🚫A skincare mistake that you might be making. Let’s talk about the ingredient list!
i have never thought this day would come ever but here we are i used to be that person that customer who would literally analyze every single ingredient in the skincare product in order to make my purchasing decision that ingredient label was everything for me to determine if the product will perform well or not but as i started working closer with cosmetic chemists formulators and just learning more from the scientist community on instagram which is really amazing by the way i soon realized that i was making a really big air i was jumping to conclusions without knowing the entire context of the entire formulation nitpicking on individual ingredients and avoiding the entire product is because it does seem to contain an ingredient that seems to be problematic or irritating or just unsafe it really wasn’t a science-based move ingredient scanning platforms like cost dna ewt like these have really empowered the customers to become more educated to become more aware of what we are applying topically and it really pushed the beauty industry to become more transparent as well it oversimplified the complex world and the art of chemistry the art of formulation how ingredients react when they are mixed together and it made us demonize certain ingredients forever it made us look at ingredients and label it black and white good or bad and to be honest i’m really guilty of this too here’s what the ingredient label doesn’t tell you the kind the source the quality of the ingredient and also how it is processed take a look at this this is a seaweed this is a seaweed and this is also called seaweed it all comes from different source it’s different quality and it went through different kind of processing but at the end of the day this is all going to have the same inky name called seaweed here’s another example similar to that we’re going to take a look at a zinc oxide close-up now zinc oxide is one of the mineral filters that we often use for sunscreens every supplier has a different kind of zinc oxide this is a zinc oxide from supplier a and this is another zinc oxide molecule from the same supplier depending on which kind of zinc oxide the cosmetic chemist the formulator choose to use it will have an offer a different kind of formulation a different kind of product experience and even a different spf rating eventually this is another great example let’s look at these three different products product a a more pacific vintage single extract essence product b innisfree green tea seed essence product c lineage cream skin refiner let’s find one common ingredient across all three products green tea extract now all of these products are manufactured from the same parent company called a more pacific group high chance they might be using the same green to extract but let’s take a look a more pacific vintage essence contains a green tea from the dorsoni garden that provides a significant amount of catechins and it goes through another 100 days of natural fermentation process and then eventually goes through another 24 hours of very slow brewing extraction processing let’s take a look at the green tea that innisfree green tea seed essence uses they are using the green tea from the farm in korea statue island they use a compound of green tea leaves that they call beauty green tea and it was selected from 3 301 varieties they’re rich in 16 hydrating amino acids and the organic leaves are plucked from the stem steamed for 30 seconds to retain nutrients and pressed the extract is then stabilized for freshness and purified for safe application to the skin we then double squeeze the moisture from the leaves instead of creating a classic infusion in order to best capture their skin care benefits now very different from the more pacific vintage single extract essence finally let’s take a look at the green tea extract in lineage cream skin refiner interestingly they call their green tea a white leaf tea they created an environment where they can control and regulate the uv exposure to the green tea leaves so that the amino acid is much more abundant than the just regular green tea leaf now you get the hang of it every green tea extract is now created equally just because multiple different products shares the same inky name it doesn’t mean that they’re gonna have the same benefits the same type of skincare properties or product experience here’s another thing that the ingredient label doesn’t tell you it’s basically how the ingredients are formulated together and in simple terms it’s how the ingredients are cooked together just because i was given the same cooking ingredients as gordon ramsay the the final outcome of my dish is not going to be equivalent to what gordon ramsay has cooked with the same ingredients same with skin care a really good example to this is alcohol denatured alcohol is easily demonized because you know it can be a really drying stripping ingredient without adding any other skin care benefits to be honest why use denatured alcohol i used to just ditch or not choose products just because the denatured alcohol was really high up in the ingredient list however one product completely shifted my perspective to viewing the entire formulation and respecting the formulation over just the sum of individual ingredients and that is la roche-posay hialu b5 serum it’s supposed to be a hyaluronic acid base hydrating serum it has denatured alcohol really high up in the list however i have never come across another syrupy and hydrating a serum that is so good at retaining hydration then that single hyaluronic acid product of course some alcohol-based toners are supposed to be really drying really stripping but again you can’t really judge the product based on the ingredient list same with sls and now dr anke has a really really good explanation to this in the context of a formulation a single ingredient doesn’t equal the formulation as a whole so what does that mean it means that an ingredient by itself can have a certain property let’s say it’s irritating if you put it on your skin by itself but in a formulation and combined with other ingredients it can actually change its properties and by that add to the product without leaving the product with irritant properties one of my favorite examples are sls and sles the two sulfate-based surfactants that so many people are looking for on their cleanser inky list at the moment and if it’s on there they categorically won’t use it because they think it’s going to be harsh or drying or it’s going to be irritating but actually both sls and sles when combined with what we call a secondary surfactant can be formulated in a way so that they can even be used for sensitive skin and unless you know what a secondary surfactant is and where to find that on your inky list or you have a good conversation with the formulator who made the product simply by looking for sls and sles on the inky list you won’t know if your product is actually going to be harsh or not and there’s plenty of examples just like that as you’ve learned from dr unkid’s response the formulation matters a lot more the dose of ingredients how the ingredients are cooked together the delivery system and etc etc now another brilliant cosmetic chemist jen from the ecowell gives another response to this ingredient lists were first mandated in cosmetics to inform consumers about potential allergens if you have a known sensitivity to an ingredient these lists will help make your life a bit easier unfortunately with all of the chemophobia out there the double-edged sword of these lists is that it’s become so easy and common to fear monger individual ingredients it’s very normal to fear what you don’t understand ingredients that look the same may have two very different formulas in the bottle with respect to texture performance feel and so on you can think about it like if you were to bake a cake how much vanilla salt and sugar did you add how did you mix the ingredients how hot and for how long did you bake the cake how and where did you apply the icing all of these things will make a big difference in how that cake tastes this same logic applies to your cosmetics formulation matters a lot more than the individual ingredients and to those fear-mongered ingredients think parabens fragrance sls and so on used inappropriately you might run into issues but following sound formulation principles you can make a very gentle product that will be tolerated by most people for example with fragrance using too high of a concentration irritancy and allergenicity may be a problem falling if for guidance in appropriate concentrations these risks will be seriously reduced ultimately it rarely makes sense to look at the inky list for one ingredient unless you have a known sensitivity if you’re vegan and want to use ingredients without animal products that of course makes sense as well but in most cases formulation context is greater than the sum of its parts i hope that was enlightening because it certainly was to me so thank you so much to jen and thank you so much to dr anke for sharing your wisdom with us i hope you know where i’m going with this just because a product contains coconut oil like a really poor clogging ingredient it doesn’t mean the final product is going to be also poor clogging it could be either super lightweight or it could be really thick and buttery depending on how the ingredients are cooked together so what’s the point i definitely think it’s still right to look at ingredients especially if you’re allergic to a specific ingredient if you are looking for a specific active ingredient it will tell you exactly which active ingredient is used but it really wouldn’t tell what the end result or the product experience is going to be so what i want to say is to trust your experience more trust how the product feels and performs on the skin rely on other customers reviews and their experience as always i would really appreciate if you hit that subscribe button and like this video and yeah i hope to see you again soon bye you
