Essential Skin Veil "natural Fit" Moon SPF 50
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Ichi Beauty Essential Skin Veil "natural Fit" Moon SPF 50Ingredients explained
A super versatile and common mineral powder that comes in different particle sizes. It is a multi-tasker used to improve skin feel, increase product slip, give the product light-reflecting properties, enhance skin adhesion or serve as an anti-caking agent.
It is also the most commonly used "base" material for layered composite pigments such as pearl-effect pigments. In this case, mica is coated with one or more metal oxides (most commonly titanium dioxide) to achieve pearl effect via the physical phenomenon known as interference.
Hot spring water from Japan. It's claimed to have some anti-inflammatory and vasodilative effect.
When it comes to sunscreen agents, Zinc Oxide is pretty much in a league of its own. It's a physical (or inorganic) sunscreen that has a lot in common with fellow inorganic sunscreen Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) but a couple of things make it superior even to TiO2.
If physical sunscreens don't tell you anything, go ahead and read about the basics here. Most of what we wrote about Titanium Dioxide is also true for Zinc Oxide so we will focus here on the differences.
The first main difference is that while TiO2 gives a nice broad spectrum protection, Zinc Oxide has an even nicer and even broader spectrum protection. It protects against UVB, UVA II, and UVA I almost uniformly, and is considered to be the broadest range sunscreen available today.
It's also highly stable and non-irritating. So much so that Zinc Oxide also counts as a skin protectant and anti-irritant. It's also often used to treat skin irritations such as diaper rash.
As for the disadvantages, Zinc Oxide is also not cosmetically elegant. It leaves a disturbing whitish tint on the skin, although, according to a 2000 research paper by Dr. Pinnell, it's slightly less white than TiO2. Still, it's white and disturbing enough to use Zinc Oxide nanoparticles more and more often.
We wrote more about nanoparticles and the concerns around them here, but the gist is that if nanoparticles were absorbed into the skin that would be a reason for legitimate health concerns. But luckily, so far research shows that sunscreen nanoparticles are not absorbed but remain on the surface of the skin or in the uppermost (dead) layer of the skin. This seems to be true even if the skin is damaged, for example, sunburnt.
All in all, if you've found a Zinc Oxide sunscreen that you are happy to use every single day, that's fantastic and we suggest you stick with it. It's definitely one of the best, or probably even the best option out there for sun protection available worldwide.
A super commonly used 5 unit long, cyclic structured silicone that is water-thin and does not stay on the skin but evaporates from it (called volatile silicone). Similar to other silicones, it gives skin and hair a silky, smooth feel.
It's often combined with the non-volatile (i.e. stays on the skin) dimethicone as the two together form a water-resistant, breathable protective barrier on the skin without a negative tacky feel.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
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.
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).
Anyway, it doesn't matter if it reflects or absorbs, Titanium Dioxide is a pretty awesome sunscreen agent for two main reasons: it gives a nice broad spectrum coverage and it's highly stable. Its protection is very good between 290 - 350 nm (UVB and UVA II range), and less good at 350-400 nm (UVA I) range. Regular sized Titanium Dioxide also has a great safety profile, it's non-irritating and is pretty much free from any health concerns (like estrogenic effect worries with some chemical filters).
The disadvantage of Titanium Dioxide is that it's not cosmetically elegant, meaning it's a white, "unspreadable" mess. Sunscreens containing Titanium Dioxide are often hard to spread on the skin and they leave a disturbing whitish tint. The cosmetic industry is, of course, really trying to solve this problem and the best solution so far is using nanoparticles. The itsy-bitsy Nano-sized particles improve both spreadability and reduce the whitish tint a lot, but unfortunately, it also introduces new health concerns.
The main concern with nanoparticles is that they are so tiny that they are absorbed into the skin more than we want them (ideally sunscreen should remain on the surface of the skin). Once absorbed they might form unwanted complexes with proteins and they might promote the formation of evil free radicals. But do not panic, these are concerns under investigation. A 2009 review article about the safety of nanoparticles summarizes this, "to date, in-vivo and in-vitro studies have not demonstrated percutaneous penetration of nanosized particles in titanium dioxide and zinc oxide sunscreens". The English translation is, so far it looks like sunscreens with nanoparticles do stay on the surface of the skin where they should be.
All in all, Titanium Dioxide is a famous sunscreen agent and for good reason, it gives broad spectrum UV protection (best at UVB and UVA II), it's highly stable, and it has a good safety profile. It's definitely one of the best UV-filter agents we have today, especially in the US where new-generation Tinosorb filters are not (yet) approved.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
- 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 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.
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.
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.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A liquid fatty acid created from oleic acid. It's claimed to have great odour, thermal and oxidation stability and is great for the stabilization of pigments and mineral particles in oils and solvents. It's quite popular in foundations.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A silicone emulsifier that helps to create water in silicone emulsions.
Probably the most common silicone of all. It is a polymer (created from repeating subunits) molecule and has different molecular weight and thus different viscosity versions from water-light to thick liquid.
As for skincare, it makes the skin silky smooth, creates a subtle gloss and forms a protective barrier (aka occlusive). Also, works well to fill in fine lines and wrinkles and give skin a plump look (of course that is only temporary, but still, it's nice). There are also scar treatment gels out there using dimethicone as their base ingredient. It helps to soften scars and increase their elasticity.
As for hair care, it is a non-volatile silicone meaning that it stays on the hair rather than evaporates from it and smoothes the hair like no other thing. Depending on your hair type, it can be a bit difficult to wash out and might cause some build-up (btw, this is not true to all silicones, only the non-volatile types).
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A helper ingredient that is used as a bulking and viscosity controlling agent. It is also an emulsion stabilizer in water-in-oil emulsions, where water droplets are dispersed in the continuous oil phase and not the other way round.
It can also be used as a heat generating agent in water-less formulas as it has an instant heat-generating chemical reaction with water.
Officially, CosIng (the official EU ingredient database) lists Aluminum Hydroxide 's functions as opacifying (making the product white and non-transparent), as well as emollient and skin protectant.
However, with a little bit of digging, it turns out Aluminum Hyroxide often moonlights as a protective coating for UV filter superstar Titanium Dioxide. Specifically, it protects our skin from the harmful effects of nasty Reactive Oxygen Species (free radicals derived from oxygen such as Superoxide and Hydrogen Peroxide) generated when Titanium Dioxide is exposed to UV light. Btw, chlorine in swimming pool water depletes this protective coating, so one more reason to reapply your sunscreen after a dip in the pool on holiday.
Other than that, Aluminum Hydroxide also often shows up in composite pigment technologies where it is used the other way around (as the base material and not as the coating material) and helps to achieve higher color coverage with less pigment.
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).
A bit of a sloppy ingredient name as it covers not one but three pigments: red, yellow and black iron oxide.
The trio is invaluable for "skin-colored" makeup products (think your foundation and pressed powder) as blending these three shades carefully can produce almost any shade of natural-looking flesh tones.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
- 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
Bearing a close relationship to the famous Dimethicone, Methicone is the slightly trimmed down version missing the methyl (-CH3) groups on one side of the silicone chain. Like most silicones, it has nice emollient properties and improves the spreadability of products.
But Methicone's main thing in practice is not being an emollient but a silicone fluid for hydrophobization treatment of powders, i.e. making solid powders (mineral filters & color pigments) very water resistant and easily spreadable. Methicone does this by absorbing traces of water from the surface of pigments that is very useful for mineral sunscreens and makeup products.
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 most commonly used version of pure vitamin E in cosmetics. You can read all about the pure form here. This one is the so-called esterified version.
According to famous dermatologist, Leslie Baumann while tocopheryl acetate is more stable and has a longer shelf life, it’s also more poorly absorbed by the skin and may not have the same awesome photoprotective effects as pure Vit E.
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.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
When you hear the word Soy, you probably associate it with soy sauce or tofu, not skincare. But as it turns out, the soybean has a bunch of useful active components and soybean extract is an interesting cosmetic ingredient with a wide range of possible effects.
Its main active components are antioxidant phenolic acids and flavonoids as well as small and large soy proteins. The large proteins give soybean extract nice skin smoothing and softening properties, while the small proteins (soybean trypsin inhibitor (STI) and Bowman-Birk inhibitor (BBI)) are thought to inhibit skin pigmentation and delay hair regrowth.
Regarding skin pigmentation, the soybean extract works by hindering melanosome transfer, meaning it blocks the melanin pigment from traveling up to the surface of the skin and becoming visible there. This is useful for most pigmentation situations but, if you have melasma, soy is not for you as melasma is estrogen-mediated and soy is a well-known phytoestrogen.
The most famous and bioactive flavonoids in soybeans are the isoflavones called genistein and diadzein that have potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Genistein is also proven to inhibit UV induced redness in human skin. These isoflavones are also the ones that make soy a phytoestrogen, meaning they have a (weak) estrogenic effect. Topical estrogen is known to decrease skin thinning and collagen loss and soy might be able to do the same, especially during and after menopause when natural estrogen levels run low.
There is also some promising, but as yet not in-vivo (done on real people), research that soybean extract can stimulate both elastin and collagen synthesis and thus lead to healthier, younger-looking skin.
Overall, soybean extract is a promising and multi-functional active, a nice addition to most ingredient lists.
- Green tea is one of the most researched natural ingredients
- The active parts are called polyphenols, or more precisely catechins (EGCG being the most abundant and most active catechin)
- There can be huge quality differences between green tea extracts. The good ones contain 50-90% catechins (and often make the product brown and give it a distinctive smell)
- Green tea is proven to be a great antioxidant, UV protectant, anti-inflammatory, anticarcinogenic and antimicrobial
- Because of these awesome properties green tea is a great choice for anti-aging and also for skin diseases including rosacea, acne and atopic dermatitis
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
It’s pretty much the current IT-preservative. It’s safe and gentle, but even more importantly, it’s not a feared-by-everyone-mostly-without-scientific-reason paraben.
It’s not something new: it was introduced around 1950 and today it can be used up to 1% worldwide. It can be found in nature - in green tea - but the version used in cosmetics is synthetic.
Other than having a good safety profile and being quite gentle to the skin it has some other advantages too. It can be used in many types of formulations as it has great thermal stability (can be heated up to 85°C) and works on a wide range of pH levels (ph 3-10).
It’s often used together with ethylhexylglycerin as it nicely improves the preservative activity of phenoxyethanol.
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| what‑it‑does | colorant |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen | colorant |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | solvent |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
| what‑it‑does | solvent | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying |
| what‑it‑does | surfactant/cleansing | emulsifying |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | moisturizer/humectant | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | viscosity controlling |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 2-3 |
| what‑it‑does | colorant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0-3, 0-3 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | soothing |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | skin brightening | soothing | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | soothing |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |