
Fragrance Free All Purpose Balm
Ingredients overview
Highlights
Skim through
Ingredient name | what-it-does | irr., com. | ID-Rating |
---|---|---|---|
Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil* | emollient, perfuming | 0, 4 | goodie |
Beeswax* | emollient, viscosity controlling, emulsifying, perfuming | 0, 0-2 | |
Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter* | emollient, viscosity controlling | goodie | |
Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil* | emollient | 0, 0-2 | goodie |
Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter* | emollient | 0, 4 | goodie |
Maranta Arundinacea Root Powder (Arrowroot)* | |||
Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Extract* | antioxidant, soothing, emollient, abrasive/​scrub | goodie | |
Althaea Officinalis Root Extract (Marshmallow)* | |||
Chenopodium Quinoa Seed Extract (Quinoa)* | |||
Lactobacillus Ferment | soothing, preservative | goodie |
Cloud Island Fragrance Free All Purpose BalmIngredients explained
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.
It's the yellow, solid stuff that you probably know from beeswax candles. It's a natural material produced by honey bees to build their honeycomb.
As for skincare, it's used as an emollient and thickening agent. It's super common in lip balms and lipsticks.
Unless you live under a rock you must have heard about shea butter. It's probably the most hyped up natural butter in skincare today. It comes from the seeds of African Shea or Karite Trees and used as a magic moisturizer and emollient.
But it's not only a simple emollient, it regenerates and soothes the skin, protects it from external factors (such as UV rays or wind) and is also rich in antioxidants (among others vitamin A, E, F, quercetin and epigallocatechin gallate). If you are looking for rich emollient benefits + more, shea is hard to beat.
Jojoba is a drought resistant evergreen shrub native to South-western North America. It's known and grown for jojoba oil, the golden yellow liquid coming from the seeds (about 50% of the weight of the seeds will be oil).
At first glance, it seems like your average emollient plant oil: it looks like an oil and it's nourishing and moisturizing to the skin but if we dig a bit deeper, it turns out that jojoba oil is really special and unique: technically - or rather chemically - it's not an oil but a wax ester (and calling it an oil is kind of sloppy).
Theobroma means "food of the gods" in Greek though probably "treat of the people" would be more spot on. The cacao fruits and especially the seeds in it need no introduction as everyone knows them as the magical raw material of the magical sweet treat, chocolate (the flavour is composed of more than 1200(!) substances, and the exact chemical nature of it is not really understood, so it's indeed magic. :)).
As for skincare, cocoa butter counts as a rich emollient that can moisturize and nourish even the driest skin (think chapped hands or lips). It's solid at room temperature and melts nicely when you smear it on. It's loaded with good-for-the-skin things: it contains fatty acids, mainly oleic (35%), stearic (34%), and palmitic (25%) and it also has antioxidant vitamin E and polyphenols.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
When you hear oatmeal, you probably think of breakfast, but the finely ground version of whole oat kernels, aka colloidal oatmeal, can do good things for your skin, especially if it's dry, itchy or prone to skin-rashes or eczema.
Oat is loaded with compounds good for the body, inside or outside, such as soothing agent beta-glucan (5%), lipids (3-11%) including barrier repairing omega-3 and 6 fatty acids or phenolic antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents (avenanthramides).
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Lactobacillus ferment is an interesting probiotic ingredient with some promising properties.
First, according to a 2009 Estee Lauder patent, it’s a DNA repair enzyme and it can help to protect the skin against environmental aggressors.
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what‑it‑does | emollient | perfuming |
irritancy, com. | 0, 4 |
what‑it‑does | emollient | viscosity controlling | emulsifying | perfuming |
irritancy, com. | 0, 0-2 |
what‑it‑does | emollient | viscosity controlling |
what‑it‑does | emollient |
irritancy, com. | 0, 0-2 |
what‑it‑does | emollient |
irritancy, com. | 0, 4 |
what‑it‑does | antioxidant | soothing | emollient | abrasive/scrub |
what‑it‑does | soothing | preservative |