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Solv. Shake Off Shine Serum

Shake Off Shine Serum

It helps balance your skin’s natural sebum production, soothes your skin and helps to restore its healthy glow.
Uploaded by: leis123 on

Solv. Shake Off Shine Serum
Ingredients explained

What-it-does: emollient, solvent

A  clear, colorless and odorless, highly volatile (meaning it does not absorb into the skin but evaporates from it) liquid that's used as an emollient. It gives a nice non-oily light skin feel and it can improve the slip of the formula without leaving a tacky residue behind.

It's also popular in make-up products as its volatility makes mascaras and foundations last longer. If that would not be enough, it's also an excellent solvent, and it's a regular not only on the ingredients lists of make-ups but also on makeup removers.  

What-it-does: emollient

A clear, odorless, very light emollient ester that helps to achieve light textures. It has great spreadability, a good slip, and a silky skin feel.  It's ideal to solubilize sunscreen agents and fragrances. It's also touted as a volatile (evaporates from the skin rather than absorbs into it) silicone alternative, especially to replace Cyclomethicone mixes.

A high-molecular-weight silicone elastomer (rubber-like elastic material) that is usually blended with a base silicone fluid (such as dimethicone or cyclopentasiloxane) to give the formula a silky smooth feel and to act as a thickening agent.

Also-called: 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. 

What-it-does: emulsifying

PEG-30 Dipolyhydroxystearate is a popular water-in-oil (w/o) emulsifier, meaning that it helps the oily and watery parts of the formula to mix in a way where water droplets are dispersed in the continuous oil phase and not the other way round. 

Compared to the more commonly used oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions, w/o emulsions tend to be heavier and less cosmetically elegant, but PEG-30 Dipolyhydroxystearate is claimed to help with this and enables a light and elegant skin feel. It also has a molecular structure that creates large anchors both in the water and in the oil phase making the resulting emulsion not only cosmetically elegant but also very stable. 

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 >>

A vegetable origin (coconut or palm kernel oil and glucose) cleansing agent with great foaming abilities. It's also mild to the skin and readily biodegradable.

What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 2-3

A common multi-tasker fatty acid. It makes your skin feel nice and smooth (emollient), gives body to cream type products and helps to stabilize water and oil mixes (aka emulsions).

Also-called: Omega-9 fatty acid | What-it-does: emollient, emulsifying

A common fatty acid that can be found in lots of plant oils. Its name, "oleic", means derived from olive oil, a plant oil rich in oleic acid, but avocado, macadamia and marula oils, just to name a few, are also oleic rich.

Its chemical structure is monounsaturated, meaning it has one double bond (cis-9) that makes it less kinky than polyunsaturated fatty acids with multiple double bonds. Less kinkiness means that oleic acid and OA-rich oils are a bit thicker and heavier than their LA-rich siblings.

Panthenol - goodie
Also-called: Pro-Vitamin B5 | What-it-does: soothing, moisturizer/humectant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

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. 

Also-called: Zemea | What-it-does: solvent, moisturizer/humectant

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. 

What-it-does: emulsifying

A helper ingredient that's used as a co-emulsifier (meaning next to other emulsifiers in the formula it helps water and oil to mix) and as a stabilization agent for foams. Also, has some antimicrobial activity so it can help to boost the effectiveness of the preservative system.

Also-called: Clary Sage Oil

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Also-called: Rosemary Leaf Oil | What-it-does: antioxidant, antimicrobial/antibacterial

The essential oil coming from the leafs of the lovely herb, rosemary. It contains several fragrant components, including the well-known irritant, camphor (around 15%). It has a nice smell, is a potent antioxidant and it's also an antimicrobial agent.

If your skin is sensitive, it's probably a good idea to avoid it.

What-it-does: emollient

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

What-it-does: preservative

A 100% plant derived, natural (Ecocert approved) multi-functional ingredient that has emollient and moisturizing properties, can work as a co-emulsifier (meaning that next to other emulsifiers it can help water and oil to mix)  and even more importantly has a strong antimicrobial activity

Thanks to this last thing, it allows a lower percentage of traditional preservative or it might even be able to completely replace them. 

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 limonene it 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.

What-it-does: emollient, emulsifying

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Also-called: German Chamomile Flower Oil | What-it-does: soothing

The essential oil coming from the German Chamomile. It's loaded with the famous anti-inflammatory agent, bisabolol (approx. 50%) and contains 5% of soothing, antiallergic and blue color giving chamazulene. It also contains about 120 other things, including 28 terpenoids and 36 flavonoids (including some antioxidants like quercetin).

As for skincare, the essential oil is used mainly for it's anti-inflammatory and soothing properties

Bentonite - goodie
Also-called: Type of clay | What-it-does: viscosity controlling, absorbent/mattifier, emulsion stabilising | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

When it comes to oil-absorbing clay masks, bentonite will probably be one of the first ingredients on the INCI list. Technically bentonite clay is mostly montmorillonite + something else, and thanks to the something else bit, bentonite comes in different types and colors

The color depends on the mineral content of the clay: white bentonite is rich in boron and fluoride, yellow is rich in manganese and zinc, green is rich in copper, zinc, and manganese and the pink clay is rich in boron.

Also-called: Peppermint Oil | What-it-does: perfuming

The essential oil coming from steam distillation of freshly harvested, flowering peppermint sprigs. Its major component is menthol that gives the oil its well-known refreshing and cooling properties. Peppermint oil is traditionally used as an inhalant for cold and coughs and there is also some clinical data validating its use against headaches by rubbing a peppermint oil cream on the forehead. 

As for skincare, other than the nice grassy-minty smell and the refreshing sensations, we cannot write good things. It can be a skin irritant, so much so that it is a well-known counterirritant for muscle pains creating mild surface irritation to make things better in the deeper layers. But for everyday skincare, counterirritation is not something you wanna do, so we think that peppermint oil is better to avoid, especially if your skin is sensitive. 

Limonene - icky
What-it-does: perfuming, solvent, deodorant

A super common 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 smell nice but the problem is that it oxidizes on air exposure and the resulting stuff is not good for the skin. Oxidized limonene can cause allergic contact dermatitis and counts as a frequent skin sensitizer

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. 

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.

You may also want to take a look at...

what‑it‑does emollient | solvent
A  clear, colorless and odorless, highly volatile (meaning it does not absorb into the skin but evaporates from it) liquid that's used as an emollient and gives a nice, non-oily light skin-feel. [more]
what‑it‑does emollient
A clear, odorless, very light emollient ester that helps to achieve light textures. It has great spreadability, a good slip, and a silky skin feel. [more]
what‑it‑does viscosity controlling
A high-molecular-weight silicone elastomer (rubber-like elastic material) that is usually blended with a base silicone fluid (such as dimethicone or cyclopentasiloxane) to give the formula a silky smooth feel and to act as a thickening agent. [more]
what‑it‑does solvent
Normal (well kind of - it's purified and deionized) water. Usually the main solvent in cosmetic products. [more]
what‑it‑does emulsifying
PEG-30 Dipolyhydroxystearate is a popular water-in-oil (w/o) emulsifier, meaning that it helps the oily and watery parts of the formula to mix in a way where water droplets are dispersed in the continuous oil phase and not the other way round.  Compared to the more commonly used oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions, w/o emulsions tend to be heavier and less cosmetically elegant, but  [more]
what‑it‑does antioxidant
irritancy, com. 0-3, 0-3
Pure Vitamin E. Great antioxidant that gives significant photoprotection against UVB rays. Works in synergy with Vitamin C. [more]
what‑it‑does surfactant/cleansing
A vegetable origin (coconut or palm kernel oil and glucose) cleansing agent with great foaming abilities. It's also mild to the skin and readily biodegradable.
what‑it‑does emollient | viscosity controlling
irritancy, com. 0, 2-3
A common multi-tasker fatty acid that works as an emollient, thickener and emulsion stabilizer. [more]
what‑it‑does emollient | emulsifying
A common fatty acid that can be found in lots of plant oils. Its name, "oleic", means derived from olive oil, a plant oil rich in oleic acid, but avocado, macadamia and marula oils, just to name a few, are also oleic rich. Its chemical structure is monounsaturated, meaning it has one double bond (cis-9) that makes it less kinky than polyunsaturated fatty acids with multi [more]
what‑it‑does soothing | moisturizer/humectant
irritancy, com. 0, 0
Pro-Vitamin B5 is a goodie that moisturises the skin, has anti-inflammatory, skin protecting and wound healing properties. [more]
what‑it‑does solvent | moisturizer/humectant
A natural corn sugar derived glycol. It can be used to improve skin moisturization, as a solvent, to boost preservative efficacy or to influence the sensory properties of the end formula. [more]
what‑it‑does emulsifying
A helper ingredient that's used as a co-emulsifier and as a stabilization agent for foams. [more]
what‑it‑does antioxidant | antimicrobial/antibacterial
The essential oil coming from the leafs of rosemary. It has a nice smell, is a potent antioxidant and it's also an antimicrobial agent. Contains several fragrant components, including potential skin irritant, camphor (around 15%).
what‑it‑does emollient
what‑it‑does preservative
A natural multi-functional ingredient that has emollient and moisturizing properties, can work as a co-emulsifier and has a strong antimicrobial activity. [more]
what‑it‑does perfuming
A super common fragrance ingredient that can be found among others in lavender, ylang-ylang, bergamot or jasmine. The downside of it is that it oxidises on air exposure and might become allergenic. [more]
what‑it‑does emollient | emulsifying
what‑it‑does soothing
The essential oil from the German Chamomile. It's loaded with the famous anti-inflammatory agent, bisabolol (about 50%). Used for its anti-inflammatory and soothing properties. [more]
what‑it‑does viscosity controlling
irritancy, com. 0, 0
A highly absorbent clay that comes in different colors depending on its mineral content. It's excellent at absorbing things including sebum and gunk in the pores and it also has some skin soothing and "detoxifying" effect. [more]
what‑it‑does perfuming
The essential oil coming from steam distillation of freshly harvested, flowering peppermint sprigs. Its major component is menthol that gives the oil its well-known refreshing and cooling properties. [more]
what‑it‑does perfuming | solvent
A super common fragrance ingredient found naturally in many plants including citrus peel oils, rosemary or lavender. It autoxidizes on air exposure and counts as a common skin sensitizer. [more]
what‑it‑does antioxidant
irritancy, com. 0, 0
A form of vitamin E that works as an antioxidant. Compared to the pure form it's more stable, has longer shelf life, but it's also more poorly absorbed by the skin. [more]
what‑it‑does perfuming
A common fragrance ingredient that smells like rose and can be found in rose oil. [more]