Centella Teca Cream
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Skin1004 Centella Teca 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.
Centella Asiatica - or sometimes also called Gotu Kola or Cica - has been used in folk medicine for hundreds of years. It’s traditionally used to improve small wounds, burns and scratches and it’s also a well known anti-inflammatory agent for eczema.
Recently science has taken an interest in Gotu Kola as well and it turns out it really has many active compounds with several benefits. Just for hard-core geeks, the main biologically active compounds are pentacyclic triterpenoid saponins called asiaticoside, madecassoside, asiatic and madecassic acid (also called centellosides).
One of the biological activities of the centellosides is to be able to stimulate GAGs (glycosaminoglycans - polysaccharides that are part of the liquidy stuff between our skin cells), and especially hyaluronic acid synthesis in our skin. This is probably one of the reasons why Centella Asiatica Extract has nice skin moisturizing properties that was confirmed by a 25 people, four weeks study along with Centella's anti-inflammatory effects.
Madecassoside can also help in burn wound healing through increasing antioxidant activity and enhancing collagen synthesis. Asiaticoside was shown to increase antioxidant levels on rats skin when applied at 0.2%.
Centella Asiatica also often shows up in products that try to treat cellulite or striae. Of course, it cannot make a miracle but it might have some effect via regulating microcirculation and normalizing the metabolism in the cells of connective tissues.
Bottom line: Gotu Kola is a great plant ingredient with proven wound healing, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties. Nice to spot on any ingredient list.
- 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
- A multi-functional skincare superstar with several proven benefits for the skin
- Great anti-aging, wrinkle smoothing ingredient used at 4-5% concentration
- Fades brown spots alone or in combination with amino sugar, acetyl glucosamine
- Increases ceramide synthesis that results in a stronger, healthier skin barrier and better skin hydration
- Can help to improve several skin conditions including acne, rosacea, and atopic dermatitis
An odorless and colorless emollient ester (cetyl alcohol + ethylhexanoic acid) that gives a velvety and silky feel to the skin. It has great spreadability and a non-oily feel. It's a popular ingredient in makeup removers.
A super common emollient that makes your skin feel nice and smooth. It comes from coconut oil and glycerin, it’s light-textured, clear, odorless and non-greasy. It’s a nice ingredient that just feels good on the skin, is super well tolerated by every skin type and easy to formulate with. No wonder it’s popular.
A really multi-functional helper ingredient that can do several things in a skincare product: it can bring a soft and pleasant feel to the formula, it can act as a humectant and emollient, it can be a solvent for some other ingredients (for example it can help to stabilize perfumes in watery products) and it can also help to disperse pigments more evenly in makeup products. And that is still not all: it can also boost the antimicrobial activity of preservatives.
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.
A spherical texturizing powder that's used as a texture enhancer and soft focus agent. It's claimed to give silicone type softness to the formula and also works as a (temporary) wrinkle filler.
A clear, colorless liquid that works as a solvent and viscosity decreasing ingredient. It also has great skin-moisturizing abilities.
A big molecule created from repeated subunits (a polymer of acrylic acid) that magically converts a liquid into a nice gel formula. It usually has to be neutralized with a base (such as sodium hydroxide) for the thickening to occur and it creates viscous, clear gels that also feel nice and non-tacky on the skin. No wonder, it is a very popular and common ingredient. Typically used at 1% or less in most formulations.
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.
A molecule that is naturally present in the bran of rye and other cereals. It has been used for a long time in the food industry as an "anti-browning agent" for fresh-cut fruits or shrimps.
It turns out that Hexylresorcinol works as an "anti-browning agent" also in cosmetic products. It is a pretty well-researched molecule with significant tyrosinase (the famous enzyme needed to produce melanin) inhibiting abilities. The clinical study of the manufacturer showed that 0.5% Hexylresorcinol has a comparable skin-lightening effect to gold-standard, 2% Hydroquinone.
Even better, a 12-weeks, double-blind, placebo-controlled study with 65 volunteers confirmed the effectiveness of our skin-lightening molecule and it measured an average of 88% skin-lightening improvement. The study also included before and after photos (always a good sign!) and the skin-lightening was indeed visible and significant (though the pigmentation spots did not completely disappear, just so you have realistic expectations).
Our molecule is also a good team player and seems to work in synergy with skincare-do-it-all Niacinamide. A 2022 study compared 3% Niacinamide on its own and a combination of 0.4% Hexylresorcinol + 3% Niacinamide and found that the combo delivered superior skin tone and anti-ageing benefits significantly better than Niacinamide alone.
It's a little helper ingredient that helps to set the pH of the products to be right. It has an alkaline pH and can neutralize acidic ingredients.
This long-named, polymer molecule (big molecule from repeated subunits) is a helper ingredient that's good at emulsifying and stabilizing oils into water-based formulas. It also acts as a thickening and gelling agent that creates nice, non-sticky and supple textures. It works over a very wide pH range (3-12) and can be used to thicken up low-ph formulas, such as exfoliants. Its recommended used range is 0.3-3%.
It's the chemically chopped up version of normal lecithin. Most often it's used to create liposomes and to coat and stabilize other ingredients.
If you have spotted ethylhexylglycerin on the ingredient list, most probably you will see there also the current IT-preservative, phenoxyethanol. They are good friends because ethylhexylglycerin can boost the effectiveness of phenoxyethanol (and other preservatives) and as an added bonus it feels nice on the skin too.
Also, it's an effective deodorant and a medium spreading emollient.
An ester that comes from Cetearyl alcohol and the fatty acids of olive oil. It often comes to the formula coupled with Sorbitan Olivate as the two together form the well-known, natural emulsifier trade named Olivem 1000.
Other than helping oil and water to blend, the main thing of Olivem 1000 is generating liquid crystal structures that are similar to the lipid structures of the stratum corneum (the outermost layer of the skin). Thanks to this, Olivem 1000 doubles as an active ingredient with significant moisturizing, barrier-repairing and soothing properties.
It also helps to deliver water-soluble actives such as caffeine more effectively, and can even boost SPF in sunscreen formulas. Its typical use level is 1-5% and has wide compatibility with other actives and oils.
Overall, a real multi-tasker with nice sensorial properties. No wonder it is so popular.
Though its long name does not reveal it, this polymer molecule (big molecule from repeated subunits or monomers) is a relative to the super common, water-loving thickener, Carbomer. Both of them are big molecules that contain acrylic acid units, but Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer also contains some other monomers that are hydrophobic, i.e. water-hating.
This means that our molecule is part water- and part oil-loving, so it not only works as a thickener but also as an emulsion stabilizer. It is very common in gel-type formulas that also contain an oil-phase as well as in cleansers as it also works with most cleansing agents (unlike a lot of other thickeners).
An optical isomer of naturally occurring arbutin (or beta-arbutin). Just like its sibling, alpha-arbutin is also a skin-brightening, depigmenting agent.
Researching the difference between the two kinds of arbutin, you can read in multiple places on the internet that alpha-arbutin is stronger in effect. Unfortunately, it's never backed up with a credible source. :( Our own research resulted in conflicting results: a study from 1995 found that alpha-arbutin is 10x as effective on mouse melanoma as beta-arbutin. On the other hand, a more recent study from 2015 found that beta-arbutin is more effective both on mouse melanoma cells and on human melanoma cells (btw, kojic acid was the most effective on human melanoma cells).
None of the studies we could find is in-vivo (made on real people) anyways, so who knows. We think you cannot go wrong with trying both beta- and alpha-arbutin and see if one works better for you than the other.
An ester coming from sorbitol and the fatty acids of olive oil. It is part of the popular emulsifier trade named Olivem 1000 that is well-known for generating biomimetic liquid crystal structures. We have more info on Olivem 1000 at Cetearyl Olivate >>
- It's a super common and super debated skincare ingredient
- It has several benefits: great solvent, penetration enhancer, creates cosmetically elegant, light formulas, great astringent and antimicrobial
- It can be very drying if it's in the first few ingredients on an ingredient list
- Some experts even think that regular exposure to alcohol damages skin barrier and causes inflammation though it's a debated opinion (read more in geeky details tab)
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
One of the biologically active components of Gotu Kola that is thought to contribute to the plant extract's well-documented skin regenerating, wound healing, and moisturizing properties.
If you are into Gotu Kola we have some more info at Centella Asiatica Extract and its other biologically active components Madecassoside, Asiaticoside and Asiatic Acid.
One of the main biologically active components of the famous medicinal plant, Centella Asiatica, aka Gotu Kola. It has well established wound healing and antioxidant activities.
In-vitro (made in the lab) studies also show that Asiaticoside stimulates GAGs (glycosaminoglycans - polysaccharides that are part of the liquidy stuff between our skin cells) production as well as collagen I synthesis. Read more at Gotu Kola >>
Adenosine is an important little compound in our body that has a vital cell-signalling role. Research on smearing it on our face is also promising and shows so far a couple of things:
- It can help with wound healing
- It’s a good anti-inflammatory agent
- It might even help with skin’s own collagen production and improve skin firmness and elasticity
- It helps with barrier repair and protection
- It might be even useful for the hair helping with hair thickness and hair growth
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.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A handy helper ingredient that helps water and oil to mix nicely together, aka emulsifier. It is especially recommended for protective, baby care and general purpose emollient creams.
It also helps to disperse insoluble particles (think color pigments or zinc/titanium dioxide sunscreen) nice and even in cosmetic formulas.
One of the biologically active components of Gotu Kola. It's a bit less prominent than its sister component, Asiaticoside, but in-vitro (made in the lab) studies show that Asiatic Acid also stimulates GAGs (glycosaminoglycans - polysaccharides that are part of the liquidy stuff between our skin cells) production as well as collagen I synthesis.
English translation equals that it probably contributes to the well-established moisturizing and wound healing abilities of Gotu Kola.
Ferulic Acid (FA) is a goodie that can be found naturally in plant cell walls. There is a lot of it especially in the bran of grasses such as rice, wheat and oats.
FA - whose main job is to be an antioxidant - owes its fame to a 2005 research that discovered that adding in 0.5% FA to a 15% Vitamin C + 1% Vitamin E solution not only stabilizes the highly unstable, divaish Vit C, but it also doubles the photoprotection abilities of the formula.
Couple of other studies show that FA just by itself is also a nice addition to cosmetic formulations: it can penetrate the skin (which is kind of important to do the job) and it has protecting properties against UV caused skin damage.
So if you spot it on the ingredient list be happy about it. :)
One of the main biologically active components of the famous medicinal plant, Centella Asiatica, aka Gotu Kola. It has well established wound healing, skin-soothing and antioxidant activities.
There is also a study by La Roche Posay (belongs to L'Oreal) that examined the anti-aging effects of 5% Vitamin C combined with 0.1% Madecassoside. They mention that " Madecassoside is known to induce collagen expression and ⁄ or to modulate inflammatory mediators thus might prevent and correct some signs of aging." The surprisingly long, 6-month study observed "significant improvement of the clinical score for deep and superficial wrinkles, suppleness, firmness, roughness, and skin hydration", but Vitamin C in itself is already an anti-aging superstar, so it is hard to know how much Madecassoside did.
Another promising property of Madecassoside is that it seems to inhibit UV-induced melanin synthesis (test formula with 0.05% MA, used twice a day on 23 volunteers for 8 weeks), making it a great active for hyperpigmentation-prone skin.
If that would not be enough, the French manufacturer (Seppic) also has encouraging in-vivo studies on the molecule. Used at 0.2%, Madecassoside reduces redness and peeling in skin with light atopic dermatitis as well as itching in psoriasis-prone skin.
A traditional East Asian medicine that has a couple of recent studies to back up its positive effects on the skin.
It seems to have potent anti-inflammatory activity, it's a mild antioxidant and also has strong anti-bacterial effect for acne causing bacteria, Propionibacterium acne.
Beta-Glucan is a nice big molecule composed of many smaller sugar molecules (called polysaccharide). It’s in the cell walls of yeast, some mushrooms, seaweeds, and cereals.
It’s a real goodie no matter if you eat it or put it on your face. Eating it is anti-diabetic, anti-cancer, and even lowers blood cholesterol.
Putting it on your face also does a bunch of good things: it‘s shown to have intensive skin repairing & wound healing properties, it’s a mild antioxidant, a great skin soother, and moisturizer, and it even shows promising anti-aging benefits.
The manufacturer of the ingredient did a published study with 27 people and examined the effect of 0.1% beta-glucan. They found that despite the large molecular size the smaller factions of beta-glucan penetrate into the skin, even into the dermis (the middle layer of the skin where wrinkles form). After 8 weeks there was a significant reduction of wrinkle depth and height and skin roughness has also improved greatly.
Bottom line: Beta-glucan is a great ingredient, especially for sensitive or damaged skin. It soothes, moisturizes, and has some anti-aging magic properties.
- 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
Jojoba is a drought resistant evergreen shrub native to South-western North America. It's known and grown for jojoba oil, the golden yellow liquid coming from the seeds (about 50% of the weight of the seeds will be oil).
At first glance, it seems like your average emollient plant oil: it looks like an oil and it's nourishing and moisturizing to the skin but if we dig a bit deeper, it turns out that jojoba oil is really special and unique: technically - or rather chemically - it's not an oil but a wax ester (and calling it an oil is kind of sloppy).
So what the heck is a wax ester and why is that important anyway? Well, to understand what a wax ester is, you first have to know that oils are chemically triglycerides: one glycerin + three fatty acids attached to it. The fatty acids attached to the glycerin vary and thus we have many kinds of oils, but they are all triglycerides. Mother Nature created triglycerides to be easily hydrolyzed (be broken down to a glycerin + 3 fatty acid molecules) and oxidized (the fatty acid is broken down into small parts) - this happens basically when we eat fats or oils and our body generates energy from it.
Mother Nature also created wax esters but for a totally different purpose. Chemically, a wax ester is a fatty acid + a fatty alcohol, one long molecule. Wax esters are on the outer surface of several plant leaves to give them environmental protection. 25-30% of human sebum is also wax esters to give us people environmental protection.
So being a wax ester results in a couple of unique properties: First, jojoba oil is extremely stable. Like crazy stable. Even if you heat it to 370 C (698 F) for 96 hours, it does not budge. (Many plant oils tend to go off pretty quickly). If you have some pure jojoba oil at home, you should be fine using it for years.
Second, jojoba oil is the most similar to human sebum (both being wax esters), and the two are completely miscible. Acne.org has this not fully proven theory that thanks to this, jojoba might be able to "trick" the skin into thinking it has already produced enough sebum, so it might have "skin balancing" properties for oily skin.
Third, jojoba oil moisturizes the skin through a unique dual action: on the one hand, it mixes with sebum and forms a thin, non-greasy, semi-occlusive layer; on the other hand, it absorbs into the skin through pores and hair follicles then diffuses into the intercellular spaces of the outer layer of the skin to make it soft and supple.
On balance, the point is this: in contrast to real plant oils, wax esters were designed by Mother Nature to stay on the surface and form a protective, moisturizing barrier and jojoba oil being a wax ester is uniquely excellent at doing that.
Ectoin is a surprisingly well-researched, multi-functional active that can do from pollution & light protection to skin hydration, soothing, and barrier repair, several things to your skin.
It is an extremolyte, a small stress-protection molecule that protects microorganisms living under extreme conditions such as salt lakes, hot springs, arctic ice, the deep sea, or deserts. It was discovered in 1985 in a microorganism living in a salt lake in the Egyptian desert.
The key skill of Ectoin is protection that applies also to the skin. Its main mode of action is binding water molecules (aka kosmotropic) and creating hydro complexes. These complexes then surround important biomolecules (e.g. cells, proteins, enzymes) and form a stabilizing hydration shell around them.
This protection mechanism means good things when it comes to our skin: Ectoin has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, pollution& light protecting, skin hydrating, barrier repairing as well as anti-aging properties.
A placebo-controlled 10-person study examined a four-week treatment with 0.5% Ectoin in the crow's feet area and found a significant anti-wrinkle effect (-19% mean wrinkle depth) in 100% of the participants. Another double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study with 24 participants used a 2% Ectoin cream twice a day for 4 weeks and found an improvement in all of the measured parameters, such as wrinkle volume, skin scaling, roughness, and elasticity.
Another remarkable property of Ectoin is protecting the epidermal immune cells called Langerhans cells from UV damage. 0.3% and 0.5% Ectoin cream was used twice a day for 14 days on the forearm and then irradiated with 1.5 MED UV (one and a half times the UV dose that causes detectable redness). While the untreated, UV-stressed area showed a 40% decrease in viable Langerhans cells, 0.5% Ectoin showed 100% protection (and 0.3% showed ~95% protection).
The soothing efficacy is also backed up by multiple in-vivo studies. A 20-person study compared 1% Ectoin cream to 0.25% hydrocortisone treatment on surfactant irritated skin and found similar effectiveness in reducing skin redness. Another study with 23 females with sensitive skin found that a 1% Ectoin cream helped to tolerate a 0.5% or 1% retinol treatment much better.
A tiny, 5-person study examined the long-term (7 days) skin hydration effect of 1% Ectoin. During the study, hydration levels increased up to 200% compared to placebo, and even 7 days after stopping the treatment hydration status was largely preserved. Higher concentration (5-7%) Ectoin treatments are also used as OTC medical products for the treatment of eczema or atopic skin.
The anti-pollution magic properties are also well-established and Ectoin is currently the only anti-pollution active ingredient approved for use in medical products (e.g. inhalation solutions) in Europe. Clinical studies showed a reduction of inflammations in human lungs of patients with COPD (a pulmonary disease) and pollution-induced asthma. But coming back to the skin, Ectoin protects both from PMs (Particulate Matters, including ultrafine) as well as PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) and heavy metals.
If that weren't enough, Ectoin is also shown to protect the skin from blue and visible light, and pigmentation resulting from environmental stress (think UV, pollution, oxidative stress).
All in all, we think Ectoin is one of those under-the-radar actives that deserves more hype than it is currently getting. As an amazing all-around skin protectant, it is a useful addition to any skincare routine.
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.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A tripeptide (three amino acids attached to each other: Lys-Val-Lys) that's claimed to protect and boost collagen and improve skin texture.
The manufacturer did an in-vivo (made on real people) study with 45 volunteers and found that used twice daily for 84 days 1% and 2.5% Syn-Coll reduces the appearance of wrinkles by 7 and 12% respectively. In another study (also by the manufacturer) with 33 female Chinese volunteers, 77% of the participants felt that Syn-Coll visibly improved the firmness and elasticity of the skin after 4 weeks. What's more, 60% of the participants also noticed a reduction in the look of the pore size also after 4 weeks of treatment.
The oil coming from the seeds of the carrot, the orange root vegetable we all know and eat regularly. This oil is a really tricky one, as it can refer to two types of oil that can both be extracted from the carrot seeds: the essential oil (about 0.83% yield) and the fixed oil (about 7.84% yield).
The two seed oils are very different and to make matters even worse these two oils are also very different from carrot root oil, or carrot oil, that is basically carrot root extract macerated in a carrier oil such as sunflower or olive oil and is the one that contains the vitamin A precursor, carotene.
Let's start with the fixed oil: it's a nice emollient plant oil that is loaded with moisturizing fatty acids (petroselinic acid - 60% and linoleic acid - 12% are the main ones). Other important components are carotol (30%) and daucol (12%) that give the seed oil antifungal and antioxidant properties. Browsing cosmetic manufacturer info, the oil is also often described as revitalizing, toning and stimulating.
As for the essential oil, it is a light yellow colored oil with a rich, spicy and earthy fragrance. Its main component is carotol (about 65%) but similar to other essential oils, it is a chemically complex mixture with lots of compounds in small amounts. The essential oil also has antifungal and antioxidant properties but also contains fragrant components that might irritate sensitive skin types.
The oil-soluble extract coming from the edible, orange part of the carrot. It is created by macerating the carrot root in a carrier oil such as sunflower or olive oil, and the resulting thing (base oil + carrot root extract) is often called carrot oil or carrot root oil. (Not to be confused with carrot seed oil, that can be fixed or essential and comes from the seeds.)
The root extract is known for containing the orange pigment beta-carotene, aka provitamin A. It is a famous molecule for being a potent antioxidant, suntan accelerator and having skin-regenerative abilities. Carrot oil also contains vitamin E and some fatty acids that give the oil further antioxidant and barrier repairing properties.
It’s the most commonly used version of pure vitamin E in cosmetics. You can read all about the pure form here. This one is the so-called esterified version.
According to famous dermatologist, Leslie Baumann while tocopheryl acetate is more stable and has a longer shelf life, it’s also more poorly absorbed by the skin and may not have the same awesome photoprotective effects as pure Vit E.
Sunflower does not need a big intro as you probably use it in the kitchen as cooking oil, or you munch on the seeds as a healthy snack or you adore its big, beautiful yellow flower during the summer - or you do all of these and probably even more. And by even more we mean putting it all over your face as sunflower oil is one of the most commonly used plant oils in skincare.
It’s a real oldie: expressed directly from the seeds, the oil is used not for hundreds but thousands of years. According to The National Sunflower Association, there is evidence that both the plant and its oil were used by American Indians in the area of Arizona and New Mexico about 3000 BC. Do the math: it's more than 5000 years – definitely an oldie.
Our intro did get pretty big after all (sorry for that), so let's get to the point finally: sunflower oil - similar to other plant oils - is a great emollient that makes the skin smooth and nice and helps to keep it hydrated. It also protects the surface of the skin and enhances the damaged or irritated skin barrier. Leslie Bauman notes in Cosmetic Dermatology that one application of sunflower oil significantly speeds up the recovery of the skin barrier within an hour and sustains the results 5 hours after using it.
It's also loaded with fatty acids (mostly linoleic (50-74%) and oleic (14-35%)). The unrefined version (be sure to use that on your skin!) is especially high in linoleic acid that is great even for acne-prone skin. Its comedogen index is 0, meaning that it's pretty much an all skin-type oil.
Truth be told, there are many great plant oils and sunflower oil is definitely one of them.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A natural plant extract coming from the bark of the maritime pine that grows along the coast of southwest France. The extract contains potent antioxidant molecules, mainly procyanidins and phenolic acids. Horphag Research trademarked the name 'Pycnogenol', which refers to a standardized, high-active content version of the pine bark extract.
Pycnogenol is a very well researched ingredient with more than 370 published studies and review articles. Most of these are in-vitro (made in the lab, not on real people) or analyse Pycnogenol when taken orally. It's clear from them that Pycnogenol has a load of health benefits including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anticarcinogenic magical properties (and a bunch of other things such as improving cognitive function, relieving premenstrual symptoms, or enhancing microcirculation).
Regarding Pycnogenol and the skin, we found a study from 2012 that examined its effect on the skin when taken as a supplement. After 12 weeks, Pycnogenol supplements resulted in increased skin hydration and elasticity. The researchers thought this was due to the increased synthesis of extracellular matrix molecules such as hyaluronic acid and perhaps collagen.
As for topical application, the studies are also promising. A 2003 research paper, conducted on mice, showed that topical Pycnogenol (used at 0.05-0.2%) has the potential to provide photoprotection for humans in a complementary role to sunscreens. Meanwhile, a 2004 study concluded, "pine bark extract is readily absorbed by human skin and can be used for topical application".
Overall, Pycnogenol, or Pinus Pinaster Bark Extract, as it will be listed on the product label, is a well-researched and potent antioxidant that is a welcome addition to any ingredient list.
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| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | antioxidant | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | cell-communicating ingredient | skin brightening | anti-acne | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | solvent |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | skin brightening | antimicrobial/antibacterial |
| what‑it‑does | buffering |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | emulsifying |
| what‑it‑does | preservative |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | skin brightening |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying |
| what‑it‑does | antimicrobial/antibacterial | solvent | viscosity controlling |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | skin brightening |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | perfuming |
| what‑it‑does | cell-communicating ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | chelating |
| what‑it‑does | emulsifying |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1-2 |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | antimicrobial/antibacterial |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | soothing |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | anti-acne |
| what‑it‑does | soothing | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0-3, 0-3 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0-2 |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | soothing | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | cell-communicating ingredient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |