Sugar Scrub Tropical Passion Coconut & Marula
Highlights
Other Ingredients
Skim through
| Ingredient name | what-it-does | irr., com. | ID-Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sucrose | moisturizer/humectant, soothing | goodie | |
| Cocos Nucifera Oil | emollient, perfuming | 0, 4 | goodie |
| Sclerocarya Birrea Seed Oil | emollient | goodie | |
| Coco-Glucoside | surfactant/cleansing | ||
| Glyceryl Oleate | emollient, emulsifying, perfuming | ||
| Cocamidopropyl Betaine | surfactant/cleansing | ||
| Fragrance/Parfum | perfuming | icky | |
| BHT | antioxidant, preservative | ||
| Coumarin | perfuming | icky |
Revuele Sugar Scrub Tropical Passion Coconut & MarulaIngredients explained
A type fo sugar, usually refined from cane or beet sugar. On the skin, it has water-binding properties and helps to keep your skin hydrated.
There is definitely some craze going on for coconut oil both in the healthy eating space (often claimed to be the healthiest oil to cook with but this is a topic for another site) and in the skin and hair care space.
We will talk here about the latter two and see why we might want to smear it all over ourselves. Chemically speaking, coconut oil has a unique fatty acid profile. Unlike many plant oils that mostly contain unsaturated fatty acids (fatty acids with double bonds and kinky structure such as linoleic or oleic), coconut oil is mostly saturated (fatty acids with single bonds only) and its most important fatty acid is Lauric Acid (about 50%). Saturated fatty acids have a linear structure that can stack nice and tight and hence they are normally solid at room temperature. Coconut oil melts around 25 °C so it is solid in the tub but melts on contact with the skin.
The saturated nature of coconut oil also means that it is a heavy-duty-oil ideal for dry skin types. A double-blind research confirmed that extra virgin coconut oil is as effective in treating xerosis (aka very dry skin) as mineral oil. Another study found that coconut oil is more effective than mineral oil in treating mild to moderate atopic dermatitis (aka eczema) in children.
So when it comes to dry skin, coconut oil is a goodie, no question there. The question is if it is good or bad for acne-prone skin. Its main fatty acid, Lauric Acid has some research showing that it is a promising ingredient against evil acne-causing bacteria, P. acnes but at the same time, both Lauric Acid and coconut oil have a very high comedogenic rating (4 out of 5). Though comedogenic ratings are not very reliable, anecdotal evidence (i.e. people commenting in forums) shows that people have mixed experiences. While some claim that it worked wonders on their acne others say that it gave them serious blackheads and zits. Try it at your own risk.
As for hair care, coconut oil has pretty solid research showing that it can penetrate into the hair very well (better than mineral oil and sunflower oil) and it can prevent hair protein loss as well as combing damage. If you have problems with damaged hair, split ends, coconut oil is worth trying as a pre- or/and post-wash treatment. Labmuffin has an awesome blogpost explaining in more detail why coconut oil is good for your hair.
A couple of other things worth mentioning: coconut oil might help with wound healing (promising animal study), it has some antifungal activity (against dermatophytes that cause the thing known as ringworm) and it also works as an insect repellent against black flies.
Overall, coconut oil is definitely a goodie for the hair and dry skin. If that warrants for the magic oil status it enjoys, we don't know.
If you have an interest in elephants and Africa, you have probably heard of elephants getting drunk from the fruit of the Marula tree. Though this seems to be only a legend, what is true is that the Marula fruit is really nice (and elephants do love to eat it) and there is a stone in it with several oil-rich kernels inside.
So the Marula oil - similar to many other plant oils - is a really nice nourishing and moisturizing oil that can improve skin hydration and smoothness and it can even reduce skin redness. It's traditionally used in South Africa to massage babies with and as a body lotion for face, feet, and hands.
As for its composition, it's loaded with skin goodies: it's very rich in fatty acids, including oleic (73%), palmitic (15%), and linoleic (9%) acids. It also contains some natural antioxidants, including Vitamin E and the oil shows an outstanding oxidative stability.
If you have dry skin that needs some pampering, Marula oil is a good choice.
A vegetable origin (coconut/palm kernel oil, glucose) cleansing agent that gives moderate to high stable foam. It's also biodegradable and mild to the skin.
The attachment of glycerin and oleic acid that works mainly as a co-emulsifier and stabilizer to create stable water-oil mixes, aka emulsions. It is also popular in cleansing products as it helps to thicken them up and has some refatting and skin-smoothing effect.
Super common ingredient in all kinds of cleansing products: face and body washes, shampoos and foam baths.
Number one reason for its popularity has to do with bubbles. Everyone loves bubbles. And cocamidopropyl betaine is great at stabilizing them.
The other reason is that it’s mild and works very well combined with other cleansing agents and surfactants. The art of cleansing is usually to balance between properly cleansing but not over-cleansing and cocamidopropyl betaine is helpful in pulling off this balance right.
Oh, and one more nice thing: even though it’s synthetic it’s highly biodegradable.
More info on CAPB on Collins Beaty Pages.
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!).
It's the acronym for Butylated Hydroxy Toluene. It's a common synthetic antioxidant that's used as a preservative.
There is some controversy around BHT. It's not a new ingredient, it has been used both as a food and cosmetics additive since the 1970s. Plenty of studies tried to examine if it's a carcinogen or not. This Truth in Aging article details the situation and also writes that all these studies examine BHT when taken orally.
As for cosmetics, the CIR (Cosmetic Ingredient Review) concluded that the amount of BHT used in cosmetic products is low (usually around 0.01-0.1%), it does not penetrate skin far enough to be absorbed into the bloodstream and it is safe to use in cosmetics.
A common fragrance ingredient that has a sweet, vanilla, nutty scent. When diluted it smells like freshly-mown hay.
It’s one of the “EU 26 fragrances” that has to be labelled separately (and cannot be simply included in the term “fragrance/perfume” on the label) because of allergen potential. Best to avoid if your skin is sensitive.
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| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | soothing |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | perfuming |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 4 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | emulsifying | perfuming |
| what‑it‑does | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | perfuming |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | perfuming |