Deep Clean Purifying Micellar Cleansing Towelettes
Highlights
Other Ingredients
Skim through
| Ingredient name | what-it-does | irr., com. | ID-Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water | solvent | ||
| Polysorbate 20 | emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing | 0, 0 | |
| PEG-6 Caprylic/Capric Glycerides | emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing | ||
| Butylene Glycol | moisturizer/humectant, solvent | 0, 1 | |
| Citric Acid | buffering | ||
| Phenoxyethanol | preservative | ||
| PEG-8 | moisturizer/humectant, solvent | ||
| Sodium Benzoate | preservative | ||
| Poloxamer 407 | emulsifying, viscosity controlling, surfactant/cleansing | ||
| Fragrance | perfuming | icky | |
| Disodium EDTA | chelating | ||
| Portulaca Oleracea Extract | soothing, antioxidant | goodie |
Neutrogena Deep Clean Purifying Micellar Cleansing TowelettesIngredients 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.
It's a common little helper ingredient that helps water and oil to mix together. Also, it can help to increase the solubility of some other ingredients in the formula.
A water-loving liquid that's clearly soluble in aqueous surfactant solutions, can solubilize oils and oil-soluble ingredients and has a nice skin feel. It's a popular ingredient in micellar cleansing waters.
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.
Citric acid comes from citrus fruits and is an AHA. If these magic three letters don’t tell you anything, click here and read our detailed description on glycolic acid, the most famous AHA.
So citric acid is an exfoliant, that can - just like other AHAs - gently lift off the dead skin cells of your skin and make it more smooth and fresh.
There is also some research showing that citric acid with regular use (think three months and 20% concentration) can help sun-damaged skin, increase skin thickness and some nice hydrating things called glycosaminoglycans in the skin.
But according to a comparative study done in 1995, citric acid has less skin improving magic properties than glycolic or lactic acid. Probably that’s why citric acid is usually not used as an exfoliant but more as a helper ingredient in small amounts to adjust the pH of a formulation.
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.
A smallish polymer molecule (created from repeated units of Polyethylene glycol, aka PEG) that's used as a solubilizer and viscosity control agent.
It is a clear, colorless liquid that is water-soluble and water-binding (aka humectant) and can help to solubilize sparingly-water soluble things (e.g. vanilla, perfumes) into water-based formulas. Thanks to its water-binding ability, it also prevents the drying out of formulas, especially when combined with the fellow hygroscopic agent, sorbitol.
A helper ingredient that helps to make the products stay nice longer, aka preservative. It works mainly against fungi.
It’s pH dependent and works best at acidic pH levels (3-5). It’s not strong enough to be used in itself so it’s always combined with something else, often with potassium sorbate.
A synthetic big copolymer molecule that is used mainly as a solubilizer (make small amounts of oil-loving things soluble in water-based formulas) and gelling agent.
In general, poloxamers are interesting big molecules composed of three blocks: the middle block is an oil-loving part (from propylene oxide units, if you're into chemistry), while the left and right blocks are two water-loving parts (from ethylene oxide units). This means that poloxamers are partly water and partly oil soluble and thus they are surface active agents acting as emulsifiers and/or cleansers. The size of both the oil and water-soluble part can vary, and the numbers in the name of the molecule refer to both the overall size of the whole molecule and to the ratio of the water-soluble part.
This particular guy, Poloxamer 407, is a big one with significant water-soluble part (70%) hence it works as a solubilizer to make small amounts of oil-loving ingredients (such as essential oils) soluble in water-based formulas. It is also the best gelling and body giving agent out of the poloxamers commonly used in cosmetic products.
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!).
Super common little helper ingredient that helps products to remain nice and stable for a longer time. It does so by neutralizing the metal ions in the formula (that usually get into there from water) that would otherwise cause some not so nice changes.
It is typically used in tiny amounts, around 0.1% or less.
Portulaca Oleracea is a nice succulent with bright yellow flowers and edible nutritious vegetables. It's a famous plant in Korean traditional medicine to treat infection and irritated skin.
Modern research confirms that it's loaded with skin-goodies: it's the richest green plant source of omega-3 fatty acids (α-linolenic acid), contains NMFs (polysaccharides and amino acids), vitamins (β-carotene), minerals, and antioxidants (yellow betaxanthins and reddish betacyanins). Thanks to all its beneficial components, Purslane Extract has several magic properties: it's a great anti-inflammatory and antioxidant agent and also has wound healing abilities.
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| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | solvent |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
| what‑it‑does | buffering |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying | viscosity controlling | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | perfuming |
| what‑it‑does | chelating |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | antioxidant |