnight Blue Calming Cream for about a quarter of the price, without all the fragrance ingredients. [...] This one was a clear loss for me. I tested it out a couple times and [...] I wasn't impressed with it, I didn't like the fragrance in it."
"They switched to using a CeraVe night cream and it was drying their eyes and thought maybe it's the niacinamide in it. I think some people definitely find niacinamide to be drying, especially since a lot of products end up using it, so you might end up getting more of it than is good for your skin because it's in almost everything now."
"This I guess it's a big seller but if you look at this compared to other similarly priced products because I think this is coming in upwards of 40 bucks now there's a gazillion better moisturizers for $40 and if you want to spend half the price there's a bazillion more."
What should you take from No BS Beauty's picks?
No BS Beauty has an approval rate of 75% on moisturizers, across more than 170 reviews. Ceramides, peptides, and a fragrance-free formula run through everything she approves. She gives detailed advice for anyone adding retinoids to a routine. She lays out how to moisturize around them to cut down on the dryness and flaking they bring.
Watch No BS Beauty say it
Every verdict here comes from a video. These are the moments themselves, each one jumping straight to the bit about that product.
- Aestura Atobarrier 365 CreamNamed a winnerWatch at 8:37
- Purito Deep Sea Pure Water CreamNamed a winnerWatch at 10:36
- Topicals Faded Brightening & Clearing GelNamed a winnerWatch at 5:09
- COSRX Advanced Snail 92 All in One CreamNamed a winnerWatch at 5:23
- Klairs Midnight Blue Calming CreamNamed a winnerWatch at 10:09
- Alpyn Beauty Super Peptide and Ghostberry MoisturizerNamed a winnerWatch at 4:14
- Peach & Lily Peptide Pro Firming MoisturizerNamed a winnerWatch at 6:10
- Topicals Like Butter MoisturizerNamed a winnerWatch at 12:47
- First Aid Beauty Coconut Water CreamSkipped itWatch at 6:16
- Medik8 Advanced Night Ceramide CreamSkipped itWatch at 7:53
- CeraVe Skin Renewing Night CreamSkipped itWatch at 5:36
- Olay Micro-Sculpting CreamSkipped itWatch at 6:07
- Embryolisse Lait-Crème Concentré (Radiant Complexion Cream)Skipped itWatch at 2:24
- COSRX Ceramide Skin Barrier Moisturizer (Comfort Ceramide Cream)Skipped itWatch at 5:33
- BeautyStat Universal Peptide Wrinkle Relaxing MoisturizerSkipped itWatch at 4:10
- Vichy Mineral 89 48-Hour Moisture Boosting Matte SorbetSkipped itWatch at 4:27
- Sunday Riley Tidal Brightening Enzyme Water CreamSkipped itWatch at 10:48
- Derma E Advanced Peptides and Collagen MoisturizerSkipped itWatch at 4:27
- The Ordinary Natural Moisturizing Factors + PhytoceramidesSkipped itWatch at 4:03
- First Aid Beauty Ultra Repair CreamSkipped itWatch at 8:43
- AXIS-Y Dark Spot Correcting Glow CreamSkipped itWatch at 15:13
- Drunk Elephant Bora Barrier Rich Repair CreamSkipped itWatch at 8:47
- Then I Met You Renewing Rich Beauty CreamSkipped itWatch at 4:24
- Neutrogena Daily Facial Moisturizer with Multi-Vitamin ComplexSkipped itWatch at 4:44
About this expert
See everything No BS Beauty has reviewed
Expert rankings
Related guides
This guide reflects what No BS Beauty said across her videos about 171 products in moisturizers, aggregated by The Guru Index. Sponsored takes are excluded. The approval rate is the share of these products she approved. It is general information, not medical advice.