What's inside
What's inside
Key Ingredients
Benefits
Concerns
Ingredients Side-by-side
Water
Skin ConditioningAloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice
Skin Conditioning
Decyl Glucoside
Cleansing
Glycerin
Humectant
Xanthan Gum
EmulsifyingParfum
Masking
Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside
CleansingCamellia Sinensis Leaf Water
Masking
Zinc PCA
Humectant
Sodium PCA
Humectant
Disodium Cocoyl Glutamate
Cleansing
Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate
Cleansing
Glyceryl Caprylate
EmollientBiosaccharide Gum-1
Humectant
Sodium Benzoate
Masking
Sodium Anisate
AntimicrobialPotassium Sorbate
Preservative
Sodium Levulinate
Skin ConditioningLevulinic Acid
Perfuming
Citric Acid
Buffering
Water, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Decyl Glucoside, Glycerin, Xanthan Gum, Parfum, Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Water, Zinc PCA, Sodium PCA, Disodium Cocoyl Glutamate, Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate, Glyceryl Caprylate, Biosaccharide Gum-1, Sodium Benzoate, Sodium Anisate, Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Levulinate, Levulinic Acid, Citric Acid
Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice
Skin Conditioning
Water
Skin ConditioningDecyl Glucoside
Cleansing
Glycerin
Humectant
Propanediol
Solvent
Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside
CleansingCocoyl Methyl Glucamide
Skin Conditioning
Allantoin
Skin Conditioning
Zingiber Officinale Root Extract
Masking
Bisabolol
Antioxidant
Sorbic Acid
Preservative
Sorbitan Caprylate
EmulsifyingBenzoic Acid
Masking
Citric Acid
Buffering
Rosa Damascena Extract
MaskingRosa Damascena Flower Oil
Masking
Sodium Hydroxide
BufferingAloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Water, Decyl Glucoside, Glycerin, Propanediol, Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside, Cocoyl Methyl Glucamide, Allantoin, Zingiber Officinale Root Extract, Bisabolol, Sorbic Acid, Sorbitan Caprylate, Benzoic Acid, Citric Acid, Rosa Damascena Extract, Rosa Damascena Flower Oil, Sodium Hydroxide
Ingredients Explained
These ingredients are found in both products.
Ingredients higher up in an ingredient list are typically present in a larger amount.
Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice comes from leaves of the aloe plant. Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice is best known for helping to soothe sunburns. It is also anti-inflammatory, moisturizing, antiseptic, and can help heal wounds.
Aloe is packed with good stuff including Vitamins A, C, and E. These vitamins are antioxidants, which help fight free-radicals and the damage they may cause. Free-radicals are molecules that may damage your skin cells, such as pollution.
Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice also contains sugars. These sugars come in the form of monosaccharides and polysaccharides, folic acid, and choline. These sugars are able to help bind moisture to skin.
It also contains minerals such as calcium, 12 anthraquinones, fatty acids, amino acids, and Vitamin B12.
Learn more about Aloe Barbadensis Leaf JuiceThis ingredient is a mild surfactant made by sticking glucose onto a blend of fatty acids.
It does two jobs because it has a sugar head that loves water and a fatty tail that loves oil:
Typical use levels range from 10-20% in cleansers and 15-30% in shower products.
Once on your skin, your skin's glucoside hydrolases breaks it down into glucose and the parent fatty alcohols.
This ingredient is considered fungal acne safe because its fatty alcohol portion sits outside the Malassezia yeast's metabolization range.
Learn more about Caprylyl/Capryl GlucosideCitric Acid is an alpha hydroxy acid (AHA) naturally found in citrus fruits like oranges, lemons, and limes.
Like other AHAs, citric acid can exfoliate skin by breaking down the bonds that hold dead skin cells together. This helps reveal smoother and brighter skin underneath.
However, this exfoliating effect only happens at high concentrations (20%) which can be hard to find in cosmetic products.
Due to this, citric acid is usually included in small amounts as a pH adjuster. This helps keep products slightly more acidic and compatible with skin's natural pH.
In skincare formulas, citric acid can:
While it can provide some skin benefits, research shows lactic acid and glycolic acid are generally more effective and less irritating exfoliants.
Most citric acid used in skincare today is made by fermenting sugars (usually from molasses). This synthetic version is identical to the natural citrus form but easier to stabilize and use in formulations.
Read more about some other popular AHA's here:
Learn more about Citric AcidDecyl Glucoside is a plant-derived surfactant and emulsion stabilizer. It is created by reacting glucose with the fatty acids from plants.
Like all surfactants, it works by lowering the surface tension between water and oil. This makes it so that dirt, sebum, and makeup can be lifted off your skin and rinsed away. It also produces a dense and creamy foam.
Because it has a neutral charge, it is compatible with a wide range of ingredients and stays stable across a broad pH range/water hardiness conditions.
Patch testing has shown it to have the lowest irritation potential among common cleansing surfactants (like SLS).
Typical use levels range from 5-20% in rinse-off cleansers.
One thing worth knowing: The American Contact Dermatitis Society named the parent family, alkyl glucosides, "Allergen of the Year" in 2017. The prevalence of allergy is pretty low but be sure to patch test if you've reacted to "gentle" or sulfate-free cleansers before.
This ingredient is fungal acne safe because the fatty alcohol portion of this ingredient is not within the C11-24 chain length that Malassezia can metabolize.
Learn more about Decyl GlucosideGlycerin (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 GlycerinWater. 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
