Face Cream
Ingredients overview
Highlights
Key Ingredients
Skim through
| Ingredient name | what-it-does | irr., com. | ID-Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water (Aqua) | solvent | ||
| Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice (Aloe Vera) | soothing, moisturizer/humectant | goodie | |
| Calendula Officinalis (Marigold) | soothing, antioxidant | goodie | |
| Polyglyceryl 1-2 Dipolyhydroxystearate | emulsifying | ||
| Fucus Vesiculosus (Seaweed Extract) | |||
| Ricinus Communis (Castor Seed) Oil | emollient, perfuming | 0, 0-1 | |
| Xanthan Gum | viscosity controlling | ||
| Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter | emollient | 0, 4 | goodie |
| Rosa Canina Fruit (Rose Hip) Oil | emollient | ||
| Hypericum Perforatum (St.Johns Wort) Oil | emollient | ||
| Tocopherol (Vitamin E) | antioxidant | 0-3, 0-3 | goodie |
| Vegetable Glycerine | skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | 0, 0 | superstar |
| Panthenol | soothing, moisturizer/humectant | 0, 0 | goodie |
| Hippophae Rhamnoides | |||
| (Sea Buckthorn) Oil | antioxidant, emollient | goodie | |
| Polyaminopropyl Biguanide | preservative |
Oneka Face CreamIngredients 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.
Aloe Vera is one of today’s magic plants. It does have some very nice properties indeed, though famous dermatologist Leslie Baumann warns us in her book that most of the evidence is anecdotal and the plant might be a bit overhyped.
What research does confirm about Aloe is that it’s a great moisturizer and has several anti-inflammatory (among others contains salicylates, polysaccharides, magnesium lactate and C-glucosyl chromone) as well as some antibacterial components. It also helps wound healing and skin regeneration in general. All in all definitely a goodie.
The extract coming from the popular garden plant Calendula or Marigold. It's used traditionally as a skin-repairing and soothing plant extract.
Click here to read more at the calendula flower extract.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Castor oil is sourced from the castor bean plant native to tropical areas in Eastern Africa and the Mediterranean Basin. It is an age-old ingredient (it’s over 4,000 years old!) with many uses including as a shoe polish, food additive and motor lubricant. You would be reasonable to think that putting shoe polish on your face wouldn’t be the best idea, but it turns out castor oil has some unique properties that make it a stalwart in thick and gloss-giving formulas (think lipsticks and highlighters).
So what is so special about it? The answer is its main fatty acid, called ricinoleic acid (85-95%). Unlike other fatty acids, ricinoleic acid has an extra water-loving part (aka -OH group) on its fatty chain that gives Castor Oil several unique properties. First, it is thicker than other oils, then its solubility is different (e.g. dissolves in alcohol but not in mineral oil), and it allows all kinds of chemical modifications other oils do not, hence the lots of Castor oil-derived ingredients. It is also more glossy than other oils, in fact, it creates the highest gloss of all natural oils when applied to the skin. Other than that, it is a very effective emollient and occlusive that reduces skin moisture loss so it is quite common in smaller amounts in moisturizers.
While it is very unlikely (and this is true for pretty much every ingredient), cases of reactions to castor oil have been reported, so if your skin is sensitive, it never hurts to patch test.
It's one of the most commonly used thickeners and emulsion stabilizers. If the product is too runny, a little xanthan gum will make it more gel-like. Used alone, it can make the formula sticky and it is a good team player so it is usually combined with other thickeners and so-called rheology modifiers (helper ingredients that adjust the flow and thus the feel of the formula). The typical use level of Xantha Gum is below 1%, it is usually in the 0.1-0.5% range.
Btw, Xanthan gum is all natural, a chain of sugar molecules (polysaccharide) produced from individual sugar molecules (glucose and sucrose) via fermentation. It’s approved by Ecocert and also used in the food industry (E415).
Theobroma means "food of the gods" in Greek though probably "treat of the people" would be more spot on. The cacao fruits and especially the seeds in it need no introduction as everyone knows them as the magical raw material of the magical sweet treat, chocolate (the flavour is composed of more than 1200(!) substances, and the exact chemical nature of it is not really understood, so it's indeed magic. :)).
As for skincare, cocoa butter counts as a rich emollient that can moisturize and nourish even the driest skin (think chapped hands or lips). It's solid at room temperature and melts nicely when you smear it on. It's loaded with good-for-the-skin things: it contains fatty acids, mainly oleic (35%), stearic (34%), and palmitic (25%) and it also has antioxidant vitamin E and polyphenols.
An ex-vivo (made on human skin but not on real people) study examined the cocoa polyphenols and found that 0.5-0.75% of them improved skin tone and elasticity and had a similarly positive impact on GAGs (important natural moisturizing factors in the skin) and collagen synthesis than a commercial high-end moisturizer (it was an Estee Lauder one).
All in all, cocoa butter is a goodie, especially for very dry skin.
Though it says fruit oil in its name, the rosehip fruit contains the seeds that contain the oil. So this one is the same as Rosa Canina Seed Oil, or Rosehip Oil, known for its high omega fatty acid content (linoleic acid - 51%, linolenic acid - 19% and oleic acid - 20%) and skin-regenerative properties.
There is a common misconception that rosehip oil contains vitamin C as the fruit itself does, but vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin hence it is not contained in the oil. The antioxidant and regenerative properties of the oil probably come from the oil-soluble tocopherols (vitamin E) and carotenoids (pro-vitamin A). Read more here.
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
- 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
An easy-to-formulate, commonly used, nice to have ingredient that’s also called pro-vitamin B5. As you might guess from the “pro” part, it’s a precursor to vitamin B5 (whose fancy name is pantothenic acid).
Its main job in skincare products is to moisturise the skin. It’s a humectant meaning that it can help the skin to attract water and then hold onto it. There is also research showing that panthenol can help our skin to produce more lovely lipids that are important for a strong and healthy skin barrier.
Another great thing about panthenol is that it has anti-inflammatory and skin protecting abilities. A study shows that it can reduce the irritation caused by less-nice other ingredients (e.g. fragrance, preservatives or chemical sunscreens) in the product.
Research also shows that it might be useful for wound healing as it promotes fibroblast (nice type of cells in our skin that produce skin-firming collagen) proliferation.
If that wasn’t enough panthenol is also useful in nail and hair care products. A study shows that a nail treatment liquide with 2% panthenol could effectively get into the nail and significantly increase the hydration of it.
As for the hair the hydration effect is also true there. Panthenol might make your hair softer, more elastic and helps to comb your hair more easily.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
The oil coming from the pulp of the sea buckthorn berry. It has a pretty unique fatty acid composition: 65% is a combination of the rare Omega-7, aka palmitoleic acid and the more common palmitic acid. Fatty acids give the oil nice moisturizing and skin-protecting abilities.
But that's not all the goodness of sea buckthorn oil. It contains antioxidant superstar, Vitamin E (in multiple forms), antioxidant (and orange color giving) pigments beta-carotene and lycopene, as well as skin-soothing and replenishing beta-sitosterol.
Btw, used undiluted, it will make your skin orange.
All in all, a goodie emollient plant oil.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
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| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | antioxidant |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | perfuming |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0-1 |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 4 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0-3, 0-3 |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |