Ingredients
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
Normal (well kind of - it's purified and deionized) water. Usually the main solvent in cosmetic products.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | emollient | viscosity controlling |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
It's a nice glycerin-based humectant and emollient that gives skin a smooth and luxurious feel.
| 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.
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| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
A handy multifunctional ingredient that works as a preservative booster, as well as an antioxidant and soothing agent.
| what‑it‑does | emollient | solvent |
A water-loving emollient and humectant that gives a nice skin feel and slip to the product. It works well with facial toners.
A big polymer (created from repeating subunits) molecule that works as a film former and hair fixative agent. It is a modified version of the first and classic hair fixative, PVP
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| what‑it‑does | solvent |
A type of glycol. Its main job is to be a solvent, but it has also very good antimicrobial properties and acts as a true preservative booster.
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| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
A common helper ingredient that stabilizes emulsions and helps to thicken up products.
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| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
An amino acid that is one of the primary building blocks of hair keratin and skin collagen. It's a natural moisturizing factor and might also help to speed up wound healing.
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| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
A kind of polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) that helps to create beautiful gel-like textures. It's also a texturizer and thickener for oil-in-water emulsions.
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| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | soothing |
Green Tea - one of the most researched natural ingredients that contains the superstar actives called catechins. It has proven antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and anticarcinogenic properties.
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| what‑it‑does | emollient |
A very common emollient that makes your skin feel nice and smooth. Comes from coconut oil and glycerin, it’s light-textured, clear, odorless and non-greasy.
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| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | preservative |
It's the acronym for Butylated Hydroxy Toluene. It's a common synthetic antioxidant that's used as a preservative.There is some controversy around BHT.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
Soluble Collagen refers to the big, natural collagen molecules mostly extracted from fish or bovine skin. Spotting collagen on the ingredient list, you might think that, aha, this must be there to supplement the collagen content of our own skin, but you have to know that collagen is a huge-huge molecule
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| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | emollient |
A type of lipid that's the major component of all cell membranes. As for skincare, it works as an emollient and skin-identical ingredient. It's also often used to create liposomes.
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| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| what‑it‑does | cell-communicating ingredient |
Vitamin A - the most proven anti-aging ingredient available OTC that can smooth wrinkles and make skin firmer. It might also be useful for acne-prone skin as it normalizes keratinization.
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| what‑it‑does | cell-communicating ingredient |
If you are reading here, we are pretty sure the words retinoids and retinol ring a bell, but if not, you are seriously missing out, please click here immediately to catch up. The TL;DR version is that retinoids are the royal family of skincare with tretinoin being the king, the only FDA-approved ingredient to treat the signs of photoaging.
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| what‑it‑does | cell-communicating ingredient |
The newest member of the retinoid family. Its big promise is that it's similarly active as retinoic acid but without the irritation. For now, it's a very promising but not properly proven active both for anti-aging and acne treatment.
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| 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.
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| what‑it‑does | preservative |
Pretty much the current IT-preservative. It’s safe and gentle, and can be used up to 1% worldwide.
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| what‑it‑does | preservative |
A not so strong preservative that doesn’t really work against bacteria, but more against mold and yeast.
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| what‑it‑does | preservative |
A preservative that works mainly against fungi. Has to be combined with other preservatives.
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| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
A type of sugar molecule, that has water-binding properties and helps to keep your skin hydrated.
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| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | solvent |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
A common glycol that improves the freeze-thaw stability of products. It's also a solvent, humectant and to some extent a penetration enhancer.
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| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
Q10 - an antioxidant found naturally in human cells where it plays an important role in energy production. As for skincare, it works as an awesome antioxidant that might also be able to reduce wrinkle depth.
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| what‑it‑does | soothing | antioxidant | moisturizer/humectant |
Centella Asiatica - or sometimes also called Gotu Kola or Cica - has been used in folk medicine for hundreds of years. It’s traditionally used to improve small wounds, burns and scratches and it’s also a well known anti-inflammatory agent for eczema.
Recently science has taken an interest in Gotu Kola as well and it turns out it really has many active compounds with several benefits.
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| what‑it‑does | emollient | moisturizer/humectant |
The chemically chopped up version of the big protein molecule, collagen. It is often derived from fish or bovine sources and works as a nice moisturizer and humectant that helps the skin to hold onto water.
To understand a bit more what Hydrolyzed Collagen is, you have to know that proteins are large chains of amino acids connected with so-called peptide bonds.
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| 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.
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| what‑it‑does | chelating |
A chelating agent that helps to preserve cosmetic products by neutralizing the metal ions (especially iron) in the formula (that usually get into there from water).
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| what‑it‑does | emollient | emulsifying |
It's the chemically chopped up version of normal lecithin. Most often it's used to create liposomes and to coat and stabilize some other ingredient.
| what‑it‑does | solvent | moisturizer/humectant |
A multi-functional, silky feeling helper ingredient that can do quite many things. It's used as an emulsion stabilizer, solvent, and a broad spectrum antimicrobial.
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| what‑it‑does | solvent | emulsifying | perfuming | surfactant/cleansing |
| irritancy, com. | 0-1, 0-2 |
Similar to other glycols, it's a helper ingredient used as a solvent, or to thin out thick formulas and make them more nicely spreadable.
Hexylene Glycol is also part a preservative blend named Lexgard®
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| 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.
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| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | emollient |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
It's one of the important lipids that can be found naturally in the outer layer of the skin. About 25% of the goopy stuff between our skin cells consists of cholesterol.
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| what‑it‑does | cell-communicating ingredient |
An anti-aging peptide that can visibly reduce the length and depth of wrinkles, at least according to its manufacturer. In vitro (meaning it was done in the lab, not on real people) studies show that it enhances epidermal regeneration, collagen type I and III synthesis as well as the synthesis of other important skin proteins.
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| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
Ceramides make up 50% of the goopy stuff that's between our skin cells and play a super important role in having a healthy skin barrier and keeping the skin hydrated.
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| what‑it‑does | chelating |
An abbreviation that pops up on a lot of ingredient lists. It stands for EthyleneDiamineTetraacetic Acid and it's a famous molecule for being an excellent chelating agent, i.e. a molecule that can bind to metal ions (coming usually from water) and make them harmless in a cosmetic formula.
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| what‑it‑does | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
It's a common little helper ingredient that helps water and oil to mix together. Also, it can help to increase the solubility of some other ingredients in the formula.
A type of bucket or donut-shaped molecule with a water-loving outer side and an oil-loving inner side that is used mostly to encapsulate other actives in cosmetics.
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| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
The main part of a sugar based moisturizing complex called Aquaxyl. Can "harmonize the skin's hydrous flow" by optimizing water reserves and limiting water loss.
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| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
A sugar derived moisturizer that's part of a moisturizing trio called Aquaxyl. You can read more about its magic properties at xylitylglucoside.
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| 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.
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| 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'
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| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
A type of sugar that's part of a moisturizing trio called Aquaxyl. You can read more about its magic properties at xylitylglucoside.
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| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
A very common silicone that gives both skin and hair a silky smooth feel. It also forms a protective barrier on the skin and fills in fine lines. Also used for scar treatment.
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| what‑it‑does | soothing | moisturizer/humectant |
A spray-dried or freeze-dried version of Aloe Leaf Juice. Has similar soothing, emollient and moisturizing properties as the juice itself.
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| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
Sugar - as a skincare ingredient it has water-binding properties, which means that it helps to keep your skin nice and hydrated.
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| what‑it‑does | buffering |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 2 |
Helps to set the pH of a cosmetic formulation to be right. It’s very alkaline.
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| 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.
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