Ingredients overview
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Quo Beauty Unisex Tinted HydratorIngredients 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.
An emollient ester (basically an oil like liquid) with a light, elegant and silky feel. It gives a matte finish to the products.
It often comes together with two other esters (called Tridecyl Stearate and Tridecyl Trimellitate) as the three of them can be blended so that they mimic very closely the aesthetic and textural properties of controversial, but nice feeling mineral oil.
Coconut Alkanes is a volatile (something that does not absorb into the skin but evaporates from it), naturally derived vegetable alkane coming from renewable sources. It is a light, oily liquid that works as an emollient and gives a smooth skin feel.
It's often combined with another emollient called Coco-Caprylate/Caprate and the two together can serve as a great replacement for some volatile silicones, like Cyclopentasiloxane.
Talc is the major component of most powder makeup products (think face powder, eyeshadows, and blushers) that usually contain it up to 70%. Its two winning properties that make it very suitable for this role is its outstanding spreadability for a smooth application and its low covering power, aka translucency to avoid clown-like effects.
Chemically speaking, it is a clay mineral (hydrated magnesium silicate) that is mined in several countries. The drawback of mined minerals is potential impurities and the version used in cosmetics has to be white (not gray like cheaper grades), free from asbestos, sterilized and have thin plates for a maximum slip.
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.
Squalene is an oily liquid that originally comes from shark liver but luckily it can also be found in a couple of plant oils. Olive (0.6%), peanut (0.1%) and pumpkin (0.35%) oils contain it, though not in huge amounts.
What contains more of it, is the sebum (the oily stuff) that our skin produces. About 13% of human sebum is squalene, which means that it’s an important skin-identical ingredient and NMF (natural moisturizing factor).
Chemically speaking, it is an unsaturated (has double bonds) hydrocarbon (contains only carbon and hydrogen) molecule, that can undergo oxidation. On the pro side, this means that squalene can act as an antioxidant (while its no-double-bond version sister, squalane cannot), but on the con side, squalene is less stable and has a shorter shelf life.
This is probably the main reason why its no-double bond and hence more stable sister, squalane shows up more often on ingredient lists. Read about squalane here >>
A handy spherical powder that's often combined with fellow spherical powder, Polymethylsilsesquioxane to form a high-performing texturizing duo. The duo is claimed to provide excellent slip, fluidity and overall skin feel and gives soft focus and wrinkle correction to the formula. It also has strong de-tackifying and anti-caking properties.
A silicone emulsifier that helps water and silicone oils to mix nicely together.
An emollient ester with a rich and creamy but non-greasy skin feel. It makes skin supple and protects dry skin.
A white powdery thing that's the major component of glass and sand. In cosmetics, it’s often in products that are supposed to keep your skin matte as it has great oil-absorbing abilities. It’s also used as a helper ingredient to thicken up products or suspend insoluble particles.
An organic derivative of hectorite clay, Disteardimonium Hectorite is used as a viscosity controller - it thickens up formulations to make them less runny.
It’s most popular use in cosmetics is in sunscreens, under the trademarked name Bentone 38 from Elementis. According to the manufacturer info, it is a real multi-tasker, including the ability to prevent pigments settling during storage, stabilizing a formula for longer, creating a light and smooth skin feel and enhancing the water-resistance of sunscreen formulas.
A clear, colorless and odorless, highly volatile (meaning it does not absorb into the skin but evaporates from it) liquid that's used as an emollient. It gives a nice non-oily light skin feel and it can improve the slip of the formula without leaving a tacky residue behind.
It's also popular in make-up products as its volatility makes mascaras and foundations last longer. If that would not be enough, it's also an excellent solvent, and it's a regular not only on the ingredients lists of make-ups but also on makeup removers.
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
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 light emollient ester (C8-10 fatty acids connected to C12-18 fatty alcohols) that absorbs quickly and leaves a dry but silky finish on the skin. In terms of skin feel, it is similar to Dicaprylyl Carbonate, another commonly used light emollient.
A thick, high molecular weight silicone that is usually diluted in another, lighter silicone fluid (like dimethicone or cyclopentasiloxane). The dimethiconol containing silicone blends leave a silky smooth, non-greasy film on the skin.
A helper ingredient that helps to make the products stay nice longer, aka preservative. It works mainly against fungi and has only milder effect against bacteria.
It is Ecocert and Cosmos approved, and is popular in natural products.
A solid silicone resin that creates a permeable film over the skin. It makes makeup formulas more long-lasting and can enhance the water resistance of sunscreens. It leaves a non-tacky film when dried.
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.
A silicone molecule that is half-way between Dimethicone and Methicone, meaning that some of the methyl (-CH3) groups are replaced with a hydrogen atom (in Methicone half of the CH3 groups are replaced). This makes Hydrogen Dimethicone a handy pigment bonding agent used for the hydrophobization treatment of powders as the H atoms can absorb traces of water from the surface of pigments.
It almost always comes stuck together with either Titanium Dioxide, Zinc Oxide or Mica. In suncare products, it binds to physical UV filters to maximize their protection while minimizing any white casts. It also has good chemical stability with no irritation. In makeup, it is often paired with Mica where it offers nice hydrophobic properties and improves skin adhesion - meaning it will make it easier for products to stay where they should be.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
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.
- It’s naturally in our skin and behaves there like a sponge
- It can bind up to 1000 times its own weight in water
- It is a big molecule from repeated subunits (polymer) so different molecular weight versions exist (unfortunately there is no way to determine MW from INCI list only)
- High-molecular-weight-HA (>500 kDa) is an excellent surface hydrator, skin protectant and can act as an osmotic pump helping water-soluble actives to penetrate deeper into the skin
- Low-molecular-weight-HA (< 500 kDa) can hydrate the skin somewhat deeper though it is still a big molecule and works mainly in the epidermis (outer layer of the skin)
- Low-molecular-weight-HA might also help the skin to repair itself by increasing its self-defense (~ 200kDa used in the study)
- Ultra-low-molecular-weight-HA (<50kDa) is a controversial ingredient and might work as a pro-inflammatory signal molecule
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 pale yellow solid material that helps cosmetic products not to go wrong too soon aka preservative.
It has antioxidant and antibacterial activity and can be used synergistically with IT-preservative phenoxyethanol or 1,2-Hexanediol and Caprylyl Glycol to form a broad spectrum preservative system for cosmetic formulas.
A corn-derived, white to yellowish, floury powder that works as a handy helper ingredient to create nice feeling emulsions.
It gives a generally pleasant skin feel, has some mattifying effect (though rice starch is better at that), it reduces greasiness and tackiness and helps the formula to spread easily without whitening or shininess.
- 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
Ci 77891 is the color code of titanium dioxide. It's a white pigment with great color consistency and dispersibility.
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.
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| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | abrasive/scrub |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | solvent |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | antioxidant | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | skin brightening |
| what‑it‑does | chelating |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | moisturizer/humectant | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling | abrasive/scrub |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0-3, 0-3 |
| what‑it‑does | colorant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | colorant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | colorant |