Methods of identifying potential skin moisturizing actives for the treatment of dry skin and method of formulating a moisturizing skin care composition using actives identified by the method. Moisturizing agents can be identified by comparing the transcriptional profile of a skin tissue sample contacted by a test agent to a negative or positive control to determine if the regulation of certain genes corresponds to the appropriate direction of regulation indicated by the control. Agents identified as skin moisturizing agents can then be incorporated into a skin moisturizing composition.