Solar Filter Oil
Ingredients overview
Highlights
Key Ingredients
Other Ingredients
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| Ingredient name | what-it-does | irr., com. | ID-Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate | emollient, antimicrobial/antibacterial | ||
| Homosalate | sunscreen | ||
| Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine | sunscreen | goodie | |
| Tocopheryl Acetate | antioxidant | 0, 0 | |
| Vitis Vinifera Extract | antioxidant | goodie | |
| Parfum | perfuming | icky | |
| Butyloctyl Salicylate | solvent | ||
| Glycine Soja (Soybean) Oil | emollient, perfuming | 0, 3 | goodie |
| Arnica Montana Flower Extract | perfuming | icky | |
| Tocopherol | antioxidant | 0-3, 0-3 | goodie |
| Vegetable Oil | emollient | ||
| Simmondsia Chinensis Seed Oil | emollient | 0, 0-2 | goodie |
| Curcuma Longa Root Extract | antioxidant, soothing, skin brightening, perfuming | goodie | |
| Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride | emollient | ||
| Laminaria Ochroleuca Extract | |||
| Triheptanoin | emollient | ||
| Lavandula Hybrida Extract | emollient |
Pelegrims Solar Filter OilIngredients explained
An often used emollient with a light and silky feel. It's very mild to both skin and eyes and spreads nicely and easily. It's often used in sunscreens as it's also an excellent solvent for sunscreen agents.
An oil-soluble chemical sunscreen agent that protects the skin from UVB (295-315 nm) with a peak protection at 306 nm. Homosalate is not a strong UV filter in and of itself (gives only SPF 4.3 protection at max. allowed 10% concentration) and it is not photostable (looses 10% of its SPF protection in 45 mins) so it always has to be combined with other sunscreens for proper protection. Its big advantage, though, is that it is a liquid and is excellent for dissolving other hard to solubilize powder sunscreen agents, like the famous Avobenzone.
Regarding Homosalate's safety profile, we do not have the best news. In-vitro (made in the labs) studies have shown that it might have some estrogenic activity. Do not panic, these studies were not conducted on real humans under real world conditions. Still, if you are a 'better safe than sorry' type, be careful when using Homosalate containing sunscreens long-term and full-body.
As of 2020, Homosalate is permitted to be used up to 10% in the EU and 15% in the US, but the EU is currently considering restricting it to only 1.4% (probably taking effect from 2022).
Its INCI name is a bit of a mouthful, but Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine is worth recognizing it as it is one of the best sunscreen agents known today. Unfortunately, it's not FDA-approved so you will not find it in sunscreens coming from the US (not because it's not good, but because US regulations make it impossible for newer sunscreen agents to get approved), but it is widely available in other parts of the world like Europe, Australia or Asia.
It is a broad-spectrum (covers the whole UVB and UVA range, 280-400 nm) chemical sunscreen agent with peak protections at about 310 and 345 nm and unlike older UV filters, it's very photostable. It hardly deteriorates in the presence of UV light and it's also useful in stabilizing other less stable sunscreen agents, like the famous UVA protector, avobenzone.
It's a new generation sunscreen agent that was specifically designed for high SPF and good UVA protection and based on a 2007 study that compared 18 sunscreen agents available in the EU it really had the best SPF protection (they used the highest concentration allowed by EU regulations from each 18 sunscreens and Trinosorb S gave an SPF 20 all by itself).
It is an oil-soluble, slightly yellowish powder that is not absorbed into the skin too much. This is good news for a sunscreen agent as it needs to be on the surface of the skin to do its job properly. Regarding Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine side effects, we have good news here as well: it has a great safety profile and unlike a couple of other chemical sunscreens, Trinosorb S (and M) does not show estrogenic activity.
Overall, we think Trinosorb S is one of the best sunscreen options available today.
Are you into sunscreen agents? We have shiny explanations (along with product lists) about others as well:
- Methylene Bis-Benzotriazolyl Tetramethylbutylphenol, aka Tinosorb M, the good buddy of our current molecule Tinosorb S
- Tris-Biphenyl Triazine, aka Tinosorb A2B, the newest addition to the Tinosorb family that protects strongly in an in-between wavelength that most other filters miss
- Ethylhexyl Triazone, aka Uvinul T 150, another new generation sunscreen agent with super-high UVB protection
- Diethylamino Hydroxybenzoyl Hexyl Benzoate, aka Uvinul A Plus, a new generation sunscreen for UVA protection
It’s the most commonly used version of pure vitamin E in cosmetics. You can read all about the pure form here. This one is the so-called esterified version.
According to famous dermatologist, Leslie Baumann while tocopheryl acetate is more stable and has a longer shelf life, it’s also more poorly absorbed by the skin and may not have the same awesome photoprotective effects as pure Vit E.
This ingredient name is not according to the INCI-standard. :( What, why?!
It's not a standard INCI name, but rather a sloppy one. Several kinds of grape extracts are used in cosmetic products, the most well-known is the seed extract, but fruit extract or juice extract also exists.
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!).
A nice, multi-functional helper ingredient that's especially useful in sunscreens. It can solubilize some commonly used UV-filters like Oxybenzone or Avobenzone and it can also help to increase the SPF rating of sunscreens. It's also cosmetically elegant, has excellent spreadability and a pleasant, moisturizing skin feel. Oh, and according to Wikipedia, it even helps to stabilize famously unstable UVA-filter, Avobenzone.
The emollient plant oil coming from the soybean. It is considered to be a nice, cost-effective base oil with moisturizing properties. As for its fatty acid profile, it contains 48-59% barrier-repairing linoleic acid, 17-30% nourishing oleic acid and also some (4.5-11%) potentially anti-inflammatory linolenic acid.
A nice yellow flower living in the mountains. It has been used as a herbal medicine for centuries, though its effect on skin is rather questionable. It's most famously used to treat bruisings, but there are some studies that show that it's not better than placebo (source: wikipedia). Also, some consider it to be anti-inflammatory, while other research shows that it can cause skin irritation.
- 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
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
Jojoba is a drought resistant evergreen shrub native to South-western North America. It's known and grown for jojoba oil, the golden yellow liquid coming from the seeds (about 50% of the weight of the seeds will be oil).
At first glance, it seems like your average emollient plant oil: it looks like an oil and it's nourishing and moisturizing to the skin but if we dig a bit deeper, it turns out that jojoba oil is really special and unique: technically - or rather chemically - it's not an oil but a wax ester (and calling it an oil is kind of sloppy).
So what the heck is a wax ester and why is that important anyway? Well, to understand what a wax ester is, you first have to know that oils are chemically triglycerides: one glycerin + three fatty acids attached to it. The fatty acids attached to the glycerin vary and thus we have many kinds of oils, but they are all triglycerides. Mother Nature created triglycerides to be easily hydrolyzed (be broken down to a glycerin + 3 fatty acid molecules) and oxidized (the fatty acid is broken down into small parts) - this happens basically when we eat fats or oils and our body generates energy from it.
Mother Nature also created wax esters but for a totally different purpose. Chemically, a wax ester is a fatty acid + a fatty alcohol, one long molecule. Wax esters are on the outer surface of several plant leaves to give them environmental protection. 25-30% of human sebum is also wax esters to give us people environmental protection.
So being a wax ester results in a couple of unique properties: First, jojoba oil is extremely stable. Like crazy stable. Even if you heat it to 370 C (698 F) for 96 hours, it does not budge. (Many plant oils tend to go off pretty quickly). If you have some pure jojoba oil at home, you should be fine using it for years.
Second, jojoba oil is the most similar to human sebum (both being wax esters), and the two are completely miscible. Acne.org has this not fully proven theory that thanks to this, jojoba might be able to "trick" the skin into thinking it has already produced enough sebum, so it might have "skin balancing" properties for oily skin.
Third, jojoba oil moisturizes the skin through a unique dual action: on the one hand, it mixes with sebum and forms a thin, non-greasy, semi-occlusive layer; on the other hand, it absorbs into the skin through pores and hair follicles then diffuses into the intercellular spaces of the outer layer of the skin to make it soft and supple.
On balance, the point is this: in contrast to real plant oils, wax esters were designed by Mother Nature to stay on the surface and form a protective, moisturizing barrier and jojoba oil being a wax ester is uniquely excellent at doing that.
Turmeric is the yellow spice you probably know from curry and Indian food. It's also a traditional herbal medicine used in Ayurveda for its bunch of anti-something magic abilities including being anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant and anticarcinogenic.
As for turmeric and skincare, we have good news: studies show that the root extract and its main biologically active component, curcumin can do multiple good things for the skin. Thanks to its anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial activity, it shows some promise for acne-prone skin and a small study from 2013 showed that it might be able to regulate sebum production.
It's also a potent antioxidant and skin-brightening agent so it often shows up in anti-aging and/or radiance-boosting products.
A super common emollient that makes your skin feel nice and smooth. It comes from coconut oil and glycerin, it’s light-textured, clear, odorless and non-greasy. It’s a nice ingredient that just feels good on the skin, is super well tolerated by every skin type and easy to formulate with. No wonder it’s popular.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
A light, oily liquid (triglyceride of seven carbon length fatty acid, heptanoic acid) that works as a very high spreadability and low viscosity emollient making the skin nice and smooth.
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
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| what‑it‑does | emollient | antimicrobial/antibacterial |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | sunscreen |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0 |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| what‑it‑does | perfuming |
| what‑it‑does | solvent |
| what‑it‑does | emollient | perfuming |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 3 |
| what‑it‑does | perfuming |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant |
| irritancy, com. | 0-3, 0-3 |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| irritancy, com. | 0, 0-2 |
| what‑it‑does | antioxidant | soothing | skin brightening | perfuming |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |
| what‑it‑does | emollient |