Ingredients overview
Highlights
Key Ingredients
Other Ingredients
Skim through
Ecooking Repair ConditionerIngredients 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.
The extract coming from the juice containing leaves of the Aloe vera plant. It's usually a hydroglycolic extract (though oil extract for the lipid parts also exists) that has similar moisturizing, emollient and anti-inflammatory properties as the juice itself. We have written some more about aloe here.
An extremely common multitasker ingredient that gives your skin a nice soft feel (emollient) and gives body to creams and lotions. It also helps to stabilize oil-water mixes (emulsions), though it does not function as an emulsifier in itself. Its typical use level in most cream type formulas is 2-3%.
It’s a so-called fatty alcohol, a mix of cetyl and stearyl alcohol, other two emollient fatty alcohols. Though chemically speaking, it is alcohol (as in, it has an -OH group in its molecule), its properties are totally different from the properties of low molecular weight or drying alcohols such as denat. alcohol. Fatty alcohols have a long oil-soluble (and thus emollient) tail part that makes them absolutely non-drying and non-irritating and are totally ok for the skin.
A viscous oily liquid (ester) that is known for providing extraordinarily long-lasting coverage. It is used to enhance water resistance in sunscreen formulas or to give long-wear properties to makeup items such as lipsticks or smudge-proof mascaras.
There is definitely some craze going on for coconut oil both in the healthy eating space (often claimed to be the healthiest oil to cook with but this is a topic for another site) and in the skin and hair care space.
We will talk here about the latter two and see why we might want to smear it all over ourselves. Chemically speaking, coconut oil has a unique fatty acid profile. Unlike many plant oils that mostly contain unsaturated fatty acids (fatty acids with double bonds and kinky structure such as linoleic or oleic), coconut oil is mostly saturated (fatty acids with single bonds only) and its most important fatty acid is Lauric Acid (about 50%). Saturated fatty acids have a linear structure that can stack nice and tight and hence they are normally solid at room temperature. Coconut oil melts around 25 °C so it is solid in the tub but melts on contact with the skin.
The saturated nature of coconut oil also means that it is a heavy-duty-oil ideal for dry skin types. A double-blind research confirmed that extra virgin coconut oil is as effective in treating xerosis (aka very dry skin) as mineral oil. Another study found that coconut oil is more effective than mineral oil in treating mild to moderate atopic dermatitis (aka eczema) in children.
So when it comes to dry skin, coconut oil is a goodie, no question there. The question is if it is good or bad for acne-prone skin. Its main fatty acid, Lauric Acid has some research showing that it is a promising ingredient against evil acne-causing bacteria, P. acnes but at the same time, both Lauric Acid and coconut oil have a very high comedogenic rating (4 out of 5). Though comedogenic ratings are not very reliable, anecdotal evidence (i.e. people commenting in forums) shows that people have mixed experiences. While some claim that it worked wonders on their acne others say that it gave them serious blackheads and zits. Try it at your own risk.
As for hair care, coconut oil has pretty solid research showing that it can penetrate into the hair very well (better than mineral oil and sunflower oil) and it can prevent hair protein loss as well as combing damage. If you have problems with damaged hair, split ends, coconut oil is worth trying as a pre- or/and post-wash treatment. Labmuffin has an awesome blogpost explaining in more detail why coconut oil is good for your hair.
A couple of other things worth mentioning: coconut oil might help with wound healing (promising animal study), it has some antifungal activity (against dermatophytes that cause the thing known as ringworm) and it also works as an insect repellent against black flies.
Overall, coconut oil is definitely a goodie for the hair and dry skin. If that warrants for the magic oil status it enjoys, we don't know.
A naturally derived (Ecocert approved) colorless to yellowish oily liquid that's touted as a natural silicone alternative. It's claimed to have great sensorial properties: light but caring, velvety, silky and non-sticky.
It's also great at dissolving UV-filters in sunscreens or dispersing pigments in makeup products. You can also bump into Isoamyl Laurate in hair care products as a hair conditioner that makes combing easier without build up.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A nice little helper ingredient that can thicken up cosmetic products and create beautiful gel formulas. It's derived from cellulose, the major component of the cell wall of green plants. It is compatible with most co-ingredients and gives a very good slip to the formulas.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
- 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
A so-called fatty (the good, non-drying kind of) alcohol that does all kinds of things in a skincare product: it makes your skin feel smooth and nice (emollient), helps to thicken up products and also helps water and oil to blend (emulsifier). Can be derived from coconut or palm kernel oil.
- It’s the second most researched AHA after glycolic acid
- It gently lifts off dead skin cells to reveal newer, fresher, smoother skin
- It also has amazing skin hydrating properties
- In higher concentration (10% and up) it improves skin firmness, thickness and wrinkles
- Choose a product where you know the concentration and pH value because these two greatly influence effectiveness
- Don’t forget to use your sunscreen (in any case but especially so next to an AHA product)
A 100% natural and plant-derived moisturizer that mimics the natural carbohydrate fraction found in the upper layer of the skin. Its special magic power is to bind to the skin stronger and longer than other moisturizer ingredients do so it can keep the skin hydrated longer than usual.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
An easy-to-formulate, commonly used, nice to have ingredient that’s also called pro-vitamin B5. As you might guess from the “pro” part, it’s a precursor to vitamin B5 (whose fancy name is pantothenic acid).
Its main job in skincare products is to moisturise the skin. It’s a humectant meaning that it can help the skin to attract water and then hold onto it. There is also research showing that panthenol can help our skin to produce more lovely lipids that are important for a strong and healthy skin barrier.
Another great thing about panthenol is that it has anti-inflammatory and skin protecting abilities. A study shows that it can reduce the irritation caused by less-nice other ingredients (e.g. fragrance, preservatives or chemical sunscreens) in the product.
Research also shows that it might be useful for wound healing as it promotes fibroblast (nice type of cells in our skin that produce skin-firming collagen) proliferation.
If that wasn’t enough panthenol is also useful in nail and hair care products. A study shows that a nail treatment liquide with 2% panthenol could effectively get into the nail and significantly increase the hydration of it.
As for the hair the hydration effect is also true there. Panthenol might make your hair softer, more elastic and helps to comb your hair more easily.
In itself, it's an antistatic (stops your hair from flying around because of electricity), hair conditioning and softening ingredient used mainly in haircare products.
Coupled with Cetearyl Alcohol, they form an easy to handle, super stable emulsifier duo that has exceptional spreadability and gives a pleasant final touch to the products.
A handy multi-tasker, white to light yellowish oil-loving wax that works very well in oil-in-water emulsions. It makes your skin feel nice and smooth (emollient), stabilizes oil-water mixes and gives body to them.
Oh, and one more thing: it's a so-called fatty alcohol - the good, emollient type of alcohol that is non-drying and non-irritating. It is often mixed with fellow fatty alcohol, Cetyl Alcohol, and the mixture is called Cetearyl Alcohol in the ingredient list.
- 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
A chemically chopped up version of wheat protein that consists mainly of amino acids (the building blocks), peptides (a couple of amino acids together), and proteins (lots of amino acids together).
It has moisturizing and film-forming properties and might be able to counteract the irritating effects of cleansing agents in cleansers and shampoos. It can also condition and repair damaged hair leaving it soft, silky and smooth.
It's the seed extract of a plant called amaranth or love-lies-bleeding. It's a really ancient plant grown by Aztecs, Incas and Mayas as their main food and they called it “the golden grain”. They believed it had supernatural powers. Nowadays it's a popular health food because the seeds have great nutritional benefits and are high in protein.
As for skincare there are two types of the seed extract:
1, The aqueous extract contains a high concentration of peptides and polysaccharides and helps to improve the combability and manageability of damaged hair.
2. The oily extract is more common and acts as other similar emollient plant oils. It's rich in non-saturated fatty acids (linoleic acid/omega-6 and oleic acid/omega-9) and squalene and is a great moisturizer and emollient for both skin and hair.
It's one of those things that help your cosmetics not to go wrong too soon, aka a preservative. It’s not a strong one and doesn’t really work against bacteria, but more against mold and yeast. To do that it has to break down to its active form, sorbic acid. For that to happen, there has to be water in the product and the right pH value (pH 3-4).
But even if everything is right, it’s not enough on its own. If you see potassium sorbate you should see some other preservative next to it too.
BTW, it’s also a food preservative and even has an E number, E202.
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, beautiful yellow flower during the summer - or you do all of these and probably even more. And by even more we mean putting it all over your 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 evidence that 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 with fatty 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.
PCA stands for Pyrrolidone Carboxylic Acid and though it might not sound like it, it is a thing that can be found naturally in our skin. The sodium salt form of PCA is an important skin-identical ingredient and great natural moisturizer that helps the skin to hold onto water and stay nicely hydrated.
The sodium salt of lactic acid. It's a great skin moisturizer and also used to regulate the pH value of the cosmetic formula. It's a natural ingredient approved by both ECOCERT and COSMOS.
A semi-essential (infants cannot synthesize it, but adults can) amino acid that is one of the primary building blocks of hair keratin and skin collagen. It's a natural moisturizing factor, a skin hydrator and might also help to speed up wound healing.
Arginine usually has a positive charge (cationic) that makes it substantive to skin and hair (those are more negatively charged surfaces) and an excellent film former. Thanks to the positive charge, it also creates a complex with AHAs (AHAs like to lose a hydrogen ion and be negatively charged, so the positive and the negative ions attract each other) that causes a "time-release AHA effect" and reduces the irritation associated with AHAs.
A non-essential amino acid (important building block of collagen and elastin) that hydrates the skin. It is also used to set the pH of the cosmetic product (buffering).
PCA stands for Pyrrolidone Carboxylic Acid and though it might not sound like it, it is a thing that can be found naturally in our skin. In fact, after amino acids, it is the second biggest NMF component of the skin with 12% being PCA of the NMF composition of normal skin. So similar to other NMFs, it's a skin goodie that helps the skin to hold onto water and stay nicely hydrated.
A helper ingredient that helps to make the products stay nice longer, aka preservative. It works mainly against fungi.
It’s pH dependent and works best at acidic pH levels (3-5). It’s not strong enough to be used in itself so it’s always combined with something else, often with potassium sorbate.
A non-essential amino acid (the building blocks of skin proteins, like collagen or elastin), that the body can produce itself, but its production decreases with age. When you put it all over your face, it works as a moisturizer and maybe more.
According to great skincare blog Futurederm, glycine might help with wound healing and tissue repair and when used together with other amino acids, leucine and proline it might improve wrinkles.
BTW, it's also a building block of a bunch of important and famous peptides, including copper-tripeptide-1, palmitoyl tripeptide-1 or palmitoyl hexapeptide-12.
A non-essential amino acid (a building block of skin proteins like collagen or elastin) that hydrates the skin.
A colorless liquid used in small amounts as a so-called masking ingredient, meaning it can hide the natural not-so-nice smell of other cosmetic ingredients. It has a nice rose-like scent and can be found in several essential oils such as rose, neroli or geranium. It also has some antimicrobial activity and can boost the performance of traditional preservatives.
Serine is an amino acid that most often comes to the formula as part of a moisturizing complex. It's a non-essential amino acid (meaning that our body can synthesize it) and serves as a water-binding ingredient.
In general, amino acids are great skincare ingredients that play an important role in proper skin hydration but there is not much info out there about what specifically serine can do for the skin.
An essential amino acid (a building block of skin proteins like collagen) that our body cannot produce itself but has to take from external sources, like diet.
It's a branched chain amino acid that is claimed to enhance energy, increase endurance and aid in muscle tissue recovery and repair when taken as a supplement. It's not clear what valine does when you put it on the skin, but as all amino acids, it must be at least a great skin hydrator.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Citric acid comes from citrus fruits and is an AHA. If these magic three letters don’t tell you anything, click here and read our detailed description on glycolic acid, the most famous AHA.
So citric acid is an exfoliant, that can - just like other AHAs - gently lift off the dead skin cells of your skin and make it more smooth and fresh.
There is also some research showing that citric acid with regular use (think three months and 20% concentration) can help sun-damaged skin, increase skin thickness and some nice hydrating things called glycosaminoglycans in the skin.
But according to a comparative study done in 1995, citric acid has less skin improving magic properties than glycolic or lactic acid. Probably that’s why citric acid is usually not used as an exfoliant but more as a helper ingredient in small amounts to adjust the pH of a formulation.
A little helper ingredient that is used to adjust the pH of the product. It also helps to keep products stay nice longer by neutralizing the metal ions in the formula (they usually come from water).
A branch-chained, essential amino acid that can be found in things like almond, cashew or soy protein. When taken orally it may promote protein synthesis. As for skincare - like all the amino acids - it's a skin-identical ingredient and moisturizer. It also seems to be useful as a barrier repair ingredient.
A non-essential amino acid (meaning that our body can produce it) that's also one of the major building blocks of collagen. According to the Futurederm blog, it might be able to improve wrinkles when combined with other amino acids, glycine and leucine
An essential amino acid that's also a key building block of collagen and elastin. When taken orally, it helps the digestive and intestinal tracts function more smoothly and also helps the absorption of nutrients. As for skincare, it is not clear what it does other than being a skin hydrator.
A semi-essential amino acid meaning that enough has to be eaten from it so that the body does not use up essential amino acids (that our body cannot produce itself) to synthesize it. It has an important role in regulating the immune defense, allergic reactions, and inflammatory processes in the body.
As for skincare, it's a skin moisturizer that might also protect from some skin infections.
An essential amino acid that the body cannot produce itself but has to take from the diet. Combined with UVA exposure, phenylalanine is used in the treatment of vitiligo (a pigmentation disorder where patches of the skin lose the pigment).
Exactly what it sounds: nice smelling stuff put into cosmetic products so that the end product also smells nice. Fragrance in the US and parfum in the EU is a generic term on the ingredient list that is made up of 30 to 50 chemicals on average (but it can have as much as 200 components!).
If you are someone who likes to know what you put on your face then fragrance is not your best friend - there's no way to know what’s really in it.
Also, if your skin is sensitive, fragrance is again not your best friend. It’s the number one cause of contact allergy to cosmetics. It’s definitely a smart thing to avoid with sensitive skin (and fragrance of any type - natural is just as allergic as synthetic, if not worse!).
You may also want to take a look at...
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | emollient | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | viscosity controlling | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| irritancy, com. | 1, 2 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | perfuming |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 4 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | viscosity controlling |
| irritancy, com. | 2, 2 |
| what‑it‑does | exfoliant | moisturizer/humectant | buffering |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | viscosity controlling | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| irritancy, com. | 2, 2 |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0-3, 0-3 |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | buffering | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | buffering |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | chelating | buffering |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | perfuming |