BHA 2% Pore Refining
Ingredients overview
Highlights
Key Ingredients
Other Ingredients
Skim through
| Ingredient name | what-it-does | irr., com. | ID-Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salicylic Acid (2%) | exfoliant, anti-acne, soothing, preservative | superstar | |
| Benzyl Alcohol | preservative, perfuming, solvent, viscosity controlling | ||
| Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract | soothing, antioxidant | 0, 0 | goodie |
| Ethoxydiglycol | solvent, moisturizer/humectant, perfuming | 0, 0 | |
| Ext. Violet 2 | colorant | ||
| Fragrance | perfuming | icky | |
| Glycerin | skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | 0, 0 | superstar |
| Menthol | soothing | icky | |
| Menthoxypropanediol | |||
| Menthyl Lactate | icky | ||
| Sd Alcohol 40-B | solvent, viscosity controlling | icky | |
| Water (Aqua) | solvent |
Hyaestic BHA 2% Pore RefiningIngredients explained
- It's one of the gold standard ingredients for treating problem skin
- It can exfoliate skin both on the surface and in the pores
- It's a potent anti-inflammatory agent
- It's more effective for treating blackheads than acne
- For acne combine it with antibacterial agents like benzoyl peroxide or azelaic acid
It's one of those things that help your cosmetics not to go wrong too soon, aka a preservative. It can be naturally found in fruits and teas but can also be made synthetically.
No matter the origin, in small amounts (up to 1%) it’s a nice, gentle preservative. Has to be combined with some other nice preservatives, like potassium sorbate to be broad spectrum enough.
In high amounts, it can be a skin irritant, but don’t worry, it’s never used in high amounts.
Chamomile probably needs no introduction as it's one of the most widely used medicinal herbs. You probably drink it regularly as a nice, calming cup of tea and it's also a regular on skincare ingredient lists.
Cosmetic companies use it mainly for its anti-inflammatory properties. It contains the terpenoids chamazulene and bisabolol both of which show great anti-inflammatory action in animal studies. On top of that chamomile also has some antioxidant activity (thanks to some other active ingredients called matricine, apigenin and luteolin).
Though chamomile is usually a goodie for the skin, it's also not uncommon to have an allergic reaction to it.
A nice odorless liquid used mainly as a superior solubilizer and efficacy booster for cosmetic active ingredients such as skincare bigshot vitamin C, self-tanning active DHA or the anti-acne gold standard, benzoyl peroxide.
Other than that it can also be used in hair care products where it gives a longer-lasting and more uniform coloring. According to a manufacturer, it might even prevent the formation of split ends.
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!).
- 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
Menthol needs no introduction: it's the thing that causes the cooling sensation so well-known both from cosmetic products as well as a bunch of other things like chocolate, chewing gum, toothpaste or cigarette. It's a natural compound that comes from the essential oil of Mentha species (peppermint oil contains 40-50% menthol) and it gives them their typical minty smell and flavor.
As for skincare, menthol seems to be a mixed bag. Apart from the cool cooling sensation (that might last up to 70 mins!), it also has painkilling, itch reducing, antibacterial, antifungal and even penetration enhancing properties. On the other hand, it also seems to act as a skin irritant that increases trans-epidermal water loss (the water that evaporates from the outer layer of the skin) and thus contributes to drying out the skin.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A menthol-derived cooling agent that is claimed to give a long-lasting cooling effect (similar to menthol itself) while also being moisturizing and less irritating than menthol thanks to the lactic acid part. It's recommended to be used at 0.5-1%.
SD-Alcohol and some numer+letter refers to alcohol (or ethanol) being denaturated with different kind of additives. These additives make sure that the alcohol is poisonous and bad tasting so that nobody drinks their alcohol-loaded toner. 40-B specifically means the additives are denatonium benzoate and t-butyl alcohol.
As for Alcohol Denat in skincare, it's a controversial ingredient. It's a great solvent and makes cosmetically elegant, light formulas but at best it's skin-drying, at worst it's skin-barrier damaging. We have written about alcohol way more here.
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.
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| what‑it‑does | exfoliant | anti-acne | soothing | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | preservative | perfuming | solvent | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | solvent | moisturizer/humectant | perfuming |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | colorant |
| what‑it‑does | perfuming |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | soothing |
| what‑it‑does | solvent | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | solvent |