4 Skin Benefits of Estriol Cream for Women

One of the early changes many women notice during perimenopause and menopause is to their skin: changing hormone levels can cause dryness, itching, loss of elasticity, and more noticeable fine lines. One of the best ways to combat these changes is with estriol cream, a gentle yet effective form of estrogen that can help restore skin moisture, improve skin resilience, and even support vaginal health. 

What is Estriol?

Estriol is one of three estrogen hormones (along with estrone and estradiol). Estradiol is the most prevalent kind of estrogen females make, and estrone is the kind of estrogen made after menopause. Estriol is the estrogen that rises during pregnancy, as it is essential for keeping the uterus and the developing fetus healthy. While everyone’s body makes estriol, it is virtually undetectable in people who are not pregnant.

What Does Estriol Do?

The body produces estriol during pregnancy, because it helps the uterus grow, prepares the body for labor, delivery, and breastfeeding, and makes the pregnant woman’s body more sensitive to other pregnancy hormones. 

However, estriol may have benefits outside of pregnancy, especially for women during the years leading up to and during the menopause transition. One of the most popular and potentially effective applications of estriol is estriol cream, which may support skin and vaginal health before and during menopause. 

4 Skin Benefits of Estriol Cream for Women

Estrogen plays many essential roles in the body, even outside of pregnancy. Among its many jobs, estrogen is a key hormone for helping to keep both skin and vaginal tissues lubricated, thick, and elastic. 

In perimenopause and menopause, estrogen levels start to decline. This decline can lead to several uncomfortable or unpleasant symptoms, including more dry skin, more noticeable facial wrinkles, and dryness or itching inside the vagina and around the vulva, especially (but not exclusively) during intercourse.

Thankfully, if you’re starting to notice these changes, there are ways you can prevent and lessen these symptoms. Estriol cream is one of the most critical skincare tools to add to any perimenopausal and menopausal toolkit.

Why? Here are a few of the many skin benefits of estriol cream for women.

Deep, Restorative Moisture

Keeping your skin moisturized matters at every age. But before and during menopause, you might notice that your tried and true moisturizers are no longer working as effectively as before. One of the first skin changes many women notice is increased skin dryness, redness, and itchiness, often followed by loss of firmness and elasticity, noticeable thinning, and more prominent wrinkles. These changes are linked to estrogen: as your estrogen levels decline, your skin’s oil, collagen, and elastin production declines, too. 

That’s where topical estriol cream comes in. Estriol creams take a base of hydrating, soothing ingredients that support plump, moisturized skin and combine them with estriol. Top-quality estriol creams are gentle enough to be applied topically to the chest, abdomen, inner arms, and thighs, making it easy to balance the estrogen levels in your body and alleviate problems caused by menopause. 

Some products, like Estriol Natural Balancing Cream by Emerita, combine estriol with soothing, nourishing ingredients that help replenish your skin’s lost oils, like aloe, safflower seed oil, and sweet almond oil. Others, such as Estriol+ Topical Replenishing Serum by Quicksilver Scientific, combine estriol with ingredients known to plump and hydrate skin from within, like hyaluronic acid.

Supports Vaginal and Urinary Tract Health

Estriol creams can boost elasticity and lubrication in and around the vagina, helping to relieve dryness, soreness, and irritation and reduce pain during intercourse. Not only that but vaginal estriol cream can also be used to treat recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs), which can become more frequent during perimenopause and menopause.

Offers Higher Bioavailability

Topical applications of estriol, like estriol cream, may have benefits compared to oral estriol. Some studies suggest that topical estriol has fewer side effects than oral estriol; estriol applied topically may be more easily absorbed, resulting in more bioavailable and stable hormone levels. 

Try Estro Pro Cream by Dynamic Nutritional for a skin-soothing cream that may help combat symptoms from hormonal fluctuations, including skin and vaginal dryness, unexplained weight gain, moodiness‚ irregular periods, breast tenderness, and hot flashes.

Least Likely to Have Side Effects

Estriol is the weakest form of estrogen, which means that it’s the least likely estrogen to cause side effects when used in hormone replacement therapy. It also means that estriol creams have no adverse systemic effects when applied topically. In short, estriol and estriol products appear much safer than their more potent hormonal counterparts (estrone and estradiol).