mineral oils, are them good?

[dinamometro]

Dear all and specially Dr Torovov,
Do you think mineral oils (paraffinum liquidum, etc) are good for skin? Some web pages and I know even of some dermatologist doctors that do not recommend this. I use a base cream now quite nice without parabents and really cheap, my only doubt about it is that it contains mostly paraffinum liquidum.
I used before some very expensive creams without any petrolatum derivatives, but whish to change to something DIY and cheaper.
Can I lose effectiveness by using mineral oils?. Are thay clogging , drying, etc?

[guest]

If you find a nice base cream , it would help some of us that are still looking : what is the name of your base cream ? tks

[drtodorov]

Mineral oil is an inert and generally benign ingredient. Unless you have any reaction to it or find it comedogenic (it is for some but not the majority of people), I don't see anything wrong with using it.

[dinamometro]

Thanks a lot Dr Torovov for your input.

About the base cream. I have used Dr. Baumann products for some time (I have posted a review of them here), but they are expensive. They don't have parabens or any irritating or bad ingredient, they are also simple (few ingredients) so that helps for DIY cream.

About this new one I found with mineral oils but no parabens I guess it will be of no help for most of you, this is a cream I bought from a brand of Spanish supermarkets, I have no idea what company is making the cream, since this is a white brand cream from this supermarkets.
I would suggest you just now and then look at some ingredient list of cheap creams, they are the best!!
(This is only 1$ 150 mL)

[dia]

mineral oils are a no no for the skin... my experience... if I put something on my face with parafine liquidim in it...(or any other mineral oils..) my face blew up. The working ingredients can never come into your skin... mineral oils are realy a bad vehicle...

[drtodorov]

With vehicles, it is always a trade off. Some people have acne prone skin and react to any oil, incuding mineral oil. Others benefit from oil based creams. Each oil has pros and cons. For example, some vegetable oils oxidise quickly due to high degree of unsaturation, while mineral oil does not oxidize as much as it is more saturated.

In my experience, the vehicles where mineral oil (or vegetable oil for that matter) is the predominant ingredient may be comedogenic for some people, but cream with modest amount of mineral oil are usually well tolerated.

Of course, mineral oil has its drawbacks, but so does virtually every other vehicle. One has to find the best match for their individual skin.

The point I was trying to make earlier was that since mineral oil is chemically rather inert it does not have any toxicity and is hypoallergenic.

[dinamometro]

[drtodorov]

Like virtually any other skin care ingredient, mineral oil can be poorly purified and therefore contain contaminants.

However, most legitimate brands of mineral oil are well purified. Incidentally baby oil is mineral oil.

The fears of carcenogencty of mineral oil contaminans in skin care are most likely vastly overblown. In fact, a piece of fried chicken, or even a mildly crispy toast contains far more carcinogens than baby oil. And yet nobody seems to be outraged about the toast :)

[dinamometro]

[Aurora~Borealis]