Diisostearyl Malate
What-it-does: emollient, surfactant/cleansing
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Polyisobutene
What-it-does: viscosity controlling
A polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) that's used as a gloss improver for lipsticks and lipglosses. Its stickiness also helps lip products to stay on longer.
Combined with polyacrylate-13 and polysorbate 20, it forms a very effective tickener-emulsifier trio.
Tridecyl Trimellitate
What-it-does: emollient
Aviscous, thick liquid emollient that gives lubricityand cushion at low use levels. It's great for night creams, eye area products, and skin treatment products due to the substantive film forming ability.
Bis-Diglyceryl Polyacyladipate-2
What-it-does: emollient
A thick, paste-like emollient ester that is touted as a vegetable-derived lanolin alternative. It has a smooth spreadability and touch, and itgives a substantive film to protect and moisturize the skin.
Octyldodecanol
What-it-does: emollient, perfuming
A clear, slightly yellow, odorless oil that's a very common, medium-spreadingemollient. It makes the skin feel nice and smooth and works in a wide range of formulas.
Silica Dimethyl Silylate [Nano]
What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling, emulsion stabilising
It's a water-hating, fumed silica that works as a thickener for oils and it can also suspend particles in oils.
Also, increases thegloss of castor oil that can be useful for makeup products.
Silica Dimethyl Silylate
What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling, emulsion stabilising
It's a water-hating, fumed silica that works as a thickener for oils and it can also suspend particles in oils.
Also, increases thegloss of castor oil that can be useful for makeup products.
Sucrose - goodie
What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant, soothing
A type fo sugar, usuallyrefined from cane or beet sugar. On the skin, it haswater-binding properties and helps to keep your skin hydrated.
Cera Microcristallina / Microcrystalline Wax / Cire Microcristalline
This ingredient name is not according to the INCI-standard. :( What, why?!
Polyglyceryl-2 Triisostearate
What-it-does: emulsifying
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
1,2-Hexanediol
What-it-does: solvent
A really multi-functional helper ingredient that can do several things in a skincare product: it can bring a soft and pleasant feel to the formula, it can act as a humectant and emollient, it can be a solvent for some other ingredients (for example it can help to stabilize perfumesin watery products) and it can also help to disperse pigments more evenly in makeup products. And that is still not all: it can also boost the antimicrobial activity of preservatives.
Helianthus Annuus Seed Oil/Sunflower Seed Oil - goodie
Also-called: Sunflower Oil;Helianthus Annuus Seed Oil | What-it-does: emollient | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
Sunflower does not need a big intro as you probably use it in the kitchen as cooking oil, or you munch on the seeds as a healthy snack or you adore its big, beautifulyellow flower during the summer - or you do all of these and probably even more. And by even more we mean putting it all overyour face as sunflower oil is one of the most commonly used plant oils in skincare.
It’s a real oldie: expressed directly from the seeds, the oil is used not for hundreds but thousands of years. According to The National Sunflower Association, there is evidencethat both the plant and its oil were used by American Indians in the area of Arizona and New Mexico about 3000 BC. Do the math: it's more than 5000 years – definitely an oldie.
Our intro did get pretty big after all (sorry for that), so let's get to the point finally: sunflower oil - similar to other plant oils - is a great emollient that makes the skin smooth and nice and helps to keep it hydrated. It also protects the surface of the skin and enhances the damaged or irritated skin barrier. Leslie Bauman notes in Cosmetic Dermatology that one application of sunflower oil significantly speeds up the recovery of the skin barrier within an hour and sustains the results 5 hours after using it.
It's also loaded withfatty acids(mostly linoleic (50-74%) and oleic (14-35%)). The unrefined version(be sure to use that on your skin!) is especially high in linoleic acid that is great even for acne-prone skin. Its comedogen index is 0, meaning that it's pretty much an all skin-type oil.
Truth be told, there are many great plant oils and sunflower oil is definitely one of them.
Simmondsia Chinensis Seed Oil/Jojoba Seed Oil - goodie
Also-called: Jojoba Oil;Simmondsia Chinensis Seed Oil | What-it-does: emollient | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0-2
Jojoba is a drought resistant evergreen shrub native to South-western North America. It's known and grown for jojoba oil, the golden yellow liquid coming from the seeds (about 50% of the weight of the seeds will be oil).
At first glance, it seems like your average emollient plant oil: it looks like an oil and it's nourishing and moisturizing to the skin but if we dig a bit deeper, it turns out that jojoba oil is really special and unique: technically - or rather chemically - it's not an oil but awax ester (and calling it an oil is kind of sloppy).
So what the heck is a wax ester and why is that important anyway? Well, to understand what a wax ester is, you first have to know that oils are chemically triglycerides:one glycerin + three fatty acids attached to it. The fatty acids attached to the glycerin vary and thus we have many kinds of oils, but they are alltriglycerides. Mother Nature created triglycerides to be easily hydrolyzed (bebroken down to a glycerin + 3 fatty acid molecules) and oxidized (the fatty acid is broken down into small parts) - this happens basically when we eat fats or oils and our body generates energy from it.
Mother Nature also created wax esters but for a totally different purpose. Chemically, a wax ester is a fatty acid + a fatty alcohol, one long molecule. Wax esters are on the outer surface of several plant leaves to give them environmental protection. 25-30% of human sebum is also wax esters to give uspeople environmental protection.
So being a wax ester results in a couple of unique properties: First, jojoba oil is extremely stable. Like crazy stable. Even if you heat it to 370 C (698 F) for 96 hours, it does notbudge. (Many plant oils tend to go off pretty quickly). If you have some pure jojoba oil at home, you should be fine using it for years.
Second, jojoba oil is the most similar to human sebum (both being wax esters), and the two are completely miscible. Acne.org has this not fully proven theory that thanks to this, jojoba might be able to "trick" the skin into thinking it has already produced enough sebum, so it might have "skin balancing" properties for oily skin.
Third, jojoba oil moisturizes the skin through a unique dual action:on the one hand, it mixes with sebum and forms a thin, non-greasy, semi-occlusive layer; on the other hand, it absorbs into the skin through pores and hair follicles thendiffuses into the intercellular spaces of the outer layer of the skin to make it soft and supple.
On balance, the point is this: in contrast to real plant oils, wax esters were designed by Mother Nature to stay on the surface and forma protective, moisturizing barrier and jojoba oil being a wax ester is uniquely excellent at doing that.
Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis Seed Extract/Sweet Almond Seed Extract
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Aqua/Water/Eau
Also-called: Aqua;Water | What-it-does: solvent
Good old water, aka H2O. The most common skincare ingredient of all. You can usually find it right in the very first spot of the ingredient list, meaning it’s the biggest thing out of all the stuff that makes up the product.
It’s mainly a solvent for ingredients that do not like to dissolve in oils but rather in water.
Once inside the skin, it hydrates, but not from the outside - putting pure water on the skin (hello long baths!) is drying.
One more thing: the water used in cosmetics is purified and deionized (it means that almost all of the mineral ions inside it is removed). Like this, the products can stay more stable over time.
Glycerin - superstar
Also-called: Glycerol | What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
- A natural moisturizer that’s also in our skin
- A super common, safe, effective and cheap molecule used for more than 50 years
- Not only a simple moisturizer but knows much more: keeps the skin lipids between our skin cells in a healthy (liquid crystal) state, protects against irritation, helps to restore barrier
- Effective from as low as 3% with even more benefits for dry skin at higher concentrations up to 20-40%
- High-glycerin moisturizers are awesome for treating severely dry skin
Read all the geeky details about Glycerin here >>
PPG-26-Buteth-26
A helper ingredient that usually comes to the formula coupled withPEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil. The two together work as surfactants and oil solubilizers. It's a non-sticky duo that works at low concentration and is often used to solubilize fragrance components into water-based formulas.
PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil
What-it-does: emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing
A mildly viscous, amber-colored liquid with fatty odor, made from Castor Oil and polyethylene glycol (PEG).
If it were a person, we’d say, it’s agile, diligent & multifunctional. It’s mostly used as an emulsifier and surfactant but most often it is used to solubilizefragrances into water-based formulas.
Barium Sulfate
Also-called: CI 77120 | What-it-does: colorant
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Aroma/Flavor
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Alumina
Also-called: Aluminum Oxide, Al2O3 | What-it-does: viscosity controlling, absorbent/mattifier, abrasive/scrub
A multi-functionalhelper ingredient that's used mainly as a pigment carrier. The pigment can be an inorganic sunscreen(such as titanium dioxide) or a colorant that is blended withalumina platelets and then often coated with some kind of silicone (such as triethoxycaprylylsilane). This special treatment enables pigments to be evenly dispersed in the formulaand to be spread out easily and evenly upon application. It is super useful both for mineral sunscreens as well as for makeup products.
Other than that, alumina can also beused as an absorbent (sometimes combined with the mattifying powder called polymethylsilsesquioxane), a viscosity controlling or an opacifying (reduces the transparency of the formula) agent.
Aluminum Benzoate
What-it-does: antimicrobial/antibacterial, viscosity controlling
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Aluminum Hydroxide
What-it-does: emollient, moisturizer/humectant, viscosity controlling
Officially, CosIng (the official EU ingredient database) lists Aluminum Hydroxide 's functions as opacifying(making the product white and non-transparent), as well as emollient and skin protectant.
However, with a little bit of digging, it turns out Aluminum Hyroxide often moonlights as a protective coating for UV filter superstar Titanium Dioxide. Specifically, it protects our skin from the harmful effects of nasty Reactive Oxygen Species (free radicals derived from oxygen such as Superoxide and Hydrogen Peroxide)generated when Titanium Dioxide is exposed to UV light. Btw, chlorine inswimming pool waterdepletes this protective coating, so one more reason to reapply your sunscreen after a dip in the pool on holiday.
Other than that,Aluminum Hydroxide also often shows up in composite pigment technologies where it is used the other way around (as the base material and not as the coating material) and helps to achieve higher color coverage with less pigment.
Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride
What-it-does: emollient
A super common emollient that makes your skin feel nice and smooth. It comes from coconut oil and glycerin, it’s light-textured, clear, odorless and non-greasy. It’s a nice ingredient that just feels good on the skin, is super well tolerated by every skin type andeasy to formulate with. No wonder it’s popular.
Xanthan Gum
What-it-does: viscosity controlling, emulsion stabilising
It's one of the most commonly used thickeners and emulsion stabilizers. If the product is too runny, a little xanthan gum will make it more gel-like.Used alone, it can make the formula sticky and it is a good team player so it is usually combined with other thickeners and so-calledrheology modifiers (helper ingredients that adjust the flow and thus the feel of the formula). The typical use level of Xantha Gum is below 1%, it is usually in the 0.1-0.5% range.
Btw, Xanthan gum is all natural, a chain of sugar molecules (polysaccharide) produced from individual sugar molecules (glucose and sucrose) via fermentation. It’s approved by Ecocert and also used in the food industry(E415).
Synthetic Wax
What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Ethylhexylglycerin
What-it-does: preservative, deodorant
If you have spottedethylhexylglycerinon the ingredient list, most probably you will see there also the current IT-preservative,phenoxyethanol. They are good friends becauseethylhexylglycerincan boost the effectiveness of phenoxyethanol (and other preservatives) and as an added bonus it feels nice on the skin too.
Also,it's an effective deodorant and a medium spreadingemollient.
Tocopherol - goodie
Also-called: Vitamin E | What-it-does: antioxidant | Irritancy: 0-3 | Comedogenicity: 0-3
- Primary fat-soluble antioxidant in our skin
- Significant photoprotection against UVB rays
- Vit C + Vit E work in synergy and provide great photoprotection
- Has emollient properties
- Easy to formulate, stable and relatively inexpensive
Read all the geeky details about Tocopherol here >>
Tocopheryl Acetate
Also-called: Vitamin E Acetate | What-it-does: antioxidant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
It’s the most commonly used version of pure vitamin E in cosmetics. You can read all about the pure form here. This one is the so-called esterified version.
According to famous dermatologist, Leslie Baumann while tocopheryl acetate is more stable and has a longer shelf life, it’s also more poorly absorbed by the skin and may not have the same awesome photoprotective effects as pure Vit E.
Diethylhexyl Syringylidenemalonate
A handy helper ingredient that has photostabilizer properties. It is useful both for color-protecting products so that they do not change color for a long time as well as for stabilizing unstable sunscreen agents, such as famous UVA filter avobenzone.
DESM can also increase critical wavelength (the higher value means more UVA protection) in sunscreens and it canboostSPF by about 5 units in high-SPF products.
Sorbic Acid
What-it-does: preservative
A mild, natural preservative that usually comes to the formula together with its other mild preservative friends, such as Benzoic Acid and/orDehydroaceticAcid. Btw, it's also used as a food preservative.
Phenoxyethanol
What-it-does: preservative
It’s pretty much the current IT-preservative. It’s safe and gentle, but even more importantly, it’s not a feared-by-everyone-mostly-without-scientific-reason paraben.
It’s not something new: it was introduced around 1950 and today it can be used up to 1% worldwide. It can be found in nature - in green tea - but the version used in cosmetics is synthetic.
Other than having a good safety profile and being quite gentle to the skin it has some other advantages too. It can be used in many types of formulations as it has great thermal stability (can be heated up to 85°C) and works on a wide range of pH levels (ph 3-10).
It’s often used together with ethylhexylglycerin as it nicely improves the preservative activity of phenoxyethanol.
Dehydroacetic Acid
Also-called: Geogard 111A | What-it-does: preservative
A helper ingredient that helps to makethe products stay nice longer, akapreservative. It works mainly against fungi and has only milder effect against bacteria.
It is Ecocert and Cosmos approved, works quite well at low concentrations (0.1-0.6%) and is popular in natural products.
Ci 15850 / Red 7 Lake
Also-called: Red 6, Red 7;Ci 15850 | What-it-does: colorant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 1
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Ci 45410 / Red 28 Lake
Also-called: Red 28, Red 27, Red 27 Lake, Red 28 Lake, Acid Red 92 Phloxine;Ci 45410 | What-it-does: colorant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 2
A cosmetic colorant used as a reddish pigment.
Some version of it is a pH-sensitive dye that enables a colorless lip balm to turn red/pink upon application.
Ci 77891/Titanium Dioxide
Also-called: Titanium Dioxide/Ci 77891;Ci 77891 | What-it-does: colorant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
Ci 77891 is the color code of titaniumdioxide.It's a white pigment with great color consistency and dispersibility.
Ci 19140 / Yellow 5 Lake
Also-called: Tartrazine, Yellow 5;Ci 19140 | What-it-does: colorant
Ci 19140 or Tartrazine is a super common colorant in skincare, makeup, medicine & food. It’s a synthetic lemon yellow that'sused alone or mixed with other colors for special shades.
FDA saysit's possible, but rare, to have an allergic-type reaction to a color additive. As an example, it mentions that Ci 19140may cause itching and hives in some people but the colorant is always labeled so that you can avoid it if youare sensitive.
Cl 42090 Blue 1 Lake
Also-called: Blue 1;Ci 42090 | What-it-does: colorant
CI 42090 or Blue 1 is a super common synthetic colorant in beauty & food. Used alone, it adds a brilliant smurf-like blue color, combined with Tartrazine, it gives the fifty shades of green.
Linalool - icky
What-it-does: perfuming, deodorant
Linalool is a super common fragrance ingredient. It’s kind of everywhere - both in plants and in cosmetic products. It’s part of 200 natural oils including lavender, ylang-ylang, bergamot, jasmine, geranium and it can be found in 90-95% of prestige perfumes on the market.
The problem with linalool is, that just like limoneneit oxidises on air exposure and becomes allergenic. That’s why a product containing linalool that has been opened for several months is more likely to be allergenic than a fresh one.
A study made in the UK with 483 people tested the allergic reaction to 3% oxidised linalool and 2.3% had positive test results.
Geraniol - icky
What-it-does: perfuming
Geraniol is a common fragrance ingredient. It smells like rose and can be found in rose oil or in small quantities in geranium, lemon and many other essential oils.
Just like other similar fragrance ingredients (like linalool and limonene) geraniol also oxidises on air exposure and becomes allergenic. Best to avoid if you have sensitive skin.
Limonene - icky
What-it-does: perfuming, solvent, deodorant
A supercommon and cheap fragrance ingredient. It's in many plants, e.g. rosemary, eucalyptus, lavender, lemongrass, peppermint and it's the main component (about 50-90%) of the peel oil of citrus fruits.
It does smellnice but the problemis that it oxidizes on air exposure and the resulting stuff is not good for the skin. Oxidizedlimonene cancause allergic contact dermatitis and counts asa frequent skin sensitizer.
Limonene's nr1 function is definitely being a fragrance component, but there are several studies showing that it's also a penetration enhancer, mainly for oil-loving components.
All in all, limonene has some pros and cons, but - especially if your skin is sensitive -the cons probably outweigh the pros.
Citral - icky
What-it-does: perfuming
It’s a common fragrance ingredient that smells like lemon and has a bittersweet taste. It can be found in many plant oils, e.g. lemon, orange, lime or lemongrass.
It’s one of the “EU 26 fragrances” that has to be labelled separately (and cannot be simply included in the term “fragrance/perfume” on the label) because of allergen potential. Best to avoid if your skin is sensitive.
Citronellol - icky
What-it-does: perfuming
Citronellol is a very common fragrance ingredient with a nice rose-like odor. In the UK, it’s actually the third most often listed perfume on the ingredient lists.
It can be naturally found in geranium oil (about 30%) or rose oil (about 25%).
As with all fragrance ingredients, citronellol can also cause allergic contact dermatitis and should be avoided if you have perfume allergy. In a 2001 worldwide study with 178 people with known sensitization to fragrances citronellol tested positive in 5.6% of the cases.
There is no known anti-aging or positive skin benefits of the ingredient. It’s in our products to make it smell nice.
Benzyl Alcohol
What-it-does: preservative, perfuming, solvent, viscosity controlling
It's one of those things that help your cosmetics not to go wrong too soon, aka a preservative. It can be naturally found in fruits and teas but can also be made synthetically.
No matter the origin, in small amounts (up to 1%) it’s a nice, gentle preservative. Has to be combined with some other nice preservatives, like potassium sorbateto be broad spectrum enough.
In high amounts, it can be a skin irritant, but don’t worry, it’s never used in high amounts.