Urea creams are becoming more and more popular, especially the urea foot cream against calluses. My girlfriend also uses a urea-containing cream more often. But why are these creams so popular? What is urea anyway and what does it do for you? Find out in the following article.
What is urea?
Urea is a natural substance. It is produced by our body itself. In the so-called urea cycle. It is a highly complex process that a normal person doesn’t need to understand.
So let’s say that everybody produces urea in his body. Most of it is also excreted. I won’t tell you how. Because we all know.
However, a little urea remains in the skin as part of the NMF (natural moisturizing factor).
How Does Urea Work
Because urea is part of the skin’s moisture factor, you can probably already imagine how it works. It binds water.
Every square centimeter of healthy skin contains about 28 micrograms of urea. Dry skin contains correspondingly less.
If you use non-urea moisturizers, your skin is only kept moist as long as the cream is on. So it has no long-term effect.
But when urea gets on your skin, it penetrates the top layer of the skin and does its work. It immediately starts to attract water. From your body. So it makes sure that your body itself keeps the skin moist from the inside. Thereby you have a more lasting effect.
Advantages of Urea
Well, the advantages of a urea cream are in the effect. Which you learned about earlier. But here I’ll summarize the benefits anyway:
- A substance that occurs naturally in the body
- Lasting moisture
- A very cheap raw material
- Effect sets in very quickly
- Also helps with too much cornea
Disadvantages/ side effects
But is there a flip side to the coin? Of course there is! Because no effect without side effects. But what disadvantages or side effects can be expected:
- Skin can burn if you concentrate too much…
- The lasting effect of moisturizing does not last forever, in some rare cases the skin is even drier after weaning -> the skin becomes addicted
- Healthy skin that would not have needed urea can soften
So always approach things with common sense. And about risks and side effects…. We know the saying from advertising.
Production of urea
Urea is in urine. So does that mean we smear someone’s urine on our skin?
All clear! Because urea hasn’t been extracted from animal urine for a long time. Although there was a time when it was.
Today, urea is made entirely synthetically. In a very simple process, ammonia is mixed with phosgene or a carbonated ester…. I don’t quite understand it myself.
If you want to know more, look here.
