Ingredients overview
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Highlights
Key Ingredients
Other Ingredients
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| Ingredient name | what-it-does | irr., com. | ID-Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zea Mays (Corn) Starch | viscosity controlling, abrasive/scrub | ||
| Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate | surfactant/cleansing | ||
| Sodium Lauroyl Glutamate | surfactant/cleansing | ||
| Diglycerin | skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | goodie | |
| Cellulose Gum | viscosity controlling | 0, 0 | |
| Maltodextrin | |||
| Allantoin | soothing | 0, 0 | goodie |
| Papain | 0, 0 | ||
| Niacinamide | cell-communicating ingredient, skin brightening, anti-acne, moisturizer/humectant | superstar | |
| Betaine | moisturizer/humectant | goodie | |
| Glucose | moisturizer/humectant | goodie | |
| Protease | |||
| Bromelain | |||
| Butylene Glycol | moisturizer/humectant, solvent | 0, 1 | |
| Propanediol | solvent, moisturizer/humectant | ||
| Canadian Colloidal Clay | |||
| Hyaluronic Acid | skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | goodie | |
| Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid | moisturizer/humectant | goodie | |
| Sodium Hyaluronate | skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | 0, 0 | goodie |
AGE20'S Pore Scaling Enzyme Cleansing PowderIngredients explained
A corn-derived, white to yellowish, floury powder that works as a handy helper ingredient to create nice feeling emulsions.
It gives a generally pleasant skin feel, has some mattifying effect (though rice starch is better at that), it reduces greasiness and tackiness and helps the formula to spread easily without whitening or shininess.
A cleansing agent that's claimed to be so gentle on the skin that it hardly impacts the skin barrier. It also gives a rich, creamy foam, it's based on vegetable fatty acids and is readily biodegradable.
It's an especially important and popular ingredient in "syndet bars" (or soapless soaps). Dr. Leslie Baumann says in her great Cosmetic Dermatology book that thanks to the unique molecular characteristic of Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, it "has defined a new dimension in the mildness of cleansing bars".
A mild amino acid based surfactant with great foaming properties. Can be used also for sensitive or baby skin.
The big brother of glycerin. It's also a natural moisturizing factor that reduces water evaporation from the upper layer of the skin and helps to keep water in the skin so that it stays nicely hydrated.
Compared to glycerin, it has a larger molecular structure (kind of a double glycerin). Thanks to this, it penetrates slower into the skin but gives longer lasting moisture and less sticky, better skin-feel.
A cellulose (the big molecule found in the cell wall of green plants) derivative that is used as an emulsion stabilizer and thickener.
It's a little helper ingredient coming from corn, rice or potato starch that can help to keep skin mat (absorbent), to stabilise emulsions, and to keep the product together (binding).
Super common soothing ingredient. It can be found naturally in the roots & leaves of the comfrey plant, but more often than not what's in the cosmetic products is produced synthetically.
It's not only soothing but it' also skin-softening and protecting and can promote wound healing.
- 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
A sugar beet-derived amino acid derivative with nice skin protection and moisturization properties. Betaine's special thing is being an osmolyte, a molecule that helps to control cell-water balance. It is also a natural osmoprotectant, meaning that it attracts water away from the protein surface and thus protects them from denaturation and increases their thermodynamic stability.
It also gives sensorial benefits to the formula and when used in cleansers, it helps to make them milder and gentler.
A fancy name for sugar. Luckily when you put it on your skin it's good for you not like when you eat it. :) It has water-binding properties, which means that it helps to keep your skin nice and hydrated.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
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.
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.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
- It’s naturally in our skin and behaves there like a sponge
- It can bind up to 1000 times its own weight in water
- It is a big molecule from repeated subunits (polymer) so different molecular weight versions exist (unfortunately there is no way to determine MW from INCI list only)
- High-molecular-weight-HA (>500 kDa) is an excellent surface hydrator, skin protectant and can act as an osmotic pump helping water-soluble actives to penetrate deeper into the skin
- Low-molecular-weight-HA (< 500 kDa) can hydrate the skin somewhat deeper though it is still a big molecule and works mainly in the epidermis (outer layer of the skin)
- Low-molecular-weight-HA might also help the skin to repair itself by increasing its self-defense (~ 200kDa used in the study)
- Ultra-low-molecular-weight-HA (<50kDa) is a controversial ingredient and might work as a pro-inflammatory signal molecule
Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid is a low molecular weight, chemically chopped up version of the naturally big molecule and current IT-moisturizer, Hyaluronic Acid (HA). The TL; DR version of HA is that it's a huge polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) found in the skin that acts as a sponge helping the skin to retain water, making it plump and elastic. As HA is a polymer, the subunits can be repeated many times (as a high-molecular-weight version), or just a few times (as a low-molecular-weight version).
We wrote in detail at HA about how different molecular weight versions do different things both as a component of the skin and as a skincare ingredient, so click here and read about all the details. Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid can also come in different molecular-weight versions with different properties:
- 100-300 kDa version: apart from moisturizing, this size might also help the skin to repair itself by increasing its self-defense. It is also claimed to boost the wound healing process and is especially helpful for sensitive skin types (acne, rosacea, inflammation-related skin diseases).
- 50k Da version: this is the size that is claimed to be able to absorb into the skin and plump up wrinkles, so it is used mainly as an "anti-aging ingredient"
- below 50k, around 10k Da version: there is a Japanese version trade named Hyalo-Oligo that has only a 10k molecular weight and is claimed to penetrate the skin very well, have a unique touch and give deep and long-lasting moisturization. Based on the Evonik-research and the natural role of LMW-HA in the body working as a pro-inflammatory signal molecule, this ultra-low molecular weight version is a controversial ingredient.
If you wanna become a real HA-and-the-skin expert, you can read much more about the topic at hyaluronic acid (including penetration-questions, differences between high and low molecular weight versions and a bunch of references to scientific literature).
It’s the - sodium form - cousin of the famous NMF, hyaluronic acid (HA). If HA does not tell you anything we have a super detailed, geeky explanation about it here. The TL; DR version of HA is that it's a huge polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) found in the skin that acts as a sponge helping the skin to hold onto water, being plump and elastic. HA is famous for its crazy water holding capacity as it can bind up to 1000 times its own weight in water.
As far as skincare goes, sodium hyaluronate and hyaluronic acid are pretty much the same and the two names are used interchangeably. As cosmetic chemist kindofstephen writes on reddit "sodium hyaluronate disassociates into hyaluronic acid molecule and a sodium atom in solution".
In spite of this, if you search for "hyaluronic acid vs sodium hyaluronate" you will find on multiple places that sodium hyaluronate is smaller and can penetrate the skin better. Chemically, this is definitely not true, as the two forms are almost the same, both are polymers and the subunits can be repeated in both forms as much as you like. (We also checked Prospector for sodium hyaluronate versions actually used in cosmetic products and found that the most common molecular weight was 1.5-1.8 million Da that absolutely counts as high molecular weight).
What seems to be a true difference, though, is that the salt form is more stable, easier to formulate and cheaper so it pops up more often on the ingredient lists.
If you wanna become a real HA-and-the-skin expert you can read way more about the topic at hyaluronic acid (including penetration-questions, differences between high and low molecular weight versions and a bunch of references to scientific literature).
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| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling | abrasive/scrub |
| what‑it‑does | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | surfactant/cleansing |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | viscosity controlling |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | soothing |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | cell-communicating ingredient | skin brightening | anti-acne | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant | solvent |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 1 |
| what‑it‑does | solvent | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | moisturizer/humectant |
| what‑it‑does | skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |