The Essence (Discontinued)
Highlights
Skim through
| Ingredient name | what-it-does | irr., com. | ID-Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saccharomyces/Camellia Sinensis Leaf/Cladosiphon Okamuranus/Rice Ferment Filtrate* | moisturizer/humectant | goodie | |
| Propanediol | solvent, moisturizer/humectant | ||
| Soy Amino Acids | moisturizer/humectant | goodie | |
| Yeast Extract | moisturizer/humectant | goodie | |
| Aqua/Water/Eau | solvent | ||
| Ethylhexylglycerin | preservative | ||
| Sodium Dilauramidoglutamide Lysine | moisturizer/humectant, emulsifying | ||
| Phenoxyethanol | preservative |
Tatcha The EssenceIngredients explained
This super-long named thing is trade named Hadasei- 3 and it's Tatcha's "superfluid of Japan’s three essential nutrients of Green Tea, Rice, and Algae ". The liquid is obtained by fermentation and the basic idea behind any fermented ingredient is that the fermentation process helps to break down the complex bio-molecules in the plants and helps to isolate the beneficial components for the skin.
The Algae component is claimed to help skin hydration, while rice gives high-protein nourishment and green tea is indeed an excellent anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory ingredient.
Propanediol is a natural alternative for the often used and often bad-mouthed propylene glycol. It's produced sustainably from corn sugar and it's Ecocert approved.
It's quite a multi-tasker: can be used to improve skin moisturization, as a solvent, to boost preservative efficacy or to influence the sensory properties of the end formula.
Soy Amino Acids are the little components that come from totally chopping up a soy protein. It is a low-molecular-weight water-binding ingredient, that can help to moisturize deeper layers of skin or hair.
You probably know yeast from the kitchen where you put it into milk with a little sugar and then after a couple of minutes brownish bubbles form. That is the fungi fermenting the sugar.
As for skin care, yeast contains beta-glucan that is a great soothing ingredient and also a mild antioxidant. The yeast extract itself is a silky clear liquid that has some great moisturizing, skin protecting and film-forming properties on the skin.
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.
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.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
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.
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