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Dr Storm SPF 50Ingredients explained
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.
An oil-soluble chemical sunscreen agent that protects skin in the UVB and somewhat in the UVA II range with a peak absorption of 304 nm. Its protection is not strong enough on its own but it is quite photostable (loses 10% of SPF protection in 95 mins) and is often used to stabilize other photo-unstable UV-filters, for example, Avobenzone. It is also often used to improve the water resistance of the products.
Octocrylene's safety profile is generally quite good, though a review study in Contact Dermatitis reports an "increasing number of patients with photo contact allergy to octocrylene." Mainly adults with ketoprofen-sensitivity and children with sensitive skin are affected, so if you have a small kid, it is probably better to use octocrylene-free sunscreens.
An often used emollient with a light and silky feel. It's very mild to both skin and eyes and spreads nicely and easily. It's often used in sunscreens as it's also an excellent solvent for sunscreen agents.
A clear, colorless, odorless oily liquid that makes the formula easily spreadable and also makes the skin nice and smooth (emollient). It's especially helpful in sunscreens as it can help to solubilize UV filters.
Propanediol is a natural alternative for the often used and often bad-mouthed propylene glycol. It's produced sustainably from corn sugar and it's Ecocert approved.
It's quite a multi-tasker: can be used to improve skin moisturization, as a solvent, to boost preservative efficacy or to influence the sensory properties of the end formula.
Its INCI name is a bit of a mouthful, but Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine is worth recognizing it as it is one of the best sunscreen agents known today. Unfortunately, it's not FDA-approved so you will not find it in sunscreens coming from the US (not because it's not good, but because US regulations make it impossible for newer sunscreen agents to get approved), but it is widely available in other parts of the world like Europe, Australia or Asia.
It is a broad-spectrum (covers the whole UVB and UVA range, 280-400 nm) chemical sunscreen agent with peak protections at about 310 and 345 nm and unlike older UV filters, it's very photostable. It hardly deteriorates in the presence of UV light and it's also useful in stabilizing other less stable sunscreen agents, like the famous UVA protector, avobenzone.
It's a new generation sunscreen agent that was specifically designed for high SPF and good UVA protection and based on a 2007 study that compared 18 sunscreen agents available in the EU it really had the best SPF protection (they used the highest concentration allowed by EU regulations from each 18 sunscreens and Trinosorb S gave an SPF 20 all by itself).
It is an oil-soluble, slightly yellowish powder that is not absorbed into the skin too much. This is good news for a sunscreen agent as it needs to be on the surface of the skin to do its job properly. Regarding Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine side effects, we have good news here as well: it has a great safety profile and unlike a couple of other chemical sunscreens, Trinosorb S (and M) does not show estrogenic activity.
Overall, we think Trinosorb S is one of the best sunscreen options available today.
Are you into sunscreen agents? We have shiny explanations (along with product lists) about others as well:
- Methylene Bis-Benzotriazolyl Tetramethylbutylphenol, aka Tinosorb M, the good buddy of our current molecule Tinosorb S
- Tris-Biphenyl Triazine, aka Tinosorb A2B, the newest addition to the Tinosorb family that protects strongly in an in-between wavelength that most other filters miss
- Ethylhexyl Triazone, aka Uvinul T 150, another new generation sunscreen agent with super-high UVB protection
- Diethylamino Hydroxybenzoyl Hexyl Benzoate, aka Uvinul A Plus, a new generation sunscreen for UVA protection
A colorless to light yellowish oily liquid that works as a UVB (280-320nm) sunscreen filter with a peak absorbance at 306 nm. It's not a strong filter in itself, it's always used in combination with other sunscreen agents to further enhance the SPF and to solubilize other solid UV filters.
It has a good safety profile and is allowed to be used at a max concentration of 5% both in the US and in Europe (10% is allowed in Japan).
A chemical sunscreen agent that gives strong protection in the UVB (280-320nm) range with its peak protection at 306 nm. Its special property is that unlike most sunscreen agents, it is not oil but water soluble, so it is ideal to create light, oily skin compatible formulas. It is also fairly photostable and can be used to protect other less stable UV filters (like famous UVA blocker, avobenzone) in the formula. It is approved worldwide and can be used up to 4% in the US and up to 8% in the EU.
The famous Avobenzone. It is a special snowflake as it is the only globally available chemical sunscreen agent that provides proper UVA protection (in the US, new generation sunscreen agents are not approved because of impossible FDA regulations). It is the global gold standard of UVA protection and is the most used UVA sunscreen in the world.
It gives very good protection across the whole UVA range (310-400 nm that is both UVA1 and UVA2) with a peak protection at 360 nm. The problem with it, though, is that it is not photostable and degrades in the sunlight. Wikipedia says that avobenzone loses 36% of its UV-absorption capacity after just one hour of sunlight (yep, this is one of the reasons why sunscreens have to be reapplied after a few hours).
The cosmetic's industry is trying to solve the problem by combining avobenzone with other UV filters that enhance its stability (like octocrylene, Tinosorb S or Ensulizole) or by encapsulating it and while both solutions help, neither is perfect. Interestingly, the combination of avobenzone with mineral sunscreens (that is titanium dioxide and zinc oxide) is not a good idea. In the US, it is flat out prohibited as avobenzone becomes unstable when combined with mineral sunscreens.
As for safety, avobenzone has a pretty good safety profile. It counts as non-irritating, and unlike some other chemical sunscreens, it shows no estrogenic effect. The maximum concentration of avobenzone permitted is 5% in the EU and 3% in the US.
Ethylhexyl Triazone is a new generation, chemical sunscreen (not available in the US due to impossible FDA regulations) that gives the highest photo-stable absorption of all available UVB filters today. It protects in the UVB range (280-320nm) with a peak protection of 314nm. It is an oil soluble, odorless, colorless powder that works well in fragrance-free formulas. It can be used up to 5% worldwide except for the US and Canada.
An alkaline (high pH, aka basic) material that is used to set the pH of the cosmetic formula to the right value.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A natural polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) that can be found in the cell wall of green plants. It is a natural and sustainable helper ingredient that can improve the absorption of the formula and it also reduces oiliness on the skin. It is also used as a sensory additive and thickening agent.
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.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A spray-dried or freeze-dried version of Aloe Leaf Juice. The point of both drying methods is to make water evaporate from the juice and leave just the "useful" components behind.
So the aloe powder has similar soothing, emollient and moisturizing properties as the juice. You can read a bit more about the juice here.
Though its long name does not reveal it, this polymer molecule (big molecule from repeated subunits or monomers) is a relative to the super common, water-loving thickener, Carbomer. Both of them are big molecules that contain acrylic acid units, but Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer also contains some other monomers that are hydrophobic, i.e. water-hating.
This means that our molecule is part water- and part oil-loving, so it not only works as a thickener but also as an emulsion stabilizer. It is very common in gel-type formulas that also contain an oil-phase as well as in cleansers as it also works with most cleansing agents (unlike a lot of other thickeners).
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-called rheology 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).
Super common little helper ingredient that helps products to remain nice and stable for a longer time. It does so by neutralizing the metal ions in the formula (that usually get into there from water) that would otherwise cause some not so nice changes.
It is typically used in tiny amounts, around 0.1% or less.
It’s the - sodium form - cousin of the famous NMF, hyaluronic acid (HA). If HA does not tell you anything we have a super detailed, geeky explanation about it here. The TL; DR version of HA is that it's a huge polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) found in the skin that acts as a sponge helping the skin to hold onto water, being plump and elastic. HA is famous for its crazy water holding capacity as it can bind up to 1000 times its own weight in water.
As far as skincare goes, sodium hyaluronate and hyaluronic acid are pretty much the same and the two names are used interchangeably. As cosmetic chemist kindofstephen writes on reddit "sodium hyaluronate disassociates into hyaluronic acid molecule and a sodium atom in solution".
In spite of this, if you search for "hyaluronic acid vs sodium hyaluronate" you will find on multiple places that sodium hyaluronate is smaller and can penetrate the skin better. Chemically, this is definitely not true, as the two forms are almost the same, both are polymers and the subunits can be repeated in both forms as much as you like. (We also checked Prospector for sodium hyaluronate versions actually used in cosmetic products and found that the most common molecular weight was 1.5-1.8 million Da that absolutely counts as high molecular weight).
What seems to be a true difference, though, is that the salt form is more stable, easier to formulate and cheaper so it pops up more often on the ingredient lists.
If you wanna become a real HA-and-the-skin expert you can read way more about the topic at hyaluronic acid (including penetration-questions, differences between high and low molecular weight versions and a bunch of references to scientific literature).
- 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
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| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | antimicrobial/antibacterial |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | solvent | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | buffering |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | chelating |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0-3, 0-3 |