Anti-acne Cleaning Soap
Highlights
Key Ingredients
Other Ingredients
Skim through
| Ingredient name | what-it-does | irr., com. | ID-Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stearic Acid | emollient, viscosity controlling | 0, 2-3 | |
| Propylene Glycol | moisturizer/humectant, solvent | 0, 0 | |
| Sorbitol | moisturizer/humectant | 0, 0 | |
| Glycerin | skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | 0, 0 | superstar |
| Lauric Acid | anti-acne, surfactant/cleansing, emulsifying | 1, 4 | goodie |
| Melaleuca Alternifolia (Tea Tree Leaf Oil | soothing, anti-acne, antioxidant, antimicrobial/antibacterial, perfuming | goodie | |
| Fragrance | perfuming | icky | |
| Water | solvent | ||
| Sodium Hydroxide | buffering | ||
| Betaine Salicylate | exfoliant, antimicrobial/antibacterial | ||
| Butylene Glycol | moisturizer/humectant, solvent | 0, 1 | |
| Phosphatidylcholine | emulsifying | ||
| Ceramide NP | skin-identical ingredient | goodie | |
| 1,2-Hexanediol | solvent | ||
| Sodium Stearoyl Glutamate | emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing | ||
| Hydroxyacetophenone | antioxidant, preservative | ||
| Ci 42090 | colorant | ||
| Ci 19140 | colorant |
Disaar Beauty Skincare Anti-acne Cleaning SoapIngredients explained
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).
- It's a helper ingredient that improves the freeze-thaw stability of products
- It's also a solvent, humectant and to some extent a penetration enhancer
- It has a bad reputation among natural cosmetics advocates but cosmetic scientists and toxicology experts do not agree (read more in the geeky details section)
It's a sweet tasting sugar substitute that helps your skin to hold onto water when used in cosmetic products. It also helps to thicken up products and give them a bit more slip.
- 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 12 carbon length fatty acid that can be found naturally in coconut milk, coconut oil, laurel oil, and palm kernel oil. It's also in breast milk. As a skincare ingredient, it can be used as an emulsifier or as a cleansing agent.
What's more, there is emerging research about lauric acid being a good anti-acne ingredient. A 2009 study found that the lowest concentration to prevent evil acne-causing P. acnes growth of lauric acid is over 15 times lower than that of gold standard anti-acne ingredient benzoyl peroxide.
Though the studies are only in-vitro (made in the lab, not on real people), and it also has a high comedogenicity index, it might be worth a try if you are prone to inflamed acne (the type that's caused by P. acnes bacteria).
The famous tea tree oil. One of the best known essential oils which comes from Australia where it has been used for almost 100 years for its antiseptic and anti-inflammatory actions. Legend has it that the medicinal benefits of the oil were considered so important that Australian soldiers were supplied with some tea tree oil in their World War II military kit.
Similar to other essential oils, tea tree oil is a very complex chemical mixture consisting of about 100 components, the major ones being terpinen-4-ol (40%), γ-Terpinene (23%) and α-Terpinene (10%). Terpinen-4-ol is considered to be the main active component but as a great article in Clinical Microbiology Reviews states "while some TTO components may be considered less active, none can be considered inactive" and most components contribute to TTO's strong antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal effects.
Regarding skincare and tea tree oil, its most well-known effect is probably being a well established anti-acne ingredient. Multiple studies confirm that TTO is effective against the evil acne-causing bacteria called P. acnes and the effectiveness of 5% TTO gel is comparable to the gold standard anti-acne treatment, 5% Benzoyl Peroxide lotion. You need to be a bit more patient with TTO, though, as its effects come slower but also with fewer side effects.
Regarding TTO and sensitive skin, we say that you should be careful. Even if your skin is not sensitive you should never put undiluted TTO on your skin. Luckily, it contains only very small amounts of the common allergens (such as limonene), but irritant and allergic reactions still happen, especially by oxidation products that occur in older or not properly stored oil. So if you have some pure TTO at home, know that storage matters, keep it in a cool, dry, dark place and use it up in a reasonable amount of time.
Overall, we do not often give a goodie status to essential oils, but we feel that TTO's unique antibacterial and anti-acne properties with its minimal allergen content warrant an exception. If your skin is acne-prone, TTO is something to experiment with.
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!).
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 unfancy name for it is lye. It’s a solid white stuff that’s very alkaline and used in small amounts to adjust the pH of the product and make it just right.
For example, in case of AHA or BHA exfoliants, the right pH is super-duper important, and pH adjusters like sodium hydroxide are needed.
BTW, lye is not something new. It was already used by ancient Egyptians to help oil and fat magically turn into something else. Can you guess what? Yes, it’s soap. It still often shows up in the ingredient list of soaps and other cleansers.
Sodium hydroxide in itself is a potent skin irritant, but once it's reacted (as it is usually in skin care products, like exfoliants) it is totally harmless.
The combination of famous exfoliant, salicylic acid and gentle moisturizer, betaine. It counts as a mild exfoliant and natural moisturizer, skin smoothing agent.
You usually find this guy in K-Beauty products, as due to regulations, pure salicylic acid can be used only in tiny amounts in South-Korean formulations. A generally accepted ballpark number is that betaine salicylate is twice as gentle as salicylic acid, i.e. a 4% betaine salicylate product is similar to a 2% salicylic acid one.
Butylene glycol, or let’s just call it BG, is a multi-tasking colorless, syrupy liquid. It’s a great pick for creating a nice feeling product.
BG’s main job is usually to be a solvent for the other ingredients. Other tasks include helping the product to absorb faster and deeper into the skin (penetration enhancer), making the product spread nicely over the skin (slip agent), and attracting water (humectant) into the skin.
It’s an ingredient whose safety hasn’t been questioned so far by anyone (at least not that we know about). BG is approved by Ecocert and is also used enthusiastically in natural products. BTW, it’s also a food additive.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.One of the many types of ceramides that can be found naturally in the upper layer of the skin. Ceramides make up about 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. It works even better when combined with its pal, Ceramide 1.
We wrote way more about ceramides at ceramide 1, so click here to know more.
A really multi-functional helper ingredient that can do several things in a skincare product: it can bring a soft and pleasant feel to the formula, it can act as a humectant and emollient, it can be a solvent for some other ingredients (for example it can help to stabilize perfumes in watery products) and it can also help to disperse pigments more evenly in makeup products. And that is still not all: it can also boost the antimicrobial activity of preservatives.
An amino acid-based emulsifier that helps water and oil to mix and stay that way. It is considered as natural, environmentally friendly, and hypoallergenic.
A handy multifunctional ingredient that works as a preservative booster, as well as an antioxidant and soothing agent.
CI 42090 or Blue 1 is a super common synthetic colorant in beauty & food. Used alone, it adds a brilliant smurf-like blue color, combined with Tartrazine, it gives the fifty shades of green.
Ci 19140 or Tartrazine is a super common colorant in skincare, makeup, medicine & food. It’s a synthetic lemon yellow that's used alone or mixed with other colors for special shades.
FDA says it's possible, but rare, to have an allergic-type reaction to a color additive. As an example, it mentions that Ci 19140 may cause itching and hives in some people but the colorant is always labeled so that you can avoid it if you are sensitive.
You may also want to take a look at...
| what‑it‑does | emollient | viscosity controlling |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 2-3 |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | solvent |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | anti-acne | surfactant/cleansing | emulsifying |
| irritancy, com. | 1, 4 |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | anti-acne | antioxidant | antimicrobial/antibacterial | perfuming |
| what‑it‑does | perfuming |
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | buffering |
| what‑it‑does | exfoliant | antimicrobial/antibacterial |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | solvent |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | colorant |
| what‑it‑does | colorant |