How to understand the ingredient list in skincare products?

In fact, skin care products rely on ingredients. For a skin care product, the most important thing is the ingredients. Generally speaking, there are several major categories in a skin care product.

Beauty skin care

Beauty skin care

Effective ingredients

The functional ingredients are the most important for skin care products. Whether it is moisturizing, anti-oxidation, anti-aging, or whatever, all the functional ingredients play a role. The common categories of functional ingredients of skin care products mainly include moisturizing, Antibacterial and anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidation, anti-wrinkle, whitening and freckle removal, chemical sunscreen, exfoliating, physical sunscreen, cleansing ingredients, skin feel adjustment

Moisturizing ingredients: Moisturizing is an important part of basic skin care. The use of moisturizing ingredients can keep the skin hydrated, prevent the loss of moisture through the epidermis, and maintain the moisture content of the skin. For women over 30 years old, moisturizing is a very important daily care Focus.

Antibacterial and anti-inflammatory: Many plant extracts have antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects. On the one hand, they can prevent skin care products from being contaminated by bacteria. At the same time, most of them contain alkaloids and other ingredients that can have a certain effect on skin inflammation.

Anti-oxidation: The substances in skin cells will produce free atoms or groups under external conditions such as light and heat. We collectively call them free radicals. Free radicals are the most important factor in aging. Anti-oxidation is to effectively inhibit the generation of free radicals. The main role of antioxidants is to eliminate the free radicals that have been generated or to avoid direct interaction with oxidants to avoid free radicals.

Skin conditioning: Many plant extracts have skin conditioning effects. The efficacy of skin conditioning agents has not been supported by detailed scientific research, but it can be determined that they have a certain care effect on the skin.

Whitening and freckle removal: Whitening and blemishing ingredients mainly play a role in improving facial pigmentation. Generally, the main mechanism of whitening ingredients is to inhibit melanin synthesis, block melanin transmission, restore the already produced melanin, and accelerate melanin metabolism. .

Exfoliation: The surface layer of the skin is metabolized every week. Too much old dead keratin accumulates on the skin, which will cause the skin to burden. Therefore, using exfoliation to remove old dead keratin on the skin surface, let the skin breathe again, and help promote skin metabolism.

Cleansing: Cleansing ingredients refer to ingredients that have skin cleansing effects, including amino acid surfactants and soap bases. Relatively speaking, the amino groups are milder and more suitable for sensitive skin, but they have the characteristics of insufficient cleaning power and insufficient foam. The soap base is relatively strong in cleansing power and rich in foam, which is more suitable for oily skin.

Soothing and anti-allergy: Soothing and anti-allergy ingredients mainly play a role in alleviating skin discomfort and avoiding excessive skin inflammation. For users with S (sensitive) skin in the second item of the skin quality test, you can consider using more soothing and anti-allergy ingredients. Skin care products.

Oil conditioning: The main function of oil conditioning ingredients is to regulate skin oil secretion, maintain oil-water balance, and avoid excessive oil production on the skin to cause inflammation such as acne.

Chemical sunscreen: Chemical sunscreens refer to organic compounds that can absorb ultraviolet rays. Compared with physical sunscreens, chemical sunscreens usually feel more comfortable to the skin, but they may cause some skin irritation to some users.

Physical sunscreen: Physical sunscreen refers to compounds that can reflect or scatter ultraviolet radiation. Common physical sunscreens are titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. Compared with chemical sunscreens, physical sunscreens are stable and have a high safety factor, but they are used in the same way. The skin becomes pale and difficult to spread afterwards.

Anti-wrinkle: The purpose of “anti-wrinkle” is to prevent the three important components of collagen, elastic fiber and hyaluronic acid from decreasing with age and inflammation. Anti-wrinkle components can delay the loss of the above substances and promote the synthesis of the above substances.

Adjust skin feel: The main function of adjusting skin feel is to make skin care products feel extremely smooth and light. It can effectively improve the sticky feeling of products and avoid skin uncomfortable feeling after applying skin care products.

Preservatives

Preservatives can protect products from microbial contamination and ensure product safety. Preservatives are safe within the legal concentration. However, there are some individual differences in preservatives among individuals. Some skin types using ingredients containing preservatives may cause skin irritation and loss.

With the increase of modern people’s awareness of health preservation and healthy eating, preservatives have become drugs, and women have reached the level of “talking about preservatives” when buying skin care products in supermarkets. In fact, preservatives are necessary additives in many skin care products and are essential ingredients for the preservation of skin care products. Normal doses of preservatives will not cause any harm to the human body at all.

Preservatives are terrible, and no preservatives are more terrible: within the scope of safe use, preservatives are non-toxic to the human body, and its side effects on the human body are not even as good as sodium. my country has approved 100 kinds of skin care preservatives that can be used, such as phenoxyethanol, which has extremely strong antiseptic properties and minimal toxicity. The human body also contains it, and it can participate in the normal metabolism of the human body.

Skin care products without preservatives are very easy to deteriorate, and it is easy to cause bacteria to multiply in the human body, which can cause skin allergies and skin care products to fail. Therefore, preservatives within a safe range are essential elements in many foods.

Flavors and fragrances

Flavor is a general term for the fragrances and fragrances in cosmetics, and the regulations allow their ingredients not to be disclosed. Essence is one of the allergens. Long-term use of inferior fragrances can cause potential risks to skin and human health. The degree of harm depends on the grade of the fragrance, the amount of use and individual differences. Now many high-end skin care products have begun to transform from chemically synthesized fragrances to plant fragrances.

Raw materials

All skin care products need raw and auxiliary materials to improve the stability, solubility, viscosity, etc. of skin care products. Therefore, although these raw and auxiliary materials have no direct effect on the skin, they are also essential and minimal ingredients in skin care products!

Common raw and auxiliary materials mainly include: solvents, softeners, penetrants, stabilizers, chelating agents, thickeners, dispersants

Take the solvent as an example: most of the functional ingredients of skin care products need to be dissolved in a solvent to form a stable dispersion system to function. The most common solvent is water. Of course, there are also common solvents such as alcohol.

Penetrant: For the active ingredients with a large molecular weight, they cannot effectively pass through the pores of the skin, so a penetrant is needed to promote skin care ingredients to penetrate the skin.

Stabilizer: Many skin care products are unstable and easily degraded under sun exposure or high temperature. Therefore, the main function of stabilizers is to maintain the stability of the entire skin care product system!

So our view is that there is no blacklist of ingredients in skincare products. Only a few ingredients may have certain risks, and they are targeted at specific groups. For example, some ingredients are not suitable for pregnant women, and some ingredients may not be suitable for sensitive skin! As long as you follow the guidelines for the use of skincare products, there will be no so-called problems!

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