Highlights
Key Ingredients
Other Ingredients
Skim through
Ingredient name | what-it-does | irr., com. | ID-Rating |
---|---|---|---|
Glycine Soja Oil | emollient, perfuming | 0, 3 | goodie |
Ricinus Communis Seed Oil | emollient, perfuming | 0, 0-1 | |
Laureth-4 | emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing | 4, 5 | |
Mipa-Laureth Sulfate | surfactant/cleansing, surfactant/cleansing | ||
Poloxamer 101 | emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing | ||
Laureth-9 | emulsifying | ||
Propylene Glycol | moisturizer/humectant, solvent | 0, 0 | |
Aqua | solvent | ||
BHT | antioxidant, preservative | ||
Propyl Gallate | antioxidant, perfuming |
Eucerin Shower Oil And GelIngredients explained
The emollient plant oil coming from the soybean. It is considered to be a nice, cost-effective base oil with moisturizing properties. As for its fatty acid profile, it contains 48-59% barrier-repairing linoleic acid, 17-30% nourishing oleic acid and also some (4.5-11%) potentially anti-inflammatory linolenic acid.
Castor oil is sourced from the castor bean plant native to tropical areas in Eastern Africa and the Mediterranean Basin. It is an age-old ingredient (it’s over 4,000 years old!) with many uses including as a shoe polish, food additive and motor lubricant. You would be reasonable to think that putting shoe polish on your face wouldn’t be the best idea, but it turns out castor oil has some unique properties that make it a stalwart in thick and gloss-giving formulas (think lipsticks and highlighters).
So what is so special about it? The answer is its main fatty acid, called ricinoleic acid (85-95%). Unlike other fatty acids, ricinoleic acid has an extra water-loving part (aka -OH group) on its fatty chain that gives Castor Oil several unique properties. First, it is thicker than other oils, then its solubility is different (e.g. dissolves in alcohol but not in mineral oil), and it allows all kinds of chemical modifications other oils do not, hence the lots of Castor oil-derived ingredients. It is also more glossy than other oils, in fact, it creates the highest gloss of all natural oils when applied to the skin. Other than that, it is a very effective emollient and occlusive that reduces skin moisture loss so it is quite common in smaller amounts in moisturizers.
While it is very unlikely (and this is true for pretty much every ingredient), cases of reactions to castor oil have been reported, so if your skin is sensitive, it never hurts to patch test.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
- 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)
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.
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. It's not a new ingredient, it has been used both as a food and cosmetics additive since the 1970s. Plenty of studies tried to examine if it's a carcinogen or not. This Truth in Aging article details the situation and also writes that all these studies examine BHT when taken orally.
As for cosmetics, the CIR (Cosmetic Ingredient Review) concluded that the amount of BHT used in cosmetic products is low (usually around 0.01-0.1%), it does not penetrate skin far enough to be absorbed into the bloodstream and it is safe to use in cosmetics.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
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what‑it‑does | emollient | perfuming |
irritancy, com. | 0, 3 |
what‑it‑does | emollient | perfuming |
irritancy, com. | 0, 0-1 |
what‑it‑does | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
irritancy, com. | 4, 5 |
what‑it‑does | surfactant/cleansing | surfactant/cleansing |
what‑it‑does | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
what‑it‑does | emulsifying |
what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | solvent |
irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
what‑it‑does | solvent |
what‑it‑does | antioxidant | preservative |
what‑it‑does | antioxidant | perfuming |