Hi, you seem to be a 'serum person'. Certainly you can treat B5 gel as lotion if you want, there is no single rule applying to everyone. But for me, lotion/cream is always required to apply on top of essence or serum in order to conceal whatever applied before deep under the inner skin and let them perform their tasks. As you might be aware, the texture of most essence products is rather watery and would evaporate shortly if neither lotion nor cream got applied afterwards.