Dimethicone
What-it-does: emollient | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 1
Probably themost common silicone of all. It is a polymer (created from repeating subunits) molecule and has different molecular weight and thus different viscosity versions from water-light to thickliquid.
As for skincare, it makes the skin silky smooth, creates a subtle gloss and forms a protective barrier (aka occlusive). Also, works well to fill in fine lines and wrinkles and give skin a plump look (of course that is only temporary, but still, it'snice). There are also scar treatment gels out there using dimethicone as their base ingredient. It helps to soften scars and increase their elasticity.
As for hair care, it is a non-volatile silicone meaning that it stays on the hair rather than evaporates from it andsmoothes the hairlike no other thing. Depending on your hair type, it can bea bit difficult to wash out and might cause some build-up (btw, this is not true to all silicones, only the non-volatile types).
Water/Aqua
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.
Polymethylsilsesquioxane
Aspherical texturizing powder that's used as a texture enhancerand soft focus agent. It's claimed to give silicone type softness to the formula and also works as a (temporary) wrinkle filler.
Isododecane
What-it-does: emollient, solvent
Aclear, 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 nicenon-oily light skin feeland it can improvethe slip of the formula without leaving a tacky residue behind.
It's also popular in make-up products as its volatility makes mascarasand 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.
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 >>
C24-28 Alkyldimethylsiloxy Trimethylsiloxysilicate
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
PEG-10 Dimethicone
What-it-does: emulsifying
A silicone emulsifier that helps water and silicone oils to mix nicely together. It can also be used together with plant oil + silicone oil mixtures.
Isononyl Isononanoate
What-it-does: emollient
An emollient ester with a rich and creamy but non-greasy skin feel. It makes skin supple and protects dry skin.
Butylene Glycol
What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant, solvent | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 1
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.
Mica
Also-called: CI 77019 | What-it-does: colorant
A super versatile and common mineral powder that comes in different particle sizes. It is a multi-tasker used to improve skin feel, increase product slip, give the product light-reflecting properties, enhance skin adhesion or serve as an anti-caking agent.
It is also the most commonly used "base" material for layered composite pigments such as pearl-effect pigments. In this case, mica is coated with one or moremetal oxides (most commonly titanium dioxide) to achieve pearl effect via the physical phenomenon known as interference.
Polysilicone-11
A type of silicone elastomer (rubber-likematerial with both viscosity and elasticity) whose major function is forming a nice film on the skin.
It is also cosmetically very elegant with a non-tacky, non-oily and smooth skin feel. It also works as a stable delivery system of active materials, has sebum absorption and control properties and upon application, it transforms into a matte appearance with a powdery after feel.
PEG/PPG-18/18 Dimethicone
What-it-does: emulsifying
A silicone emulsifier that helps to create water in silicone emulsions.
Disteardimonium Hectorite
What-it-does: viscosity controlling
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 andenhancing the water-resistance of sunscreen formulas.
Synthetic Fluorphlogopite
Also-called: Synthetic Mica | What-it-does: viscosity controlling
Synthetic Fluorphlogopite is the synthetic version of the super commonly used mineral, Mica. The advantage of being synthetic is that it has amore consistent quality, fewer impurities and an even lower heavy metal content than Mica (not that Mica's heavy metal content is high). It is also more transparent and has improved light reflection.
The two main use cases forSynthetic Fluorphlogopite is being used neat as a superior "filler" orskin tone enhancer or it can also serve as a base for multi-layered, composite pigments such as pearl effect pigments where it is coated with one or more layers of metal oxide, most commonly titanium dioxide.
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.
Sodium Chloride
Also-called: Salt | What-it-does: viscosity controlling
Sodium chloride is the fancy name of salt. Normal, everyday table salt.
If (similar to us) you are in the weird habit of reading the label on your shower gel while taking a shower, you might have noticed that sodium chloride is almost always on the ingredient list. The reason for this is that salt acts as a fantastic thickener in cleansing formulas created with ionic cleansing agents(aka surfactants) such as Sodium Laureth Sulfate. A couple of percents (typically 1-3%) turns a runny surfactant solution into a nice gel texture.
If you are into chemistry (if not, we understand, just skip this paragraph), the reason is that electrolytes (you know, the Na+ and Cl- ions) screen the electrostatic repulsion between the head groups of ionic surfactants and thus support the formation of long shaped micelles (instead of spherical ones) that entangle like spaghetti, and viola, a gel is formed. However, too much of it causes the phenomenon called "salting out", and the surfactant solution goes runny again.
Other than that, salt also works as an emulsion stabilizer inwater-in-oil emulsions, that is when water droplets are dispersed in the outer oil (or silicone) phase. And last but not least, when salt is right at the first spot of the ingredient list (and is not dissolved), the product is usually a body scrub where salt is thephysical exfoliating agent.
Caprylyl Glycol
What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant, emollient, deodorant
It’s a handy multi-tasking ingredient that gives the skin a nice, soft feel. At the same time, it also boosts the effectiveness of other preservatives, such as the nowadays super commonly used phenoxyethanol.
The blend of these two (caprylyl glycol + phenoxyethanol) is called Optiphen, which not only helps to keep your cosmetics free from nasty things for a long time but also gives a good feel to the finished product. It's a popular duo.
Aluminum Hydroxide
What-it-does: emollient, moisturizer/humectant, viscosity controlling
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 inswimming pool waterdepletes 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.
Lilium Candidum Flower Extract
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Sodium Dilauramidoglutamide Lysine
What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant, emulsifying
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
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 >>
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.
Dimethyl Isosorbide
What-it-does: solvent, viscosity controlling
A little helper ingredient that can boost the performance and enhance the delivery of active ingredients in a formula. It can penetrate deeplayers of the skin helping actives to do the same.
It's especially useful to help active ingredients for self-tanning (DHA), anti-acne or skin-whitening to penetrate deeper and work better.
Dimethylacrylamide/Acrylic Acid/Polystyrene Ethyl Methacrylate Copolymer
What-it-does: viscosity controlling
This long-namedthing is a big molecule that works as a film-forming and viscosity controlling agent.
It often comes together withPolysilicone-11, a silicone elastomer to create "water-coated silicone technology" that makes the incorporation of oil-loving silicone elastomers easy into water-basedformulas.
Hexylene Glycol
What-it-does: solvent, emulsifying, perfuming, surfactant/cleansing | Irritancy: 0-1 | Comedogenicity: 0-2
Similar to other glycols, it's a helper ingredient used as a solvent, or to thin out thick formulas and make them more nicely spreadable.
Hexylene Glycol is also part a preservative blend namedLexgard® HPO, where it helps the effectiveness of current IT-preservative, phenoxyethanol.
Fragrance/Parfum - icky
Also-called: Fragrance, Parfum;Parfum/Fragrance | 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!).
Magnesium Chloride
What-it-does: viscosity controlling
A kind of salt that's used as a thickener in cosmeticproducts.
Alteromonas Ferment Extract - goodie
What-it-does: soothing
A so-calledexopolysaccharide (high-molecular-weight polymers) secreted by a microorganism living in hydrothermal deep vents. The manufacturer claims that itsoothes and reduces irritation to sensitive skin against chemical (such as drying acne treatments or strong chemical exfoliants), mechanical (such as micro-cuts after shaving) and UVB aggressors.
Lycium Barbarum Fruit Extract
Also-called: Goji Berry Extract | What-it-does: astringent
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Sodium Benzoate
What-it-does: preservative
A helper ingredient that helps to makethe products stay nice longer, aka preservative. It works mainly against fungi.
It’s pH dependent and works best at acidic pH levels (3-5). It’s not strong enough to be used in itself so it’s always combined with something else, often with potassium sorbate.
Tin Oxide
Also-called: CI 77861, Tin Dioxide | What-it-does: colorant, abrasive/scrub, viscosity controlling
Far from the tin cans you find in the supermarket, Tin Oxide is mostly used when dealing with so-called effect pigments, tricky composite pigments that can do color travel (change color depending on the viewingangle) or give multiple color effect.
It's often found alongside Mica (as a base material) and Titanium Dioxide (as a coating) to give a glossy, pearlescent effect. Together, they make up a trademarked technologycalled RonaFlairBlanace from the German manufacturer Merck. According to their info, this combination can balance out undesirable tones in the skin, making it a popular choice for brightening products and highlighters.
Other than that, CosIng (the official EU INCI database) lists its uses asbeing a bulking agent (to increase the volume of products), as well as a physical exfoliant or an opacifying agent, but being part of composite effect pigments is a much more common use case.
Caramel
What-it-does: colorant
The caramel in cosmetics is pretty much the same one that you know from the kitchen. It is derived by controlled heat treatment of food-grade carbohydrates (sugars) and works as a brown colorant.
Crocus Sativus Stigma Extract
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Palmitoyl Hexapeptide-14 - goodie
What-it-does: cell-communicating ingredient
A peptide that'sclaimed to do three important things: stimulate collagen production, stimulate the proliferation of fibroblast cells (important, collagen making skin cells) and inhibit collagen-eating, skin damaging MMPs (matrix metalloproteinases - agroup of enzymes that do bad things in the skin).
The net effect of all this is reduced appearance of lines and wrinkles and more hydrated, youthful looking skin. The manufacturer even claims that in a twelve-week in-vivo study Palmitoyl Hexapeptide-14 was compared to FDA-approved anti-aging treatment Renova (0.05% tretinoin) and the two are equivalent in reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles andPalmitoyl Hexapeptide-14 does so without irritation.
That's a very promising result indeed though unfortunately, we could not find the details about the study (like how long, how many people etc.) and one study is never enough anyways, so we will just say thatPalmitoyl Hexapeptide-14 is a promising anti-aging peptide(while tretinoin is a proven ani-aging superstar).
Iron Oxides (Ci 77491, Ci 77492, Ci 77499)
Also-called: Ci 77491/77492/77499 | What-it-does: colorant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
A bit of a sloppy ingredient name as it covers not one butthree pigments: red, yellow and black iron oxide.
The triois invaluable for "skin-colored" makeup products (think your foundation and pressed powder) as blendingthese three shades carefully can produce almost any shade of natural-looking flesh tones.
Titanium Dioxide (Ci 77891)
Also-called: Titanium Dioxide/Ci 77891;Ci 77891 | What-it-does: colorant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
Ci 77891 is the color code of titaniumdioxide.It's a white pigment with great color consistency and dispersibility.
