Aqua/Water
Also-called: Aqua;Water | What-it-does: solvent
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.
Cyclohexasiloxane
What-it-does: emollient, solvent
A light-feeling, volatile (meaning it does not absorb into the skin but evaporates from it) silicone that gives skin a unique, silky and non-greasy feel. It hasexcellent spreading properties and leaves no oily residue or build-up.
Glycerin - superstar
Also-called: Glycerol | What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
- 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
Read all the geeky details about Glycerin here >>
Butyrospermum Parkii Butter/Shea Butter - goodie
Also-called: Shea Butter;Butyrospermum Parkii Butter | What-it-does: emollient
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 KariteTreesand 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.
Isohexadecane
What-it-does: emollient, solvent
A light, velvety, unique skin feel liquid that is a good solvent and also makes the skin feel nice and smooth (aka emollient). It's often used in makeup products mixed with silicones to give shine and slip to the product. It's also great forcleansing dirt and oil from the skin as well as for taking off make-up.
Pentaerythrityl Tetraethylhexanoate
What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling
A high-molecular-weight emollient ester that makes your skin nice and smooth. It leaves a non-oily, light, "wet" feel on the skin.
Dipropylene Glycol
What-it-does: solvent
A clear, colorless liquid that works as a solvent and viscositydecreasing ingredient. It also has great skin-moisturizing abilities.
Cera Alba / Beeswax
Also-called: Beeswax;Cera Alba | What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling, emulsifying, perfuming | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0-2
It's the yellow, solid stuff that you probably know from beeswax candles. It's a natural material produced by honey bees to build their honeycomb.
As for skincare, it's used as an emollient and thickening agent. It's super common in lip balms and lipsticks.
Stearic Acid
What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 2-3
A common multi-tasker fatty acid. It makes your skin feel nice and smooth (emollient), gives body to cream type products and helps to stabilize water and oilmixes (aka emulsions).
Palmitic Acid
What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient, emollient, emulsifying | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 2
A fatty acid that can be found naturally in the skin. In fact, it's the most common saturated fatty acidfound in animals and plants.
As for skincare, it can make the skin feel nice and smooth in moisturizers (emollient) or it can act as a foam building cleansing agent in cleansers. It's also a very popular ingredient in shaving foams.
Cyclopentasiloxane
What-it-does: emollient, solvent
A super commonly used 5 unit long, cyclic structuredsilicone that is water-thin and does not stay on the skin but evaporates from it (called volatile silicone). Similar to other silicones, it gives skin and hair a silky, smooth feel.
It's often combined with the non-volatile (i.e. stays on the skin)dimethicone as the two together forma water-resistant, breathable protective barrier on the skin without a negative tacky feel.
Acrylamide/Sodium Acryloyldimethyltaurate Copolymer
What-it-does: viscosity controlling, emulsion stabilising
A kind of polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) that helps to thicken up and stabilize products.It usually comes to the formula as part of some thickener complex. For example, coupled with isohexadecane and polysorbate 80, the trio helps to create soft and supple textures.
PEG-100 Stearate
What-it-does: surfactant/cleansing, emulsifying | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
A very common water-loving surfactant and emulsifier that helps to keep water and oil mixed nicelytogether.
It's often paired with glyceryl stearate- the twotogether forma super effective emulsifier duo that's salt and acid tolerant and works over a wide pH range. It also gives a "pleasing product aesthetics", so no wonder it's popular.
Stearyl Alcohol
What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling, emulsion stabilising, emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing | Irritancy: 2 | Comedogenicity: 2
A handy multi-tasker,white to light yellowish oil-lovingwax that works very well in oil-in-water emulsions. It makes your skin feel nice and smooth (emollient),stabilizes oil-watermixesand gives body to them.
Oh, and one more thing: it's a so-called fatty alcohol - the good, emollient type of alcohol that is non-drying and non-irritating. It is often mixed with fellow fatty alcohol, Cetyl Alcohol, and the mixture is called Cetearyl Alcoholin the ingredient list.
Glyceryl Stearate
What-it-does: emollient, emulsifying | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 1-2
A super common, waxy, white, solid stuff that helps water and oil to mix together, gives body to creams and leaves the skin feeling soft and smooth.
Chemically speaking, it is the attachment of a glycerin molecule to the fatty acid calledstearic acid. It can be produced from most vegetable oils (in oils three fattyacidmolecules are attached to glycerin instead of just one like here) in a pretty simple, "green" process that is similar to soap making. It's readily biodegradable.
It also occurs naturally in our body and is used as a food additive. As cosmetic chemistColins writes it, "its safety really is beyond any doubt".
PEG-20 Stearate
What-it-does: emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing, moisturizer/humectant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 1
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Boswellia Serrata Extract/Boswellia Serrata Extract
Also-called: Indian Frankincense Extract;Boswellia Serrata Extract | What-it-does: soothing
The extract coming from the Indian Frankincense, a medium-sized tree native to India. Mostly the gum-resin is used that is obtained from an incision made on the trunk of the tree. It contains about30-60% resin, 5-10% fragrant essential oil, and the rest is made up of polysaccharides (mostly arabinose, galactose, xylose).
The biologically most active components of the resin are boswellic acids that haveanti-inflammatory properties.According to manufacturer info, the boswellic acids rich resin extract is also a potent inhibitor of elastase (an enzyme that breaks down proteins, including collagen) and has antiGAGase activity (protecting the important natural moisturizing factors, glycosaminoglycansin the skin) meaning that it can help the skin to stay firm for a longer time.
The reason why we did not awardBoswellia Serrata Extract a goodie status is that this INCI name is not clear enough on the type of the extract. It might be a boswellic acids rich, anti-inflammatory extract (that is a goodie) or it might be a fragrant essential oil rich extractused in perfumery or aromatherapy that can be a problem for sensitive skin types.
Manganese Gluconate
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Soluble Collagen - goodie
What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant
Soluble Collagen refers to the big, natural collagen molecules mostly extracted from fishor bovine skin. Spotting collagen on the ingredient list,youmight think that, aha, this must be there to supplement the collagen content of our own skin, but you have to know that collagen is a huge-huge moleculethat cannot absorb to the middle layer of the skin where collagen isand even if it could, it cannot just magically go the right places to become part of the skin's own collagen network. Putting collagen on your skin for anti-aging purposes is like throwingtent poles onto a ramshackle tent and expecting the tent to magically become nice and firm again.
The strong point of collagen is being a large molecule with tremendous water binding capacity, i.e. an amazing humectant and moisturizer. It produces a water-rich film on the skin giving the stratum corneum (the uppermost layer of the skin) great hydration, making it nice and smooth and reducing trans-epidermal-water loss (the process of water evaporating out of your skin).
It is also so gentle and non-irritant that it can actuallybe used incleansers to reduce the irritating potential of harsh surfactants, aka cleansing agents.
If you are fine with animal-derived ingredients and know that collagen in a jar has nothing to do with wrinkles but everything to do with skin hydration,Soluble Collagen is a nice ingredient.
Atelocollagen
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Dimethiconol
What-it-does: emollient, moisturizer/humectant
A thick, high molecular weight silicone that is usually diluted in another, lighter silicone fluid (like dimethicone or cyclopentasiloxane). Thedimethiconol containing silicone blends leave a silky smooth, non-greasy film on the skin.
Polysorbate 80
What-it-does: emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
A common little helper ingredient thathelps water and oil to mixtogether, aka emulsifier.
The number at the end refers to the oil-loving part and the bigger the number the more emulsifying power it has. 20 is a weak emulsifier, rather called solubilizer used commonly in toners while 60 and 80 are more common in serums and creams.
Pentaerythrityl Tetraisostearate
What-it-does: emollient, emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 2
A liquid emollient derived from isostearic acidthat gives arich, cushiony skin-feel andunusually high levels of gloss. It also has film-forming abilities but without leaving a sticky residue and it aids long-lasting and water-resistant properties. All this makesPentaerythrityl Tetraisostearate an ideal emollient forlong-lasting protective emulsions, like lip balms.
Tocopherol - goodie
Also-called: Vitamin E | What-it-does: antioxidant | Irritancy: 0-3 | Comedogenicity: 0-3
- 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
Read all the geeky details about Tocopherol here >>
Disodium EDTA
What-it-does: chelating
Super common little helper ingredient thathelps 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.
Sodium Hydroxide
Also-called: lye | What-it-does: buffering
The unfancy name for it is lye. It’s a solid white stuff that’s very alkaline and used in small amounts to adjust the pH of the product and make it just right.
For example, in case of AHA or BHA exfoliants, the right pH is super-duper important, and pH adjusters like sodium hydroxide are needed.
BTW, lye is not something new. It was already used by ancient Egyptians to help oil and fat magically turn into something else. Can you guess what? Yes, it’s soap. It still often shows up in the ingredient list of soaps and other cleansers.
Sodium hydroxide in itselfis a potent skin irritant, but once it's reacted (as it is usually in skin care products, like exfoliants) it is totallyharmless.
Silica Dimethyl Silylate
What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling, emulsion stabilising
It's a water-hating, fumed silica that works as a thickener for oils and it can also suspend particles in oils.
Also, increases thegloss of castor oil that can be useful for makeup products.
Sodium Chondroitin Sulfate - goodie
What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
Though its name does not reveal it, this molecule is a relative of famous IT-moisturizer, Hyaluronic Acid. Just like HA, it is a glycosaminoglycan (aka GAG), meaning that it is a big sugar molecule from repeated subunits (what's more, one of the subunits is the same, glucuronic acid). Along with HA and other GAGs, it likes to hang out in the dermis (middle) layer of the skin where it is part of the gooey, bouncy stuff outside of the cellscalled extracellular matrix (ECM).
As for skincare,Sodium Chondroitin Sulfate is probably too big to go right into the dermis (though much smaller than HA with 5000-50 000 Da molecular weight), but it has a comparable water binding ability to HA (which means a crazy water binding ability) and better affinity for the skin surface. This means that it forms a nice, water-richfilm on the skin bringing an immediate and strong moisturising effect.
Phenoxyethanol
What-it-does: preservative
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.
Methylparaben
What-it-does: preservative | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
The most common type offeared-by-everyone-mostly-without-scientific-reason parabens. It's a cheap, effective and well-tolerated ingredient to make sure the cosmetic formula does not go wrong too soon.
Apart from the general controversy around parabens (we wrote about it more here), there is a 2006 in-vitro (made in the lab not on real people) research about methylparaben (MP) showing that when exposed to sunlight, MP treated skin cells suffered more harm than non-MPtreated skin cells. The study was not done with real people on real skin but still - using a good sunscreen next to MP containing productsis a good idea. (Well, in fact using a sunscreen is always a good idea. :))
Imidazolidinyl Urea
What-it-does: preservative
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Potassium Sorbate
What-it-does: preservative
It's one of those things that help your cosmetics not to go wrong too soon, aka a preservative. It’s not a strong one and doesn’t really work against bacteria, but more against mold and yeast. To do that it has to break down to its active form, sorbic acid. For that to happen, there has to be water in the product and the right pH value (pH 3-4).
But even if everything is right, it’s not enough on its own. If you see potassium sorbate you should see some other preservative next to it too.
BTW, it’s also a food preservativeand even has an E number, E202.
Parfum/Fragrance - icky
Also-called: Fragrance, Parfum | What-it-does: perfuming
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!).
Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone - icky
What-it-does: perfuming
It’s a common fragrance ingredient that is 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.
Butylphenyl Methylpropional - icky
Also-called: Lilial | What-it-does: perfuming
A common fragrance ingredient that has a nice floral scent and also goes by the name Lilial. It is a known fragrance allergen and as of 1st of March 2022, it has been banned in the EU due to animal studies showing a possible link to infertility (in rats - so no need to panic even if you used a product before with Butylphenyl Methylpropional).
Benzyl Salicylate - icky
What-it-does: perfuming
It’s a common fragrance ingredient that has a light floral smell. 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.
Linalool - icky
What-it-does: perfuming, deodorant
Linalool is a super common fragrance ingredient. It’s kind of everywhere - both in plants and in cosmetic products. It’s part of 200 natural oils including lavender, ylang-ylang, bergamot, jasmine, geranium and it can be found in 90-95% of prestige perfumes on the market.
The problem with linalool is, that just like limoneneit oxidises on air exposure and becomes allergenic. That’s why a product containing linalool that has been opened for several months is more likely to be allergenic than a fresh one.
A study made in the UK with 483 people tested the allergic reaction to 3% oxidised linalool and 2.3% had positive test results.
Hexyl Cinnamal - icky
What-it-does: perfuming
A common fragrance ingredient that smells like jasmine. It is one of the “EU 26 fragrances” that has to be labelled separately because of allergen potential. Best to avoid if your skin is sensitive.
Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde
Also-called: Lyral | What-it-does: perfuming
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Citronellol - icky
What-it-does: perfuming
Citronellol is a very common fragrance ingredient with a nice rose-like odor. In the UK, it’s actually the third most often listed perfume on the ingredient lists.
It can be naturally found in geranium oil (about 30%) or rose oil (about 25%).
As with all fragrance ingredients, citronellol can also cause allergic contact dermatitis and should be avoided if you have perfume allergy. In a 2001 worldwide study with 178 people with known sensitization to fragrances citronellol tested positive in 5.6% of the cases.
There is no known anti-aging or positive skin benefits of the ingredient. It’s in our products to make it smell nice.
