What's inside
What's inside
Key Ingredients
No key ingredients
Benefits
No benefits
Concerns
Ingredients Side-by-side
Water
Skin ConditioningCocamidopropyl Betaine
Cleansing
Lauryl Glucoside
CleansingDecyl Glucoside
Cleansing
Sodium Cocoyl Sarcosinate
Cleansing
Glycol Distearate
Emollient
Coco-Glucoside
Cleansing
Glyceryl Oleate
Emollient
Glyceryl Stearate
Emollient
Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride
Skin ConditioningHydroxypropyltrimonium Hyaluronate
Cetearyl Alcohol
Emollient
Glyceryl Caprylate
EmollientPiroctone Olamine
Preservative
Hydrolyzed Milk Protein
Skin ConditioningWater, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Lauryl Glucoside, Decyl Glucoside, Sodium Cocoyl Sarcosinate, Glycol Distearate, Coco-Glucoside, Glyceryl Oleate, Glyceryl Stearate, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Hydroxypropyltrimonium Hyaluronate, Cetearyl Alcohol, Glyceryl Caprylate, Piroctone Olamine, Hydrolyzed Milk Protein
Ingredients Explained
These ingredients are found in both products.
Ingredients higher up in an ingredient list are typically present in a larger amount.
Coco-Glucoside is a surfactant, or a cleansing ingredient. It is made from glucose and coconut oil.
Surfactants help gather dirt, oil, and other pollutants from your skin to be rinsed away.
This ingredient is considered gentle and non-comedogenic. However, it may still be irritating for some.
Learn more about Coco-GlucosideGlyceryl Oleate is the monoester of glycerin and oleic acid. It is a skin-conditioning emollient that also helps form emulsions.
What makes glyceryl oleate special is its "re-fatting" effect.
When you wash your hair and skin with a surfactant-based cleanser, the surfactants grab onto everything. This includes your skin's natural lipids, or the fats that live in your skin barrier and sebum. Once you rinse these surfactants away, it leaves your skin feeling tight, dry, and clean (in a not-good way).
Re-fatting is essentially putting some of these lipids back. Glyceryl oleate deposits a thin layer of emollient lipids back on the skin or hair surface reduce some of the barrier damage.
Also, glyceryl oleate isn't a foreign molecule to your skin. It's chemically identical to something your skin already produces and manages naturally. This is why it tends to be well-tolerated with low risk of irritation.
Typical use levels range from 0.5-5%.
Glyceryl Oleate has a function of "perfuming" in the CosIng database. This just means that the ingredient has some scent character that can contribute to the product's overall smell.
The scent of this ingredient is described as "waxy".
As an ester of oleic acid, this ingredient may not be fungal acne safe. This is because oleic acid falls into the carbon-chain length that Malassezia can use as a substrate.
Learn more about Glyceryl OleateGlyceryl Stearate is made by reacting glycerin with stearic acid (typically sourced from plant oils like palm or coconut). It's an emulsifier, emollient, and mild occlusive.
Emulsifiers help ingredients like oil and water stay mixed so your formula stays nicely blended and uniform in texture.
This ingredient is typically used in concentrations between 1-10%. Studies have found it to be non-sensitizing, non-phototoxic, and non-photoallergenic.
A close cousin of this ingredient is Glyceryl Stearate SE ("self-emulsifying"). This just has a small amount of sodium or potassium stearate added so it can emulsify without a co-emulsifier.
Since this ingredient is an ester of a C18 fatty acid, it may not be fungal acne safe. The Malassezia yeast can potentially metabolize within the C11-C24 range.
Fun fact: The human body also creates Glyceryl Stearate naturally.
Learn more about Glyceryl StearateGlycol Distearate is an emulsifier and emollient that adds a "pearly" appearance to formulations.
That lustrous look you see in many shampoos is due to this ingredient: when cooled, it crystallizes into small platelets that reflect light to give products that rich, shimmering look.
This ingredient is considered safe at present practices of use and concentration and repeated insult patch test with 50% Glycol Distearate on 125 subjects found no evidence of skin irritation, hypersensitivity, or acute toxicity.
Typical use concentrations range from 0.1-10%.
Because it's an ester of stearic acid, it falls into the range that Malassezia likes to metabolize. This ingredient may not be fungal acne safe.
Learn more about Glycol DistearatePiroctone Olamine is a synthetic antifungal and preservative ingredient.
Its main job is to keep the yeast, Malassezia, in check; this yeast is linked to dandruff, seborrheic dermatitis, and fungal acne (a.k.a. Malassezia folliculitis).
The way it works is pretty neat:
It slips into the fungal cell and grabs onto iron ions that the yeast needs for its energy metabolism; this basically starves it out. But the full mechanism isn't 100% pinned down and some research also points it to interfering with ergosterol (a building block of the fungal cell membrane).
Besides antifungal action, it also has mild anti-inflammatory and soothing effects to help calm itchiness in the scalp.
Typical usage concentrations are low. The EU permits it to be a preservative up to 1% in rinse-off products and 0.5% in leave-on products.
Though it's generally well-tolerated, a small number of people may notice itching or irritation (as with any active).
Learn more about Piroctone OlamineWater. It's the most common cosmetic ingredient of all. You'll usually see it at the top of ingredient lists, meaning that it makes up the largest part of the product.
So why is it so popular? Water most often acts as a solvent - this means that it helps dissolve other ingredients into the formulation.
You'll also recognize water as that liquid we all need to stay alive. If you see this, drink a glass of water. Remember to stay hydrated!
Learn more about Water
