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GONGJUA Snail Exosome

Snail Exosome

Glow cream for glass skin
Uploaded by: gratla on

Highlights

#alcohol-free
Alcohol Free

Skim through

Ingredient name what-it-does irr., com. ID-Rating
Water solvent
Cetyl Ethylhexanoate emollient
Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride emollient
Glycerin skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/​humectant 0, 0 superstar
Cetyl PEG/PPG-10/1 Dimethicone emulsifying, surfactant/​cleansing
Niacinamide cell-communicating ingredient, skin brightening, anti-acne, moisturizer/​humectant superstar
Sorbitan Olivate emulsifying goodie
Snail Secretion Filtrate antioxidant, moisturizer/​humectant goodie
Leucine
Melatonin antioxidant
Pearl Extract antioxidant
Pearl Powder
Betaine moisturizer/​humectant goodie
Sodium Chloride viscosity controlling
Propanediol solvent, moisturizer/​humectant
Synthetic Fluorphlogopite viscosity controlling
Titanium Dioxide sunscreen, colorant goodie
Caprylyl Glycol moisturizer/​humectant, emollient
Disteardimonium Hectorite viscosity controlling
Ethylhexylglycerin preservative
Adenosine cell-communicating ingredient goodie
Propylene Glycol moisturizer/​humectant, solvent 0, 0
Chamaecyparis Obtusa Water
Sodium Hyaluronate skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/​humectant 0, 0 goodie
Sorbitan Stearate emulsifying 1, 0
Tocopherol antioxidant 0-3, 0-3 goodie
Rosa Rugosa Leaf Extract moisturizer/​humectant
Melissa Officinalis Leaf Extract
Tin Oxide colorant, abrasive/​scrub, viscosity controlling
1,2-Hexanediol solvent
Lactobacillus Ferment soothing, preservative goodie
Butylene Glycol moisturizer/​humectant, solvent 0, 1
Isopentyldiol solvent, moisturizer/​humectant, emollient
Ceramide NP skin-identical ingredient goodie
Phytosterols
Hydrogenated Lecithin emollient, emulsifying goodie
Polyglycerin-3 moisturizer/​humectant
Glycine skin-identical ingredient goodie
Cholesterol skin-identical ingredient, emollient 0, 0 goodie
Serine skin-identical ingredient goodie
Glutamic Acid moisturizer/​humectant
Aspartic Acid skin-identical ingredient goodie
Pentylene Glycol solvent, moisturizer/​humectant
Alanine skin-identical ingredient goodie
Lysine
Arginine skin-identical ingredient goodie
Tyrosine
Phenylalanine skin-identical ingredient goodie
Valine skin-identical ingredient goodie
Threonine skin-identical ingredient goodie
Proline skin-identical ingredient goodie
Isoleucine skin-identical ingredient goodie
Histidine skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/​humectant goodie
Methionine
Cysteine antioxidant
Parfum perfuming icky
Limonene perfuming, solvent icky
Geraniol perfuming icky
Hexyl Cinnamal perfuming icky
Linalool perfuming icky

GONGJUA Snail Exosome
Ingredients explained

Also-called: Aqua | What-it-does: solvent

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. 

What-it-does: emollient

An odorless and colorless emollient ester (cetyl alcohol + ethylhexanoic acid) that gives a velvety and silky feel to the skin. It has great spreadability and a non-oily feel. It's a popular ingredient in makeup removers.

What-it-does: emollient

A super common emollient that makes your skin feel nice and smooth. It comes from coconut oil and glycerin, it’s light-textured, clear, odorless and non-greasy. It’s a nice ingredient that just feels good on the skin, is super well tolerated by every skin type and easy to formulate with. No wonder it’s popular. 

Glycerin - superstar
Also-called: Glycerol | What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
  • 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
Read all the geeky details about Glycerin here >>

Also-called: Cetyl Dimethicone Copolyol | What-it-does: emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing

A silicone emulsifier that helps water and silicone oils to mix nicely together. 

Niacinamide - superstar
Also-called: vitamin B3, nicotinamide | What-it-does: cell-communicating ingredient, skin brightening, anti-acne, moisturizer/humectant
  • 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
Read all the geeky details about Niacinamide here >>

Also-called: Part of Olivem 1000 | What-it-does: emulsifying

An ester coming from sorbitol and the fatty acids of olive oil. It is part of the popular emulsifier trade named Olivem 1000 that is well-known for generating biomimetic liquid crystal structures. We have more info on Olivem 1000 at Cetearyl Olivate >>

Also-called: Snail Slime, Snail Mucin | What-it-does: antioxidant, moisturizer/humectant

If you are into the K-Beauty trend, you must have bumped into snail slime like a thousand times. Korean brands love the ingredient and tout it for its miraculous repair and hydration properties. It's claimed to be able to repair everything from dry patches, acne breakouts to signs of aging and we are happy to say that it might be just true.

So snail slime is the yucky stuff that snails (in cosmetics the secretion of Cornu Aspersum, the garden snail is used) produce when they are in stress (it's not the same as the one they secret to be able to move nicely and smoothly). As the cosmetic chemists at the Beauty Brains blog write, "chemically speaking, snail slime is a complex mixture of proteoglycans, glycosaminoglycans, glycoprotein enzymes, hyaluronic acid, copper peptides, antimicrobial peptides and trace elements including copper, zinc, and iron."   English translation equals it's loaded with a bunch of good-for-the-skin stuff.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

What-it-does: antioxidant

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

What-it-does: antioxidant

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Betaine - goodie
What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant

A sugar beet-derived amino acid derivative with nice skin protection and moisturization properties. Betaine's special thing is being an osmolyte, a molecule that helps to control cell-water balance.  It is also a natural osmoprotectant, meaning that it attracts water away from the protein surface and thus protects them from denaturation and increases their thermodynamic stability. 

It also gives sensorial benefits to the formula and when used in cleansers, it helps to make them milder and gentler. 

Also-called: Salt | What-it-does: viscosity controlling

Sodium chloride is the fancy name of salt. Normal, everyday table salt

If (similar to us) you are in the weird habit of reading the label on your shower gel while taking a shower, you might have noticed that sodium chloride is almost always on the ingredient list. The reason for this is that salt acts as a fantastic thickener in cleansing formulas created with ionic cleansing agents (aka surfactants) such as Sodium Laureth Sulfate. A couple of percents (typically 1-3%) turns a runny surfactant solution into a nice gel texture.

Also-called: Zemea | What-it-does: solvent, moisturizer/humectant

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. 

Also-called: Synthetic Mica | What-it-does: viscosity controlling

Synthetic Fluorphlogopite is the synthetic version of the super commonly used mineral, Mica. The advantage of being synthetic is that it has a more consistent quality, fewer impurities and an even lower heavy metal content than Mica (not that Mica's heavy metal content is high). It is also more transparent and has improved light reflection. 

The two main use cases for Synthetic Fluorphlogopite is being used neat as a superior "filler" or skin tone enhancer or it can also serve as a base for multi-layered, composite pigments such as pearl effect pigments where it is coated with one or more layers of metal oxide, most commonly titanium dioxide. 

What-it-does: sunscreen, colorant

Titanium Dioxide is one of the two members of the elite sunscreen group called physical sunscreens (or inorganic sunscreens if you’re a science geek and want to be precise).

Traditionally, UV-filters are categorized as either chemical or physical. The big difference is supposed to be that chemical agents absorb UV-light while physical agents reflect it like a bunch of mini umbrellas on top of the skin. While this categorization is easy and logical it turns out it's not true. A recent, 2016 study shows that inorganic sunscreens work mostly by absorption, just like chemical filters, and only a little bit by reflection (they do reflect the light in the visible spectrum, but mostly absorb in the UV spectrum).

It’s a handy multi-tasking ingredient that gives the skin a nice, soft feel. At the same time, it also boosts the effectiveness of other preservatives, such as the nowadays super commonly used phenoxyethanol

The blend of these two (caprylyl glycol + phenoxyethanol) is called Optiphen, which not only helps to keep your cosmetics free from nasty things for a long time but also gives a good feel to the finished product. It's a popular duo.

What-it-does: viscosity controlling

An organic derivative of hectorite clay, Disteardimonium Hectorite is used as a viscosity controller - it thickens up formulations to make them less runny.

It’s most popular use in cosmetics is in sunscreens, under the trademarked name Bentone 38 from Elementis. According to the manufacturer info, it is a real multi-tasker, including the ability to prevent pigments settling during storage, stabilizing a formula for longercreating a light and smooth skin feel and enhancing the water-resistance of sunscreen formulas
 

What-it-does: preservative, deodorant

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

Adenosine - goodie

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
What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant, solvent | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
  • 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)
Read all the geeky details about Propylene Glycol here >>

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

It’s the - sodium form - cousin of the famous NMFhyaluronic acid (HA). If HA does not tell you anything we have a super detailed, geeky explanation about it here.  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 hold onto water, being plump and elastic. HA is famous for its crazy water holding capacity as it can bind up to 1000 times its own weight in water.

As far as skincare goes, sodium hyaluronate and hyaluronic acid are pretty much the same and the two names are used interchangeably. As cosmetic chemist kindofstephen writes on reddit  "sodium hyaluronate disassociates into hyaluronic acid molecule and a sodium atom in solution". 

What-it-does: emulsifying | Irritancy: 1 | Comedogenicity: 0

A popular, vegetable-derived oil-loving emulsifier that helps water to mix with oil. In itself, it is suitable for water-in-oil emulsions (where water droplets are dispersed in oil), but it is more often used as a co-emulsifier next to other, water-loving emulsifiers. 

Chemically speaking, it comes from the attachment of sorbitan (a dehydrated sorbitol (sugar) molecule) with the fatty acid Stearic Acid, that creates a partly water (the sorbitan part) and partly oil soluble (stearic part) molecule. 

Tocopherol - goodie
Also-called: Vitamin E | What-it-does: antioxidant | Irritancy: 0-3 | Comedogenicity: 0-3
  • 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
Read all the geeky details about Tocopherol here >>

What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Also-called: CI 77861, Tin Dioxide | What-it-does: colorant, abrasive/scrub, viscosity controlling

Far from the tin cans you find in the supermarket, Tin Oxide is mostly used when dealing with so-called effect pigments, tricky composite pigments that can do color travel (change color depending on the viewing angle) or give multiple color effect. 

It's often found alongside Mica (as a base material) and Titanium Dioxide (as a coating) to give a glossy, pearlescent effect. Together, they make up a trademarked technology called RonaFlair Blanace from the German manufacturer Merck. According to their info, this combination can balance out undesirable tones in the skin, making it a popular choice for brightening products and highlighters.

What-it-does: solvent

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

What-it-does: soothing, preservative

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.

What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant, solvent | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 1

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.

A water-soluble, colorless, odorless humectant liquid that makes your skin nice and smooth (aka emollient) and gives a dry, non-tacky skin feel. It also has great instant and some longer-lasting moisturizing effect and works in synergy with fellow moisturizer, sorbitol

Ceramide NP - goodie
Also-called: Ceramide 3 | What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient

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.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

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 other ingredients. 

What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant

Three glycerin molecules attached together. It is a humectant and moisturizer ingredient just like glycerin, but the larger molecular structure penetrates slower into the skin and gives milder, longer lasting moisture.

Glycine - goodie

A non-essential amino acid (the building blocks of skin proteins, like collagen or elastin), that the body can produce itself, but its production decreases with age. When you put it all over your face, it works as a moisturizer and maybe more. 

According to great skincare blog Futurederm, glycine might help with wound healing and tissue repair and when used together with other amino acids, leucine and proline it might improve wrinkles

Cholesterol - goodie
What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient, emollient | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 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. Together with ceramides and fatty acids, they play a vital role in having a healthy skin barrier and keeping the skin hydrated. 

Apart from being an important skin-identical ingredient, it's also an emollient and stabilizer

Serine - goodie

Serine is an amino acid that most often comes to the formula as part of a moisturizing complex. It's a non-essential amino acid (meaning that our body can synthesize it) and serves as a water-binding ingredient.

In general, amino acids are great skincare ingredients that play an important role in proper skin hydration but there is not much info out there about what specifically serine can do for the skin.

What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant

Glutamic acid is a little molecule and non-essential (our body can synthesize it) amino acid with the important job of being a neurotransmitter in the human body meaning that it helps your nervous system work correctly. 

As for what it's doing in cosmetics, Glutamic acids' main thing (similar to other amino acids) is being a humectant moisturizer and skin-conditioning agent (sidenote: if you attach lots of glutamic acid molecules, you get polyglutamic acid that is claimed to be a better than hyaluronic acid humectant). It also seems to affect skin barrier repair, however, it is not clear-cut in which direction.

Aspartic Acid - goodie

A non-essential amino acid  (important building block of collagen and elastin) that hydrates the skin. It is also used to set the pH of the cosmetic product (buffering).

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. 

Alanine - goodie

A non-essential amino acid (a building block of skin proteins like collagen or elastin) that hydrates the skin.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Arginine - goodie

A semi-essential (infants cannot synthesize it, but adults can) amino acid that is one of the primary building blocks of hair keratin and skin collagen. It's a natural moisturizing factor, a skin hydrator and might also help to speed up wound healing

Arginine usually has a positive charge (cationic) that makes it substantive to skin and hair (those are more negatively charged surfaces) and an excellent film former.  Thanks to the positive charge, it also creates a complex with AHAs (AHAs like to lose a hydrogen ion and be negatively charged, so the positive and the negative ions attract each other) that causes a "time-release AHA effect" and reduces the irritation associated with AHAs

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Phenylalanine - goodie

An essential amino acid that the body cannot produce itself but has to take from the diet. Combined with UVA exposure, phenylalanine is used in the treatment of vitiligo (a pigmentation disorder where patches of the skin lose the pigment).

Valine - goodie

An essential amino acid (a building block of skin proteins like collagen) that our body cannot produce itself but has to take from external sources, like diet. 

It's a branched chain amino acid that is claimed to enhance energy, increase endurance and aid in muscle tissue recovery and repair when taken as a supplement. It's not clear what valine does when you put it on the skin, but as all amino acids, it must be at least a great skin hydrator.

Threonine - goodie

An essential amino acid that's also a key building block of collagen and elastin. When taken orally, it helps the digestive and intestinal tracts function more smoothly and also helps the absorption of nutrients. As for skincare, it is not clear what it does other than being a skin hydrator

Proline - goodie

A non-essential amino acid (meaning that our body can produce it) that's also one of the major building blocks of collagen. According to the Futurederm blog, it might be able to improve wrinkles when combined with other amino acids, glycine and leucine

Isoleucine - goodie

A branch-chained, essential amino acid that can be found in things like almond, cashew or soy protein. When taken orally it may promote protein synthesis. As for skincare - like all the amino acids - it's a skin-identical ingredient and moisturizer. It also seems to be useful as a barrier repair ingredient.  

Histidine - goodie

A semi-essential amino acid meaning that enough has to be eaten from it so that the body does not use up essential amino acids (that our body cannot produce itself) to synthesize it. It has an important role in regulating the immune defense, allergic reactions, and inflammatory processes in the body.

As for skincare, it's a skin moisturizer that might also protect from some skin infections

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

What-it-does: antioxidant

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Parfum - icky
Also-called: Fragrance, Parfum;Parfum/Fragrance | What-it-does: perfuming

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.  

Limonene - icky
What-it-does: perfuming, solvent, deodorant

A super common and cheap fragrance ingredient. It's in many plants, e.g. rosemary, eucalyptus, lavender, lemongrass, peppermint and it's the main component (about 50-90%) of the peel oil of citrus fruits.

It does smell nice but the problem is that it oxidizes on air exposure and the resulting stuff is not good for the skin. Oxidized limonene can cause allergic contact dermatitis and counts as a frequent skin sensitizer

Geraniol - icky
What-it-does: perfuming

Geraniol is a common fragrance ingredient. It smells like rose and can be found in rose oil or in small quantities in geranium, lemon and many other essential oils. 

Just like other similar fragrance ingredients (like linalool and limonene) geraniol also oxidises on air exposure and becomes allergenic. Best to avoid if you have sensitive skin.

What-it-does: perfuming

A common fragrance ingredient that smells like jasmine. It is one of the “EU 26 fragrances” that has to be labelled separately because of allergen potential. Best to avoid if your skin is sensitive.

Linalool - icky
What-it-does: perfuming, deodorant

Linalool is a super common fragrance ingredient. It’s kind of everywhere - both in plants and in cosmetic products. It’s part of 200 natural oils including lavender, ylang-ylang, bergamot, jasmine, geranium and it can be found in 90-95% of prestige perfumes on the market. 

The problem with linalool is, that just like limonene it oxidises on air exposure and becomes allergenic. That’s why a product containing linalool that has been opened for several months is more likely to be allergenic than a fresh one.

You may also want to take a look at...

what‑it‑does solvent
Normal (well kind of - it's purified and deionized) water. Usually the main solvent in cosmetic products. [more]
what‑it‑does emollient
An odorless and colorless emollient ester that gives a velvety and silky feel to the skin. [more]
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. [more]
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. [more]
what‑it‑does emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing
A silicone emulsifier that helps water and silicone oils to mix nicely together. 
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. [more]
what‑it‑does emulsifying
An ester coming from sorbitol and the fatty acids of olive oil. It often comes to the formula coupled with Cetearyl Olivate and the two together help water and oil to blend (emulsifier). It's a natural and Ecocert approved duo.
what‑it‑does antioxidant | moisturizer/humectant
If you are into the K-Beauty trend, you must have bumped into snail slime like a thousand times. Korean brands love the ingredient and tout it for its miraculous repair and hydration properties. [more]
what‑it‑does antioxidant
what‑it‑does antioxidant
what‑it‑does moisturizer/humectant
A sugar beet derived amino acid derivative with nice skin protection and moisturization properties. Its special thing is being an osmolyte, a molecule that helps to control cell-water balance.  [more]
what‑it‑does viscosity controlling
Sodium chloride is the fancy name of salt. Normal, everyday table salt.  If (similar to us) you are in the weird habit of reading the label on your shower gel while taking a shower, you might have noticed that sodium chloride is almost always on the ingredient list. [more]
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. [more]
what‑it‑does viscosity controlling
Synthetic Fluorphlogopite is the synthetic version of the super commonly used mineral, Mica. The advantage of being synthetic is that it has a more consistent quality, fewer impurities and an even lower heavy metal content than Mica (not that Mica's heavy metal content is high). [more]
what‑it‑does sunscreen | colorant
A physical/inorganic sunscreen with pretty broad spectrum (UVB and UVA II, less good at UVA I) protection and good stability. Might leave some whitish tint on the skin, though. [more]
what‑it‑does moisturizer/humectant | emollient
A handy multi-tasking ingredient that gives the skin a nice, soft feel and also boosts the effectiveness of other preservatives. [more]
what‑it‑does viscosity controlling
An organic derivative of hectorite clay, Disteardimonium Hectorite is used as a viscosity controller - it thickens up formulations to make them less runny.It’s most popular use in cosmetics is in sunscreens, under the trademarked name Bentone 38 from Elementis. [more]
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. [more]
what‑it‑does cell-communicating ingredient
An important compound in our body that has a vital cell-signalling role. It is wound healing, anti-inflammatory and can help with barrier repair. [more]
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. [more]
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. [more]
what‑it‑does emulsifying
irritancy, com. 1, 0
A popular, vegetable-derived oil-loving emulsifier that helps water to mix with oil. In itself, it is suitable for water-in-oil emulsions (where water droplets are dispersed in oil), but it is more often used as a co-emulsifier next to other, water-loving emulsifiers.  Chemically speaking, it comes from the attachment of sorbitan (a dehydrated sorbitol (sugar) molecule) with the fatty [more]
what‑it‑does antioxidant
irritancy, com. 0-3, 0-3
Pure Vitamin E. Great antioxidant that gives significant photoprotection against UVB rays. Works in synergy with Vitamin C. [more]
what‑it‑does moisturizer/humectant
what‑it‑does colorant | abrasive/scrub | viscosity controlling
Far from the tin cans you find in the supermarket, Tin Oxide is mostly used when dealing with so-called effect pigments, tricky composite pigments that can do color travel (change color depending on the viewing angle) or give multiple color effect.  It's often found alongside Mica (as a base material) and Titanium Dioxide (as a coating) to give a glossy, pearlescent effect. [more]
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. [more]
what‑it‑does soothing | preservative
A probiotic ingredient that might protect the skin against environmental aggressors, have anti-acne and anti-inflammatory properties. Also works as a natural preservative. [more]
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. [more]
what‑it‑does solvent | moisturizer/humectant | emollient
A water-soluble, colorless, odorless humectant liquid that makes your skin nice and smooth (aka emollient) and gives a dry non-tacky skin feel. [more]
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.  [more]
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 moisturizer/humectant
Three glycerin molecules attached together. It is also a humectant, moisturizer ingredient just like glycerin, but the larger molecular structure penetrates slower into the skin and gives milder, longer lasting moisture.
what‑it‑does skin-identical ingredient
An amino acid (the building blocks of skin proteins, like collagen) that hydrates the skin and might help wound healing and improve wrinkles. [more]
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. [more]
what‑it‑does skin-identical ingredient
Serine is an amino acid that most often comes to the formula as part of a moisturizing complex. It's a non-essential amino acid (meaning that our body can synthesize it) and serves as a water-binding ingredient.In general, amino acids are great skincare ingredients that play an important role in proper skin hydration but there is not much info out there about what specifically serine can d [more]
what‑it‑does moisturizer/humectant
Glutamic acid is a little molecule and non-essential (our body can synthesize it) amino acid with the important job of being a neurotransmitter in the human body meaning that it helps your nervous system work correctly.  As for what it's doing in cosmetics, Glutamic acids' main thing (similar to other amino acids) is being a humectant moisturizer and skin-conditioning [more]
what‑it‑does skin-identical ingredient
A non-essential amino acid  (important building block of collagen and elastin) that hydrates the skin. [more]
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. [more]
what‑it‑does skin-identical ingredient
A non-essential amino acid (a building block of skin proteins like collagen or elastin) that hydrates the skin.
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.  [more]
what‑it‑does skin-identical ingredient
An essential amino acid that is used in the treatment of vitiligo. [more]
what‑it‑does skin-identical ingredient
An essential amino acid (a building block of skin proteins like collagen) that is a skin hydrator. [more]
what‑it‑does skin-identical ingredient
An essential amino acid (important building block of collagen and elastin) that hydrates the skin. [more]
what‑it‑does skin-identical ingredient
A non-essential amino acid (meaning that our body can produce it) that might be able to improve wrinkles combined with other amino acids, glycine and leucine. [more]
what‑it‑does skin-identical ingredient
An essential amino acid that hydrates the skin and might be also a barrier repair ingredient. [more]
what‑it‑does skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant
An amino acid that is important in regulating the immune defense and inflammatory processes in the body. It's a skin moisturizer that might protect from skin infections. [more]
what‑it‑does antioxidant
what‑it‑does perfuming
The generic term for nice smelling stuff put into cosmetic products so that the end product also smells nice. It is made up of 30 to 50 chemicals on average. [more]
what‑it‑does perfuming | solvent
A super common fragrance ingredient found naturally in many plants including citrus peel oils, rosemary or lavender. It autoxidizes on air exposure and counts as a common skin sensitizer. [more]
what‑it‑does perfuming
A common fragrance ingredient that smells like rose and can be found in rose oil. [more]
what‑it‑does perfuming
A common fragrance ingredient that smells like jasmine. It is one of the “EU 26 fragrances” that has to be labelled separately because of allergen potential. [more]
what‑it‑does perfuming
A super common fragrance ingredient that can be found among others in lavender, ylang-ylang, bergamot or jasmine. The downside of it is that it oxidises on air exposure and might become allergenic. [more]