What's inside
What's inside
Key Ingredients
Benefits
Concerns
No concerns
Ingredients Side-by-side
Water
Skin ConditioningGlycerin
Humectant
Polysorbate 20
Emulsifying
Palmitoyl Tripeptide-5
Skin Conditioning
Arginine/Lysine Polypeptide
Skin Conditioning
Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1
Skin Conditioning
Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7
Skin Conditioning
Ergothioneine
Antioxidant
Sodium Hyaluronate
Humectant
Vitis Vinifera Seed Extract
Antimicrobial
Caprylyl Glycol
Emollient
Carbomer
Emulsion StabilisingButylene Glycol
Humectant
Dehydroacetic Acid
Preservative
Phenoxyethanol
Preservative
Benzyl Alcohol
Perfuming
Ingredients Explained
These ingredients are found in both products.
Ingredients higher up in an ingredient list are typically present in a larger amount.
Glycerin (or glycerol) is a compound naturally found in your skin. It's a powerhouse humectant that pulls water into the stratum corneum.
Topically, glycerin does several things at once:
Your skin makes glycerin on its own (mostly from sebaceous oil breakdown) and shuttles it to your outermost layer of skin, or your epidermis, via aquaporin-3.
Aquaporin-3 is a transporter that is essential for normal skin hydration, elasticity, and repair. Interestingly, mice lacking in AQP3 have dry and less elastic skin that can be fully corrected with glycerin.
This ingredient is non-irritating, plays well with almost every ingredient, and works across all skin types. Typical use is anywhere between 3-10% but can go up to 79% in some leave-on products.
Just know very high concentrations (>40%) can feel tacky in low humidity.
Glycerin is the name for this ingredient in American English. British English uses Glycerol/Glycerine.
Learn more about GlycerinPalmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7 (formerly Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-3) is a synthetic peptide. Its main job is to fight what researchers call "inflammaging".
"Inflammaging" is the slow, low-grade chronic inflammation that quietly breaks down collagen as we age.
This ingredient calms down a specific inflammation signal in your skin cells (called IL-6). When left unchecked, this signal triggers enzymes that break down collagen and elastin.
Clinical testing showed statistically significant improvements in:
Studies also found the more of this ingredient used, the more your skin produces Collagen I, fibronectin, and hyaluronic acid.
You'll likely see this ingredient paired with Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1 in the well-known Matrixyl 3000 complex for enhanced anti-aging effects.
A 3% concentration applied twice daily for two months showed meaningful skin rejuvenation results in clinical panels.
Fungal acne note:
Usually a palmitic acid component can feed Malassezia in unbound form, but here is is covalently bonded to the peptide. This means it is very difficult for Malassezia to access, and therefore very unlikely to cause fungal acne.
Palmitoyl Tripeptide-5 is a synthetic signal lipopeptide. This just means it is a three amino acid chain bolted onto a palmitic acid tail so it can slip through the skin's lipid barrier.
This peptide has a "build more, lose less" approach.
It's designed to mimic the collagen-stimulating activity in your skin by copying a snippet of one of your skin's own matrix proteins. This nudges fibroblasts into making more collagen while inhibiting the enzyme that breaks down skin protein.
The manufacturer's in vivo study of 45 volunteers found 1% and 2.5% reduced the appearance of wrinkles by 7% and 12% respectively, after using it twice daily for 84 days.
This is in the expected range for peptides; they're slow and cumulative actives and not overnight fixers.
Typical use levels range from 1-3% and this ingredient gets along with pretty much everything.
On the fungal acne front:
Although palmitic acid sits in the chain length that Malassezia can feed on, this ingredient has it locked in an amine bond. This makes it hard for Malassezia to access as a source of food, and therefore fungal acne safe.
