Emptor warning!

I’ll start by saying what works and what doesn’t and listing the ingredients to look for and the ones that are just stuffing or “label dressing”. Label dressing is known in the industry as ingredients used in the product that are not put together and often have no proven benefits, but are widely advertised by their manufacturers. They add some perceived value to products or simply make it look and sound expensive by adding exotic names and often unnecessary raw materials to the final product. Your name on the label and in product collateral will entice the unsuspecting customer to buy it.

A good example was in the 1960s, a giant company came up with the idea of ​​using the waste material from the log industry (small branches, twigs, and leaves) and extracting the chlorophyll. So they built a big extraction plant on the Canada-US border and started the extraction process. When they extracted millions of tons of chlorophyll and did some research, they found that chlorophyll is very useful for plants to photosynthesize sunlight, but it has no other redeemable values. But by then hundreds of millions of dollars had been invested in the process and had to be recovered in one way or another. So they hired a marketing company and pretty soon everyone was chewing chlorophyll gum wearing chlorophyll shoe soles smoking chlorophyll cigarettes and the list goes on. Very soon the stock of Chlorophyll was exhausted, the extraction plant was converted and Chlorophyll disappeared from our lives as if by magic.

That’s marketing at its best! Did you know that the marketing of a large cosmetic company can represent up to 90% of the final cost of the product? What are they trying to sell you? A famous saying in marketing is: sell the sizzle, not the steak. The problem with this image is that: the crackling has no nutritional value.

The cosmetics industry has a long history of using waste material from other industries.

Now, about the raw materials you should stay away from:

Mink oil is a product of mink breeders. After the skin was removed, the rest of the animals went to waste, but it contains a lot of fat. To maximize revenue, they must find a market for it. Once again, it was well marketed and the cosmetic industry was eager to use it.
Emu Oil is a by-product of the Emus Farmers after removing the feathers and skin. All luxury animal fat can be replaced by olive oil, in my opinion the best emollient on the market. Contains Squalane previously extracted from shark liver. When you buy your skin care product, make sure the squalane comes from olive oil and not from sharks. The fishing industry did a good job promoting Sharks’ Squalane. It again uses the rest of the animal that is essentially fished for Japanese and Chinese fish fin soup.

Caviar is good too! Did you know that broken sturgeon eggs cannot be sold? So… some good marketing and again the cosmetic industry is there to absorb it. It can be argued that fish roe contains vitamins, marine lipids (another fancy name for fat). But again, seaweed extract and vegetable-derived vitamins and olive oil can easily replace it.

Caviar is expensive, so it must be good for the skin. In my opinion, caviar could have a place on toast if you like things exotic, expensive, greasy, fishy and flavored. It serves no useful purpose on your skin. But it sure makes the product sound expensive at least.

To summarize all this let me give you my opinion about a good Skin Care product: It must contain
Peptides, olive or squalane oil, and some plant extracts, but be warned, not all plant extracts are created equal! For example, some vitamins B5 (niacin amide) are good, as is vitamin C, and don’t forget about fat.

The oil also contains vitamins A, B, E and F, if virgin olive oil is used. It is also a good manufacturer that lives up to its motto: No hype No fuss Quality comes first!

To reflect on botanical extracts and other ingredients in your skin care products.

Some helpful guidelines are: Don’t buy products that contain animal by-products. They are usually waste material from another industry.

Fur and leather industry its residues are: mink oil and Emus oil.

Fishing industry its residues are: Shark liver oil, Squalane and Caviar.

Squalane is good for the skin, but it’s also extracted from olive oil, and that’s good squalane!
Also watch out for “label dressing”, some manufacturers will list a long list of ingredients on their labels, but there isn’t much room in the formula for those ingredients.

On the skincare label, the first ingredient is almost always water. The water content of cosmetics is between 40% and 90%. Most large manufacturers average between 70% and 80% water. The more active ingredients there are in the formula, the greater the risks of spoilage that the formulator may encounter. His motto is: keep it safe. Then you need some emulsifying products, they can be a mixture of three, five or more different ingredients for a total of 10% to 15%, then a little bit of oil to finish the emulsion. The oil is used as an emollient and represents 5% to 20% of the total formula.

Let’s say a product contains 70% water (low average) 10% emulsifier 1% preservative this leaves 19% for all other ingredients (high average) and 10% oil and emollients. (Stay away from mineral oil and Vaseline) If they use 10% of the oil and they list 10 different oils you know 99% of that 10% is the cheapest and most expensive, the other 9 make up only 1% of that 10% . This also applies to the botanical extract!

Now all extracts are not created equal. You can purchase an extract from a supplier that contains 10% of the botanical’s active ingredient and 90% water for $50.00 per pound, or an extract that contains 100% of the active ingredients for $500.00. Which extract do you think most manufacturers will use? Remember their motto “Keep it safe” The most disconcerting part of all this is that: according to INCI standards, the extract with low active content will be in the same place as the one with high content in the descending order of ingredients on the label, because the manufacturer to test the amount of the extract they put in the formula, but nothing about the potency of the extract.

We are seeing a significant increase in gel products. Those products contain Carbomer or Polymer (same difference) as a thickening agent and allow the formulator to formulate products with 95% to 98% water. Now you understand why skin care manufacturing is moving in the direction of using gel as a safer product. Rest assured, the next time you shop for eye gel, gel and gels can be considered completely safe, as they are mostly water!

After all, creating and maintaining personal beauty takes time, effort, and preparation.