Ikarov

Shea Butter

pure shea butter

Uploaded by: yana0613 on 08/13/2019

Ingredients overview

Butyrospermum Parkii Butter, Tocopherol, Lecithin, Ascorbyl Palmitate

Read more on how to read an ingredient list >>

Highlights

Key Ingredients

Antioxidant: Tocopherol

Other Ingredients

Antioxidant: Ascorbyl Palmitate

Emollient: Butyrospermum Parkii Butter, Lecithin

Emulsifying: Lecithin

Skim through

Ingredient name	what-it-does	irr., com.	ID-Rating
Butyrospermum Parkii Butter	emollient		goodie
Tocopherol	antioxidant	0-3, 0-3	goodie
Lecithin	emollient, emulsifying		goodie
Ascorbyl Palmitate	antioxidant	0, 2	icky

Ikarov Shea Butter
Ingredients explained

Butyrospermum Parkii Butter - goodie

Also-called: Shea Butter | What-it-does: emollient

Unless you live under a rock you must have heard about shea butter. It's probably the most hyped up natural butter in skincare today. It comes from the seeds of African Shea or Karite Trees and used as a magic moisturizer and emollient.

But it's not only a simple emollient, it regenerates and soothes the skin, protects it from external factors (such as UV rays or wind) and is also rich in antioxidants (among others vitamin A, E, F, quercetin and epigallocatechin gallate). If you are looking for rich emollient benefits + more, shea is hard to beat.

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 >>

Lecithin - goodie

What-it-does: emollient, emulsifying

A very common ingredient that can be found in all cell membranes. In cosmetics it's quite the multi-tasker: it's an emollient and water-binding ingredient but it's also an emulsifier and can be used for stabilization purposes. It's also often used to create liposomes.

Ascorbyl Palmitate - icky

Also-called: Form of Vitamin C | What-it-does: antioxidant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 2

A form of skincare superstar, vitamin C. Even though we are massive vitamin C fans, Ascorbyl Palmitate (AP) is our least favorite. (Btw, if you do not know what the big deal with vitamin C is then you are missing out. You must go and read our geeky details about it.)

So, AP is one of the attempts by the cosmetics industry to solve the stability issues with vitamin C while preserving its benefits, but it seems to fall short on several things.

What's the problem?

Firstly, it's stability is only similar to that of pure ascorbic acid (AA), which means it is not really stable. A great study in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology compared a bunch of vitamin C derivatives and this derivative was the only one where the study said in terms of stability that it's "similar to AA". Not really that good.

Second, a study that examined the skin absorption of vitamin C found that ascorbyl palmitate did not increase the skin levels of AA. This does not mean that ascorbyl palmitate cannot penetrate the skin (because it can, it's oil soluble and the skin likes to absorb oil soluble things) but this means that it's questionable if ascorbyl palmitate can be converted into pure Vit C in the skin. Even if it can be converted, the palmitate part of the molecule is more than the half of it, so the efficacy will not be good and we have never seen a serum that contains a decent (and proudly disclosed) amount of AP. We are highly skeptical what effect a tiny amount of AP has in a formula.

Third, another study that wanted to examine the antioxidant properties of AP was surprised to find that even though AP does have nice antioxidant properties; following UVB radiation (the same one that comes from the sun) it also promotes lipid peroxidation and cytotoxicity. It was only an in-vitro study meaning that it was done on cell cultures and not on real people, but still, this also does not support the use of AP too much.

The only good thing we can write about Ascorbyl Palmitate is that there is an in-vitro (made in the lab, not on real people) study showing that it might be able to boost collagen production.

Regarding the skin-brightening properties of pure vitamin C, this is another magic property AP does not have, or at least there is no data, not even in-vitro, about it.

Overall, Ascorbyl Palmitate is our least favorite vitamin C derivative. It is there in lots of products in tiny amounts (honestly, we do not really understand why), however, we do not know about any vitamin C serum featuring AP in high amounts. That is probably no coincidence. If you are into vitamin C, you can take a look at more promising derivatives here.

what‑it‑does	antioxidant
irritancy, com.	0, 2

Ikarov Shea Butter