Saturday, March 8, 2014

Skin care: buzz words and what ingredients to avoid for acne prone and sensitive skin



The beauty world is loaded with false promises and pseudo-scientific claims. Here are two words for example:

Hypoallergenic: It does not mean much actually. There are no standards for using that word. It just claims that the cosmetic company makes. Don’t be fooled.

Natural ingredients: Natural doesn’t mean better. Lead is natural, mercury is natural… A lot of those natural ingredient take quite a lot of energy to produce as well, sometimes even more so than so called “synthetic” products. If you don’t believe me go check a video on how they produce those natural oils like grape seed oil. You will be chocked.

If you really want to improve your skin start reading ingredients and avoid the following.

Menthol
Linalool
Fragrance
All essential oils especially cinnamon, bergamot, lavender, mint and all the citrus oils.
Most plant extracts
Witch hazel
Alcohol
Alcohol Denat
Ethyl alcohol
Coconut oil (great for your hair but it is highly comedogenic and can cause acne)
Sodium lauryl sulfate (not to be confused with sodium laureth sulfate which is safe when rinsed out)
Bismuth oxychloride
Most ingredients that finish by “ol” and “al” like eugenol those are usually fragrant extracts
Sodium silicate
Dimethyl ether
Borax

Of course depending on your skin type some plants extracts and some fragrance might be fine for you. The problem with fragrance is that we don't know exactly what they putted in there some fragrance might be quite irritating and others completely fine.

I hope that was helpful next skin care article, I will talk about ingredients you should try to include in your routine.



8 comments:

  1. perfect! had already read this... my new check list :) thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think in general, is to keep it simple and avoid anything that is very parfumy!

    ReplyDelete
  3. it is better to start using ingredients like Aloevera gel to treat acne. My grandma suggests homemade sandalwood paste for acne & it has worked for me..

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good luck with your acne! I'm also struggling a lot with inflammation.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My acne has been bad again this past year (oh how happy and carefree I was on roaccutane :-() so I'll pay attention to these ingredients from now on. I'll do whatever I can!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I didn't include parabens, because the data is not very clear on that. A lot of studies say that it's completely fine. Also often times what is used to replace parabens is much worse for you. Parabens also prevent fungi and bacteria to develop in products so they do have their utility (unlike fragrance).That being said, some people do react to parabens and should avoid it. This source say that's it's safe http://www.cosmeticsinfo.org/HBI/9

    ReplyDelete
  7. anything ending with -paraben should be avoided too, according to D. Suzuki. We need to be careful, since in most products, there is some kind of paraben (metylparaben, propylparaben, ec) :)

    ReplyDelete