If you’ve ever slathered on a “hydrating” cream and still felt tight and flaky an hour later, you’re not imagining things. Most articles about natural moisturisers for dry skin give you a list of nice-sounding oils or a shelf of products to buy. They skip the part that actually matters: how to combine those ingredients into a formula that works together. This guide gives you the actual percentages, the reasoning behind them, and how to adjust everything for the specific dryness challenges of South African, Namibian, Botswanan and wider Southern African climates.

Why Off-the-Shelf Advice Falls Short for Dry Skin

Dry skin isn’t one thing. It can come from genetics, from harsh soap, from wind, from indoor heating or air conditioning, or from a skin barrier that simply isn’t holding onto water anymore. Dry skin, known clinically as xerosis, is one of the most common skin complaints people bring to a pharmacist or dermatologist, and it tends to get noticeably worse in low-humidity, windy conditions. That’s exactly the weather pattern much of the region deals with for months at a time.

Generic advice treats all dryness the same way, usually by recommending “a rich cream” without explaining what’s actually rich about it or why. That’s the gap this guide tries to close.

What Makes Skin Dry in the First Place

Your skin barrier is made up of skin cells held together by a mix of lipids, cholesterol and fatty acids, arranged a bit like bricks and mortar. When that lipid “mortar” is intact, water stays where it belongs, inside your skin. When it’s disrupted by harsh cleansers, cold wind, low humidity or ageing, water escapes faster than your skin can replace it. This is called transepidermal water loss, and it’s the mechanism behind almost all everyday dryness and flaking.

A moisturiser’s job is really to slow that water loss down and, where possible, pull some water back in. A good formula needs more than one type of ingredient working together.

Why DIY Formulas Can Outperform Store-Bought Creams

Formulators generally recommend layering a humectant, an emollient and an occlusive together, because each ingredient type addresses a different part of the barrier rather than relying on one “miracle” ingredient. Store-bought creams often compromise on this balance to hit a price point, a shelf-stable texture, or a pleasant marketing story. When you formulate at home, you control the ratio of oils to butters to water-binding ingredients. You can tailor it to your own skin and climate rather than an average customer somewhere else in the world. DIY Naturally stocks cold-pressed carrier oils, butters and cosmetic actives, so the recipes in this guide use ingredients you can actually source in one basket, rather than a wish list scattered across ten suppliers.

Best Oils for Dry Skin: Choosing Your Carrier Oil Base

Carrier oils are the emollient backbone of a natural face moisturiser. They fill in the gaps between skin cells, soften rough patches, and slow down water loss. Not all oils behave the same way, though, and picking the right one (or combination) matters more than most product lists let on.

Rich Oils: Argan, Avocado and Marula

Argan, avocado and marula oils are all considered “rich” because they carry a heavier fatty acid profile and absorb more slowly into the skin. That slower absorption is actually the point for very dry or mature skin, because it leaves a slightly heavier film on the surface that helps cut down on moisture escaping overnight. Avocado oil in particular is well suited to rough, flaky patches on elbows, knees and heels, while marula oil has a lighter, silkier finish despite still sitting on the richer end of the spectrum.

Lighter Oils: Jojoba and Rosehip

Jojoba oil is technically a liquid wax rather than a true oil, which is part of why it mimics skin’s own sebum so closely and absorbs quickly without feeling greasy. Rosehip oil is prized for its lighter texture and its usefulness on uneven skin tone, though it’s more delicate and oxidises faster than heavier oils, so it needs careful storage. Both work well for combination or normal-to-dry skin that doesn’t need the heaviest oils on the shelf. You can read more about jojoba oil’s formulation benefits if you want to dig into how it behaves in different recipes.

Matching Oil Texture to Skin Type

Argan, rosehip and jojoba oils each sit at a different point on the comedogenic and fatty-acid-profile scale, which is why blending two or three carrier oils often outperforms relying on just one. A practical approach is to pair one richer oil (avocado or marula) with one lighter oil (jojoba or rosehip) so you get barrier-repairing fatty acids without a heavy, greasy finish. If your skin is on the oilier side of dry, lean more on the lighter oil; if it’s tight and flaking, lean more on the richer one. Once you’ve settled on a combination, you can shop carrier oils for your blend and start testing ratios on a small patch of skin before committing to a full batch.

Natural Humectants for Moisturizing: Pulling in Water

Oils and butters are emollients: they soften skin and slow water loss, but they don’t add water themselves. That’s the job of a humectant, an ingredient that pulls water in from the air (or from deeper skin layers) and holds onto it. A natural face moisturiser that only contains oil is missing this half of the equation, which is a common reason people find pure oil blends “not quite enough” on very dry days.

Glycerin, Honey and Aloe as Humectant Options

Vegetable glycerin is one of the most reliable, affordable natural humectants for moisturizing, and it plays well with almost every other ingredient in a cream. Honey has humectant properties too, plus mild antibacterial benefits, though it can make a formula sticky if overdosed. Aloe vera gel is lighter still, soothing, and useful as part of the water phase of a cream rather than as a stand-alone moisturiser.

Hyaluronic Alternatives You Can Formulate At Home

Hyaluronic acid is popular for good reason: it holds a remarkable amount of water relative to its own weight. If you’re formulating without synthetic-feeling actives, though, there are plant-derived alternatives worth knowing. Betaine, extracted from sugar beet, is one such option, offering humectant benefits with a gentler feel on sensitised skin. You can learn more about betaine as a plant-derived humectant if you want an ingredient that layers well alongside glycerin in a homemade hydrating cream for dry skin.

Natural Moisturisers for Dry Skin – Recipes

DIY Dry Skin Moisturiser Recipe: Step-by-Step Formula

Here’s where the actual formula comes in. A list of good ingredients only helps once you know roughly how much of each to use.

Basic Face Cream Percentages You Can Adjust

A simple, balanced starting template for a homemade hydrating cream for dry skin looks like this:

60–65% water phase (distilled water, plus a hydrosol if you like)
20–25% oil phase (your chosen carrier oil blend)
4–6% butter (shea or cocoa butter for richness)
3–5% humectant (glycerin, and/or betaine)
3–6% emulsifier (this varies significantly by which emulsifier you choose)
0.5–1% preservative
Optional: 0.5% vitamin E and a few drops of active ingredients

The emulsifier percentage isn’t fixed because different emulsifiers work at different strengths; some need as little as 3%, others need closer to 6% to hold a stable cream. Always follow the specific emulsifier’s recommended usage rate rather than assuming one number fits all. If you want the complete walkthrough with mixing temperatures and phase-by-phase instructions, the full face cream formulation walkthrough covers that step-by-step. For choosing between the common options, it helps to look at picking the right emulsifier for your cream before you buy.

Because this recipe includes water, it needs a preservative to stay safe to use for more than a couple of days. Choosing a natural preservative walks through the options suited to home formulators.

Turning the Same Formula into a Rich Night Butter

For a heavier night-time version, shift the ratio toward oils and butters and reduce the water phase: think 40% water phase, 30% oil phase, and 10–12% butter, keeping the humectant and preservative percentages roughly the same. This gives you a thicker, more occlusive cream suited to very dry patches or colder months. If you’d rather skip the water phase altogether and make an anhydrous (water-free) balm, whipping up a natural body butter shows you how to do that without needing an emulsifier or preservative at all, since there’s no water for microbes to grow in.

DIY Dry Skin Serum: A Lighter Layering Option

Not every dry skin day calls for a full cream. Sometimes a lighter, oil-based layer does the job, especially under makeup or in warmer months.

Building a Simple Oil-Based Serum

A DIY dry skin serum is essentially an anhydrous blend of carrier oils, chosen for how they feel and absorb, plus a small percentage of a stabilising ingredient like vitamin E. A basic starting point is 95–98% carrier oil blend (say, jojoba and rosehip) with 1–2% vitamin E for oxidative stability. Because there’s no water in this formula, you don’t need an emulsifier or preservative, which makes it one of the simplest recipes to start with if you’re new to DIY skincare. For details on adding vitamin E for shelf stability, it’s worth checking the usage rate for whichever form you buy, since concentrations vary.

When to Layer Serum Under Cream

For very dry or flaking skin, apply the oil serum first, while skin is still slightly damp from a toner or hydrosol, then follow with your humectant-containing cream on top. The serum’s oils help seal in the water the cream just delivered. This gives you the humectant, emollient and occlusive layers formulators recommend, applied in two easy steps rather than one thick cream.

Adapting Your Moisturiser for South African Seasons

One advantage of making your own natural moisturiser for dry skin is that you’re not locked into a single formula all year. You can literally reformulate with the seasons.

Formulating for Dry Highveld Winters

South African winters in the Western Cape and highveld regions strip moisture fast, thanks to low humidity and wind, which is why richer butter-to-oil ratios work better locally than imported recipes designed for humid climates. During these months, lean toward the night butter version of the recipe above, increase your butter percentage slightly, and consider adding avocado or marula oil as your primary carrier for extra richness.

Adjusting for Humid Coastal Summers

Along the coast, or during Mozambique and KwaZulu-Natal’s more humid months, the air itself carries more moisture, so a heavy butter cream can feel greasy and clog pores rather than help. Shift back toward the basic face cream percentages, lean on jojoba or rosehip as your oil phase, and let your humectants do more of the work since the air is already holding water for them to draw on. Reformulating this way, twice a year, is a simple habit that keeps your skin comfortable without needing five different products on your shelf.

Once you know your ratios and your climate, all that’s left is sourcing good ingredients and testing a small batch. Starting with quality, cold-pressed carrier oils and butters makes the biggest difference to how your finished cream feels and performs, so it’s worth building your recipe around ingredients you trust from the start.

Natural Moisturisers for Dry Skin: DIY Recipes