Ingredients

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

antioxidant | skin brightening

A stable form of Vitamin C, whose strong point is skin-brightening. It might also have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and collagen boosting abilities. [more]

what‑it‑does

solvent | viscosity controlling

A helper ingredient that can boost the performance and enhance the delivery of active ingredients. It can penetrate deep layers of the skin helping actives to do the same. [more]

what‑it‑does	moisturizer/humectant | solvent
irritancy, com.	0, 1

An often used glycol that works as a solvent, humectant, penetration enhancer and also gives a good slip to the products. [more]

what‑it‑does	solvent | moisturizer/humectant | perfuming
irritancy, com.	0, 0

A nice odorless liquid used mainly as a superior solubilizer and efficacy booster for cosmetic active ingredients such as vitamin C or benzoyl peroxide. [more]

what‑it‑does

chelating | buffering

A helper ingredient that is used to adjust the pH of the product. Also helps to keep products stay nice longer by neutralizing the metal ions in the formula. 

what‑it‑does

buffering

An AHA that comes from citrus fruits. It is usually used as a helper ingredient to adjust the pH of the formula. [more]

what‑it‑does

solvent

A multi-functional helper ingredient that acts as a humectant and emollient. It's also a solvent and can boost the effectiveness of preservatives. [more]

what‑it‑does

chelating | moisturizer/humectant

The neutralized form of gluconic acid. It's a great ingredient to neutralize metal (especially iron and copper) ions in a cosmetic product. This helps to prevent discoloration of the formula over time or rancidity of cosmetic oils. [more]

what‑it‑does

antioxidant | antimicrobial/antibacterial

A great antioxidant that is most famous for stabilizing the highly unstable Vitamin C. It also doubles the photoprotection abilities of Vit C+E formulas. [more]

what‑it‑does

emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing

A helper ingredient that helps water and oil to mix together. It usually comes to the formula as part of a solubilizer trio. [more]

what‑it‑does

preservative

Pretty much the current IT-preservative. It’s safe and gentle, and can be used up to 1% worldwide. [more]

what‑it‑does

emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing

what‑it‑does

antimicrobial/antibacterial

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

preservative

It can boost the effectiveness of phenoxyethanol (and other preservatives) and as an added bonus it feels nice on the skin too. [more]

what‑it‑does

emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing

A mildly viscous, amber-colored liquid that works as an emulsifier and surfactant. [more]

what‑it‑does	viscosity controlling
irritancy, com.	0, 0

These three letters stand for Poly Vinyl Pyrollidone, a big molecule created from repeated units of Vinyl Pyrrolidone, aka VP. Its main thing is being an important film former. [more]

what‑it‑does

chelating

A helper ingredient that helps to neutralize the metal ions in the formula (they usually come from water) so it stays nice longer. [more]

what‑it‑does

cell-communicating ingredient | skin brightening | anti-acne | moisturizer/humectant

A multi-functional skincare superstar that has clinically proven anti-aging, skin lightening, anti-inflammatory and barrier repair properties. [more]

what‑it‑does	skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant
irritancy, com.	0, 0

A real oldie but a goodie. Great natural moisturizer and skin-identical ingredient that plays an important role in skin hydration and general skin health. [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

viscosity controlling

A super commonly used thickener and emulsion stabilizer. [more]

what‑it‑does

viscosity controlling

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. [more]

what‑it‑does

chelating

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. [more]

what‑it‑does	soothing
irritancy, com.	0, 0

Super common soothing ingredient. It can be found naturally in the roots & leaves of the comfrey plant, but more often than not what's in the cosmetic products is produced synthetically. It's not only soothing but it' [more]

what‑it‑does	skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant
irritancy, com.	0, 0

It's the salt form of famous humectant and natural moisturizing factor, hyaluronic acid. It can bind huge amounts of water and it's pretty much the current IT-moisturizer. [more]

what‑it‑does

antioxidant | skin brightening

An optical isomer of naturally occurring arbutin (or beta-arbutin). Just like its sibling, alpha-arbutin is also a skin-brightening, depigmenting agent. [more]

what‑it‑does

skin-identical ingredient

Ceramides get quite a lot of hype recently and good news: there is a reason for that. But before we go into the details, let's just quickly define what the heck ceramides are: They are waxy lipids that can be found naturally in the outer layer of the skin (called stratum corneum - SC). [more]

We have to start by writing that there are about 900 citrus species in the world, and plenty of them are used to make different kinds of extracts used in cosmetics. This particular one, Citrus Aurantium Dulcis Fruit Extract is a very common ingredient, however, the species "Citrus Aurantium Dulcis" [more]

what‑it‑does

antioxidant | skin brightening