Vegan EGF Cica Water Sun Ampoule SPF50+ Pa++++
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Fromrier Vegan EGF Cica Water Sun Ampoule SPF50+ Pa++++Ingredients explained
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.
A clear, colorless, odorless oily liquid that makes the formula easily spreadable and also makes the skin nice and smooth (emollient). It's especially helpful in sunscreens as it can help to solubilize UV filters.
Propanediol is a natural alternative for the often used and often bad-mouthed propylene glycol. It's produced sustainably from corn sugar and it's Ecocert approved.
It's quite a multi-tasker: can be used to improve skin moisturization, as a solvent, to boost preservative efficacy or to influence the sensory properties of the end formula.
A nice, multi-functional helper ingredient that's especially useful in sunscreens. It can solubilize some commonly used UV-filters like Oxybenzone or Avobenzone and it can also help to increase the SPF rating of sunscreens. It's also cosmetically elegant, has excellent spreadability and a pleasant, moisturizing skin feel. Oh, and according to Wikipedia, it even helps to stabilize famously unstable UVA-filter, Avobenzone.
Ethylhexyl Triazone is a new generation, chemical sunscreen (not available in the US due to impossible FDA regulations) that gives the highest photo-stable absorption of all available UVB filters today. It protects in the UVB range (280-320nm) with a peak protection of 314nm. It is an oil soluble, odorless, colorless powder that works well in fragrance-free formulas. It can be used up to 5% worldwide except for the US and Canada.
A L'Oréal-group exclusive sunscreen agent commonly called Mexoryl SX. As opposed to most sunscreen agents, it is water soluble and protects in the UVA range with a peak absorbance at 345 nm.
A natural emulsifier that brings a soft and powdery feel to the formula. It's also very gentle and is recommended for sensitive or baby skin products.
- A multi-functional skincare superstar with several proven benefits for the skin
- Great anti-aging, wrinkle smoothing ingredient used at 4-5% concentration
- Fades brown spots alone or in combination with amino sugar, acetyl glucosamine
- Increases ceramide synthesis that results in a stronger, healthier skin barrier and better skin hydration
- Can help to improve several skin conditions including acne, rosacea, and atopic dermatitis
It's a little helper ingredient that helps to set the pH of the products to be right. It has an alkaline pH and can neutralize acidic ingredients.
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.
Diethylamino Hydroxybenzoyl Hexyl Benzoate is a new generation, chemical sunscreen agent (not available in the US due to impossible FDA regulations) that's designed for high UVA protection and high photostability. It gives sun protection in the whole UVA range (320-400 nm) with peak protection at 354nm. It can be used up to 10% worldwide except for the US and Canada.
A clear, colorless, low viscosity, volatile (does not absorb into the skin but rather evaporates from it) silicone fluid that has excellent spreadability and leaves a light, silky and smooth feel on the skin.
According to manufacturer info, its big advantage is that it's compatible both with other silicones and with natural plant oils, so it's a great ingredient to formulate products with good-sounding, consumer-pleasing vegetable oils but still maintain a cosmetically elegant, non-greasy and non-tacky feel.
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. According to manufacturer info, it's also a moisturizer and helps to make the product feel great on the skin. It works synergistically with preservatives and helps to improve water-resistance of sunscreens.
A spherical texturizing powder that's used as a texture enhancer and soft focus agent. It's claimed to give silicone type softness to the formula and also works as a (temporary) wrinkle filler.
A silicone-based, chemical sunscreen agent that protects the skin in the UVB range (290-320 nm) with a peak absorbance at 312 nm. It is a colorless to pale yellow liquid with nice and non-shiny (at least compared to most other sunscreens) sensorial properties.
It is a pretty good team player and can stabilize the famously unstable UVA filter, avobenzone and works especially well with Ensulizole to achieve high SPF protection. It is approved up to 10% as a sunscreen filter in the EU and most parts of the world, except for the United States.
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.
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. Just for hard-core geeks, the main biologically active compounds are pentacyclic triterpenoid saponins called asiaticoside, madecassoside, asiatic and madecassic acid (also called centellosides).
One of the biological activities of the centellosides is to be able to stimulate GAGs (glycosaminoglycans - polysaccharides that are part of the liquidy stuff between our skin cells), and especially hyaluronic acid synthesis in our skin. This is probably one of the reasons why Centella Asiatica Extract has nice skin moisturizing properties that was confirmed by a 25 people, four weeks study along with Centella's anti-inflammatory effects.
Madecassoside can also help in burn wound healing through increasing antioxidant activity and enhancing collagen synthesis. Asiaticoside was shown to increase antioxidant levels on rats skin when applied at 0.2%.
Centella Asiatica also often shows up in products that try to treat cellulite or striae. Of course, it cannot make a miracle but it might have some effect via regulating microcirculation and normalizing the metabolism in the cells of connective tissues.
Bottom line: Gotu Kola is a great plant ingredient with proven wound healing, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties. Nice to spot on any ingredient list.
It's the chemically chopped up version of normal lecithin. Most often it's used to create liposomes and to coat and stabilize other ingredients.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A super common, waxy, white, solid stuff that helps water and oil to mix together, gives body to creams and leaves the skin feeling soft and smooth.
Chemically speaking, it is the attachment of a glycerin molecule to the fatty acid called stearic acid. It can be produced from most vegetable oils (in oils three fatty acid molecules are attached to glycerin instead of just one like here) in a pretty simple, "green" process that is similar to soap making. It's readily biodegradable.
It also occurs naturally in our body and is used as a food additive. As cosmetic chemist Colins writes it, "its safety really is beyond any doubt".
Its INCI name is a bit of a mouthful, but Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine is worth recognizing it as it is one of the best sunscreen agents known today. Unfortunately, it's not FDA-approved so you will not find it in sunscreens coming from the US (not because it's not good, but because US regulations make it impossible for newer sunscreen agents to get approved), but it is widely available in other parts of the world like Europe, Australia or Asia.
It is a broad-spectrum (covers the whole UVB and UVA range, 280-400 nm) chemical sunscreen agent with peak protections at about 310 and 345 nm and unlike older UV filters, it's very photostable. It hardly deteriorates in the presence of UV light and it's also useful in stabilizing other less stable sunscreen agents, like the famous UVA protector, avobenzone.
It's a new generation sunscreen agent that was specifically designed for high SPF and good UVA protection and based on a 2007 study that compared 18 sunscreen agents available in the EU it really had the best SPF protection (they used the highest concentration allowed by EU regulations from each 18 sunscreens and Trinosorb S gave an SPF 20 all by itself).
It is an oil-soluble, slightly yellowish powder that is not absorbed into the skin too much. This is good news for a sunscreen agent as it needs to be on the surface of the skin to do its job properly. Regarding Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine side effects, we have good news here as well: it has a great safety profile and unlike a couple of other chemical sunscreens, Trinosorb S (and M) does not show estrogenic activity.
Overall, we think Trinosorb S is one of the best sunscreen options available today.
Are you into sunscreen agents? We have shiny explanations (along with product lists) about others as well:
- Methylene Bis-Benzotriazolyl Tetramethylbutylphenol, aka Tinosorb M, the good buddy of our current molecule Tinosorb S
- Tris-Biphenyl Triazine, aka Tinosorb A2B, the newest addition to the Tinosorb family that protects strongly in an in-between wavelength that most other filters miss
- Ethylhexyl Triazone, aka Uvinul T 150, another new generation sunscreen agent with super-high UVB protection
- Diethylamino Hydroxybenzoyl Hexyl Benzoate, aka Uvinul A Plus, a new generation sunscreen for UVA protection
An extremely common multitasker ingredient that gives your skin a nice soft feel (emollient) and gives body to creams and lotions. It also helps to stabilize oil-water mixes (emulsions), though it does not function as an emulsifier in itself. Its typical use level in most cream type formulas is 2-3%.
It’s a so-called fatty alcohol, a mix of cetyl and stearyl alcohol, other two emollient fatty alcohols. Though chemically speaking, it is alcohol (as in, it has an -OH group in its molecule), its properties are totally different from the properties of low molecular weight or drying alcohols such as denat. alcohol. Fatty alcohols have a long oil-soluble (and thus emollient) tail part that makes them absolutely non-drying and non-irritating and are totally ok for the skin.
A big molecule created from repeated subunits (a polymer of acrylic acid) that magically converts a liquid into a nice gel formula. It usually has to be neutralized with a base (such as sodium hydroxide) for the thickening to occur and it creates viscous, clear gels that also feel nice and non-tacky on the skin. No wonder, it is a very popular and common ingredient. Typically used at 1% or less in most formulations.
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. It gives products a good skin feel and does not make the formula tacky or sticky.
It works over a wide pH range and is used between 0.5-1.2%.
- 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 clear, colorless liquid that works as a solvent and viscosity decreasing ingredient. It also has great skin-moisturizing abilities.
Glyceryl stearate citrate is similar to the super common skincare ingredient glyceryl stearate, and is similarly used to help combine waters and oils (emulsifier) and to make your skin feel nice and soft (emollient).
The main difference between glyceryl stearate citrate and its cousin glyceryl stearate is that this one has a citric acid molecule also attached to its glycerin. This makes it what chemists call a diacylglycerol, which is a fancy word for two acids (in this case, citric acid and stearic acid) attached together with a glycerin bridge. But when it comes to cosmetics, all you need to know is that both glyceryl stearate citrate and glyceryl stearate are safe, tried and true emulsifiers. Expect to see them in formulas with both water-based and oil-based ingredients (think moisturizers and lotions).
Though its long name does not reveal it, this polymer molecule (big molecule from repeated subunits or monomers) is a relative to the super common, water-loving thickener, Carbomer. Both of them are big molecules that contain acrylic acid units, but Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer also contains some other monomers that are hydrophobic, i.e. water-hating.
This means that our molecule is part water- and part oil-loving, so it not only works as a thickener but also as an emulsion stabilizer. It is very common in gel-type formulas that also contain an oil-phase as well as in cleansers as it also works with most cleansing agents (unlike a lot of other thickeners).
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.
If you have spotted ethylhexylglycerin on the ingredient list, most probably you will see there also the current IT-preservative, phenoxyethanol. They are good friends because ethylhexylglycerin can boost the effectiveness of phenoxyethanol (and other preservatives) and as an added bonus it feels nice on the skin too.
Also, it's an effective deodorant and a medium spreading emollient.
A clear, slightly yellow, odorless oil that's a very common, medium-spreading emollient. It makes the skin feel nice and smooth and works in a wide range of formulas.
Adenosine is an important little compound in our body that has a vital cell-signalling role. Research on smearing it on our face is also promising and shows so far a couple of things:
- It can help with wound healing
- It’s a good anti-inflammatory agent
- It might even help with skin’s own collagen production and improve skin firmness and elasticity
- It helps with barrier repair and protection
- It might be even useful for the hair helping with hair thickness and hair growth
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Beta-Glucan is a nice big molecule composed of many smaller sugar molecules (called polysaccharide). It’s in the cell walls of yeast, some mushrooms, seaweeds, and cereals.
It’s a real goodie no matter if you eat it or put it on your face. Eating it is anti-diabetic, anti-cancer, and even lowers blood cholesterol.
Putting it on your face also does a bunch of good things: it‘s shown to have intensive skin repairing & wound healing properties, it’s a mild antioxidant, a great skin soother, and moisturizer, and it even shows promising anti-aging benefits.
The manufacturer of the ingredient did a published study with 27 people and examined the effect of 0.1% beta-glucan. They found that despite the large molecular size the smaller factions of beta-glucan penetrate into the skin, even into the dermis (the middle layer of the skin where wrinkles form). After 8 weeks there was a significant reduction of wrinkle depth and height and skin roughness has also improved greatly.
Bottom line: Beta-glucan is a great ingredient, especially for sensitive or damaged skin. It soothes, moisturizes, and has some anti-aging magic properties.
Sh-Oligopeptide-1 is the famous molecule, which is also called Epidermal Growth Factor or EGF. Chemically speaking, Growth Factors are largish peptides or smallish proteins, or to put it in another way, medium-length amino acid sequences (EGF consists of 53 amino acids). Biologically speaking, Growth Factors are cellular signal molecules that can stimulate cell growth, proliferation, healing and/or differentiation.
There are lots of Growth Factors and EGF is just one of them. The topic of "Growth Factors and skincare" is a big, confusing and controversial one and we will try our best to summarize the story for you, including the pros and the cons.
EGF is a special snowflake when it comes to skincare as it was the first Growth Factor that made its way into cosmetic products and it is also the most common one. The American biochemist, Stanley Cohen discovered EGF and was awarded a Noble prize in 1986 for it. As the Noble prize may signify, the molecule is significant and powerful and directly stimulates the proliferation of epidermal cells.
When it comes to Sh-Oligopeptide-1 in a cosmetic product, it has pretty well-established wound healing and skin renewal properties. It might even do more than that. According to a 2012 study on a serum containing barley bioengineered epidermal growth factor, "clinical evaluations showed statistically significant improvement in the appearance of fine lines and rhytids, skin texture, pore size, and various dyschromatic conditions apparent within the first month of use, and continuing improvement trends for the duration of the study" (which was 3 months).
This all sounds amazing, "give me some EGF Serum", we can hear you say! But as we wrote in the intro, the topic is complex and controversial so here are some of the questions that keep coming up around slathering EGF all over our face.
The first and biggest concern is that if EGF is so good at stimulating cell proliferation, how does it relate to cancer? Is the definition of cancer not "cells proliferating out of control"? Most experts agree on this answer: EGF is mitogenic (= stimulates cell proliferation) but not mutagenic (= does not alter the cell to make it cancerous). If you do not have cancer, you will not get cancer from EGF. However, if you have cancerous cells, EGF will help them to spread, just like it helps healthy cells. So if you have a lot of moles, excessive UV exposure in the past, or if you have any of the skin cancer risk factors, we suggest you should think twice about using EGF products. The same is true if you have psoriasis, a skin disease related to the abnormal growth of epidermal skin cells. You do not want to add fuel to the fire with EGF.
Other (less serious) concerns are if EGF can properly penetrate the skin (as it is a medium-sized, polar molecule, so a special delivery system is probably needed), if it can affect collagen synthesis (or just works on the surface plumping up only the upmost layers of the skin) and if it has beneficial effects at all when used in isolation versus when used in a "conditioned media" that contains lots of growth factors resembling the synergistic balance found in the skin.
Overall, our impression is that EGF is definitely a potent molecule. Some EGF products have a cult-like following adding anecdotal evidence to the clinical studies showing EGF has a beneficial effect on the skin. If you like experimenting, by all means, go ahead (unless you have psoriasis or high skin cancer risk factors), but if you are a better safe than sorry type, stick to daily SPF + a good retinoid product. This duo is still the golden standard of anti-aging.
Are you interested in Growth Factors and skincare? We have some more here:
- Human Fibroblast Conditioned Media - a growth factor cocktail used in some cosmetic products
- Insulin-like growth factor 1, aka sh-Oligopeptide -2 - a pal of EGF composed of 70 amino acids
- Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor, aka Sh-Polypeptide-9 - part of a GF cocktail trade named BIO-Placenta
Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid is a low molecular weight, chemically chopped up version of the naturally big molecule and current IT-moisturizer, Hyaluronic Acid (HA). The TL; DR version of HA is that it's a huge polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) found in the skin that acts as a sponge helping the skin to retain water, making it plump and elastic. As HA is a polymer, the subunits can be repeated many times (as a high-molecular-weight version), or just a few times (as a low-molecular-weight version).
We wrote in detail at HA about how different molecular weight versions do different things both as a component of the skin and as a skincare ingredient, so click here and read about all the details. Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid can also come in different molecular-weight versions with different properties:
- 100-300 kDa version: apart from moisturizing, this size might also help the skin to repair itself by increasing its self-defense. It is also claimed to boost the wound healing process and is especially helpful for sensitive skin types (acne, rosacea, inflammation-related skin diseases).
- 50k Da version: this is the size that is claimed to be able to absorb into the skin and plump up wrinkles, so it is used mainly as an "anti-aging ingredient"
- below 50k, around 10k Da version: there is a Japanese version trade named Hyalo-Oligo that has only a 10k molecular weight and is claimed to penetrate the skin very well, have a unique touch and give deep and long-lasting moisturization. Based on the Evonik-research and the natural role of LMW-HA in the body working as a pro-inflammatory signal molecule, this ultra-low molecular weight version is a controversial ingredient.
If you wanna become a real HA-and-the-skin expert, you can read much more about the topic at hyaluronic acid (including penetration-questions, differences between high and low molecular weight versions and a bunch of references to scientific literature).
The unsaponifiable part of sunflower oil. It's the small part of the oil that resists saponification, the chemical reaction that happens during soap making.
If you want to understand saponification more, here is a short explanation (if not, we understand, just skip this paragraph): Oils are mostly made up of triglyceride molecules (a glycerin + three fatty acids attached to it) and during the soap making process a strong base splits the triglyceride molecule up to become a separate glycerin and three soap molecules (sodium salts of fatty acids). The fantastic Labmuffin blog has a handy explanation with great drawings about the soap-making reaction.
So, the triglyceride molecules are the saponifiable part of the oil, and the rest is the unsaponifiable part. In the case of sunflower oil, it's about 1.5-2% of the oil and consists of skin nourishing molecules like free fatty acids (fatty acids not bound up in a triglyceride molecule, it contains mainly (48-74% according to its spec) barrier building linoleic acid), tocopherol (vitamin E) and sterols.
According to manufacturer's info, it's an oily ingredient that not only simply moisturizes the skin but also has great lipid-replenishing and soothing properties. The clinical study done by the manufacturer (on 20 people) found that a cream with 2% active increases skin moisturization by 48.6% after 1 hour, and 34.2% after 24 hours. Applied twice daily for 4 weeks, the study participants had a major improvement in skin dryness, roughness, and desquamation (skin peeling) parameters.
- Primary fat-soluble antioxidant in our skin
- Significant photoprotection against UVB rays
- Vit C + Vit E work in synergy and provide great photoprotection
- Has emollient properties
- Easy to formulate, stable and relatively inexpensive
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| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | solvent | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 4 |
| what‑it‑does | cell-communicating ingredient | skin brightening | anti-acne | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | buffering |
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | solvent | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | antioxidant | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | emulsifying |
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | emulsifying |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1-2 |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | viscosity controlling | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| irritancy, com. | 1, 2 |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | emulsifying |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | perfuming |
| what‑it‑does | cell-communicating ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | cell-communicating ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | skin-identical ingredient | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0-3, 0-3 |