Is This Topical Vitamin Your New Skin Care Hero? (Hint: It's NOT Vitamin C)
Vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant, can be found in all sorts of skin care products, from body lotions to lip balms. So the best vitamin E cream for you will depend on the type of moisturizer you're looking for, whether that's a thick ointment for your face, a lighter weight lotion for your body, or even a rich cream formulated specifically for your eyes. You'll find products that fit all of these criteria ahead, and they all boast vitamin E as their headlining ingredient.
You'll usually see vitamin E listed as tocopherol, alpha-tocopherol, or tocopheryl acetate on the labels of skin care products. Most people can use the ingredient safely, especially when it's incorporated into creams (you've got to be a bit more careful with straight-up vitamin E oils, on the other hand, which can be too heavy for some).
You can never go wrong with applying a vitamin E cream for nourishment, but since studies point to the antioxidant's impressive healing benefits after sun exposure, it's a particularly good choice for applying onto your skin after you've spent a lot of time outdoors.
Scroll on to shop five of the best skin care products with vitamin E, starting at just $5.
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01The Overall Best Vitamin E Cream
This popular, fragrance-free moisturizer from JASON pairs vitamin E with lots of other, nourishing ingredients, like glycerin, sunflower seed oil, and avocado oil, to name just a few. It's a rich, luxurious cream that can be applied to your face, neck, and body, or even on your hands and feet. That said, this moisturizer is quite thick, so if you don't love the feeling of rich creams on your face, plan on using it on your body instead. You get a generous, 4-ounce tub for less than $10, making this a great value, too.
02Runner Up
Like all Palmers' products, you'll find cocoa butter in this moisturizer, as well as vitamin E and several plant-derived oils (including argan, avocado, coconut, and apricot). Similar to the JASON cream featured above, this is a budget-friendly, fragrance-free moisturizer that can be applied anywhere, but because it comes in a smaller tube and is so highly concentrated, it may be better suited to treating smaller dry patches, rather than being used as an all-over lotion.
03Best Splurge
Yes, it's pricey, but Dermalogica's Skin Smoothing Cream offers impressive benefits, including long-lasting hydration (up to 48 hours worth, to be precise), and protection from environmental aggressors. Note that in here, vitamin E is paired with vitamin C; together, these antioxidants are more effective at protecting and healing skin than when they work alone. This is also one of the rare skin care products that has a 4.8-star rating on Amazon, in case you needed another reason to purchase it.
04Best Vitamin E Body Lotion
For a lighter weight vitamin E cream that you can apply all over your body before getting into bed or getting dressed, pick up this body lotion from DERMA E. Other key ingredients in here include shea butter, hyaluronic acid, and olive, cranberry, and jojoba seed oils. The formula is fragrance-free, but if you prefer a scented lotion, there's also a lavender and neroli version made with natural essential oils.
05Best Vitamin E Eye Cream
The skin around our eyes is extremely delicate and therefore more prone to dryness, so a nourishing and protective vitamin E eye cream makes a lot of sense. This one, from The Body Shop, contains wheat germ oil, shea butter, hyaluronic acid, and glycerin — as well as vitamin E — to infuse that delicate skin with much-needed moisture and hydration. And though most eye creams tend to cost upwards of $50, this one will set you back just $20.
06Also Consider
You may want to consider a vitamin E serum instead. Serums are not only a lot lighter weight than lotions and creams, but because they have a smaller molecular makeup, the actives in the formulas are much better able to penetrate your skin. PCA SKIN C&E Strength Max is a highly concentrated serum that pairs the super-antioxidants vitamin E and vitamin C, which work together to protect, brighten, and nourish your skin. Because of the 20% vitamin C in here, this is an especially good serum for anyone looking to achieve a more even-looking skin tone.
