Edenskin No Stings Attached Botanical Cleanser Versus Edenskin Ride the Tide Healing Moisturizer

EDTA locks them up so it's a neat little background helper ingredient.

Typical use is under 2% but numbers as high as 10-25% have been reported in hair color products.

The Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel looked at the whole family and concluded they're safe as used. At cosmetic concentrations, they have not been found to be skin irritants or sensitizers.

Clinical testing has found no absorption through skin so the scary-sounding oral toxicity numbers from animal studies aren't relevant to a face cream.

One real formulation note: this ingredient is a penetration enhancer so it can slightly increase how much of the other ingredients get through (though this is more of a thing for formulators to work around).

Allergy is genuinely rare; there are a handful of case reports so be sure to avoid if you're patch test positive to EDTA.

On a cellular level, it disrupts the cell membranes of microbes by poking holes that make the cell leak. This shuts down the chemical reactions the microbe needs to make energy so it can no longer survive.

Another perk of this ingredient is that it stays functional across a wide pH range (3-10).

You'll often see it paired with boosters like Ethylhexylglycerin; one study showed that a 1:9 ratio of Ethylhexylglycerin to Phenoxyethanol damages bacterial membranes as effectively as doubling the Phenoxyethanol concentration on its own.

Typical use concentrations range from 0.3-1% depending on the formula, and this ingredient is capped at 1% int the EU.

Safety-wise, the fear mongering does not hold up to the evidence. The EU's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety and FDA consider it safe as a preservative at up to 1%, including for children of all ages.

Adverse systemic effects only showed up in animal studies at exposures roughly 200x higher than what people get from cosmetics. And despite its very widespread use, this ingredient is a rare sensitizer and allergic reactions are uncommon.

As a cosmetic ingredient, it grabs water and holds it in the upper layers of skin to smooth roughness and ease dehydration.

There's some clinical support for the NMF approach with a study showing that a cream built to mimic the skin's NMF significantly boosted hydration.

Safety-wise, this ingredient non-irritating, non-comedogenic, and non-phototoxic in testing, with minimal skin absorption.

It also works really well with other hydrators like glycerin or hyaluronic acid, and typical usage is somewhere between 0.2-4%.