Body Shop Vitamin C Moisturiser Ingredients

Body Shop Vitamin C Moisturiser Ingredients

Vitamin C Glow Boosting Moisturiser

The Vitamin C Glow Boosting Moisturizer is a fresh, lightweight gel formula that will give your skin a daily boost of radiance and hydration. With vitamin C, it awakens and clarifies your complexion, revealing a natural healthy looking glow.

Uploaded by: arshg on 08/17/2019

Ingredients overview

Aqua/​Water (Solvent), Alcohol Denat, Glycerin (Humectant), Propanediol (Viscosity Modifier), Ammonium Acryloyldimethyltaurate/​VP Copolymer (Viscosity Increasing Agent), Ethyl Macadamiate (Skin Conditioning Agent), Isostearyl Lactate (Emollient/​Skin Conditioning Agent), Phenoxyethanol (Preservative), Parfum/​Fragrance (Fragrance Ingredient), Sesamum Indicum Seed Oil/​Sesamum Indicum (Sesame) Seed Oil (Skin-Conditioning Agent), Sodium Hydroxide (Ph Adjuster), Limonene (Fragrance Ingredient), Sodium Hyaluronate (Humectant), Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate (Antioxidant), Disodium EDTA (Chelating Agent), Benzyl Salicylate (Fragrance Ingredient), Hexyl Cinnamal (Fragrance Ingredient), Linalool (Fragrance Ingredient), Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice (Skin Conditioning Agent), Myrciaria Dubia Fruit Extract (Skin Conditioning Agent), Citral (Fragrance Ingredient), Tocopherol (Antioxidant), Malic Acid (Ph Adjuster), Ci 15510/​Orange 4 (Colorant), Ci 15985/​Yellow 6 (Colorant)

Highlights

Key Ingredients

Other Ingredients

Skim through

Ingredient name	what-it-does	irr., com.	ID-Rating
Aqua/Water (Solvent)	solvent
Alcohol Denat	antimicrobial/​antibacterial, solvent, viscosity controlling		icky
Glycerin (Humectant)	skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/​humectant	0, 0	superstar
Propanediol (Viscosity Modifier)	solvent, moisturizer/​humectant
Ammonium Acryloyldimethyltaurate/VP Copolymer (Viscosity Increasing Agent)	viscosity controlling
Ethyl Macadamiate (Skin Conditioning Agent)
Isostearyl Lactate (Emollient/Skin Conditioning Agent)	emollient
Phenoxyethanol (Preservative)	preservative
Parfum/Fragrance (Fragrance Ingredient)	perfuming		icky
Sesamum Indicum Seed Oil/Sesamum Indicum (Sesame) Seed Oil (Skin-Conditioning Agent)	emollient	0, 1-3	goodie
Sodium Hydroxide (Ph Adjuster)	buffering
Limonene (Fragrance Ingredient)	perfuming, solvent		icky
Sodium Hyaluronate (Humectant)	skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/​humectant	0, 0	goodie
Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate (Antioxidant)	antioxidant, skin brightening		goodie
Disodium EDTA (Chelating Agent)	chelating
Benzyl Salicylate (Fragrance Ingredient)	perfuming		icky
Hexyl Cinnamal (Fragrance Ingredient)	perfuming		icky
Linalool (Fragrance Ingredient)	perfuming		icky
Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice (Skin Conditioning Agent)	soothing, moisturizer/​humectant		goodie
Myrciaria Dubia Fruit Extract (Skin Conditioning Agent)
Citral (Fragrance Ingredient)	perfuming		icky
Tocopherol (Antioxidant)	antioxidant	0-3, 0-3	goodie
Malic Acid (Ph Adjuster)	exfoliant, buffering		goodie
Ci 15510/Orange 4 (Colorant)	colorant
Ci 15985/Yellow 6 (Colorant)	colorant

The Body Shop Vitamin C Glow Boosting Moisturiser

Ingredients explained

Also-called: Aqua;Water | What-it-does: solvent

Good old water, aka H2O. The most common skincare ingredient of all. You can usually find it right in the very first spot of the ingredient list, meaning it's the biggest thing out of all the stuff that makes up the product.

It's mainly a solvent for ingredients that do not like to dissolve in oils but rather in water.

Once inside the skin, it hydrates, but not from the outside - putting pure water on the skin (hello long baths!) is drying.

One more thing: the water used in cosmetics is purified and deionized (it means that almost all of the mineral ions inside it is removed). Like this, the products can stay more stable over time.

• It's a super common and super debated skincare ingredient
• It has several benefits: great solvent, penetration enhancer, creates cosmetically elegant, light formulas, great astringent and antimicrobial
• It can be very drying if it's in the first few ingredients on an ingredient list
• Some experts even think that regular exposure to alcohol damages skin barrier and causes inflammation though it's a debated opinion (read more in geeky details tab)

Read all the geeky details about Alcohol Denat. here >>

• A natural moisturizer that's also in our skin
• A super common, safe, effective and cheap molecule used for more than 50 years
• Not only a simple moisturizer but knows much more: keeps the skin lipids between our skin cells in a healthy (liquid crystal) state, protects against irritation, helps to restore barrier
• Effective from as low as 3% with even more benefits at higher concentrations up to 20-40% (around 10% is a good usability-effectiveness sweet spot)
• High-glycerin moisturizers are awesome for treating severely dry skin

Read all the geeky details about Glycerin here >>

Propanediol is a natural alternative for the often used and often bad-mouthed propylene glycol. It's produced sustainably from corn sugar and it's Ecocert approved.

It's quite a multi-tasker: can be used to improve skin moisturization, as a solvent, to boost preservative efficacy or to influence the sensory properties of the end formula.

A kind of polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) that helps to create beautiful gel-like textures. It's also a texturizer and thickener for oil-in-water emulsions. It gives products a good skin feel and does not make the formula tacky or sticky.

It works over a wide pH range and is used between 0.5-1.2%.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

It's pretty much the current IT-preservative. It's safe and gentle, but even more importantly, it's not a feared-by-everyone-mostly-without-scientific-reason paraben.

It's not something new: it was introduced around 1950 and today it can be used up to 1% worldwide. It can be found in nature - in green tea - but the version used in cosmetics is synthetic.

Other than having a good safety profile and being quite gentle to the skin it has some other advantages too. It can be used in many types of formulations as it has great thermal stability (can be heated up to 85°C) and works on a wide range of pH levels (ph 3-10).

It's often used together with ethylhexylglycerin as it nicely improves the preservative activity of phenoxyethanol.

Also-called: Fragrance, Parfum | What-it-does: perfuming

Exactly what it sounds: nice smelling stuff put into cosmetic products so that the end product also smells nice. Fragrance in the US and parfum in the EU is a generic term on the ingredient list that is made up of 30 to 50 chemicals on average (but it can have as much as 200 components!).

If you are someone who likes to know what you put on your face then fragrance is not your best friend - there's no way to know what's really in it.

Also, if your skin is sensitive, fragrance is again not your best friend. It's the number one cause of contact allergy to cosmetics. It's definitely a smart thing to avoid with sensitive skin (and fragrance of any type - natural is just as allergic as synthetic, if not worse!).

Also-called: Sesame Oil;Sesamum Indicum Seed Oil | What-it-does: emollient | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 1-3

A goldish to dark yellow emollient plant oil coming from Sesame seeds. Similar to many other plant oils, it contains high amounts of nourishing and moisturizing fatty acids (about 38% of oleic and 48% of linoleic acid) and is a nice oil to repair and regenerate dry skin. It is rapidly absorbed and gives the skin a soft and gentle feel.

Also-called: lye | What-it-does: buffering

The unfancy name for it is lye. It's a solid white stuff that's very alkaline and used in small amounts to adjust the pH of the product and make it just right.

For example, in case of AHA or BHA exfoliants, the right pH is super-duper important, and pH adjusters like sodium hydroxide are needed.

BTW, lye is not something new. It was already used by ancient Egyptians to help oil and fat magically turn into something else. Can you guess what? Yes, it's soap. It still often shows up in the ingredient list of soaps and other cleansers.

Sodium hydroxide in itself is a potent skin irritant, but once it's reacted (as it is usually in skin care products, like exfoliants) it is totally harmless.

A supercommon and cheap fragrance ingredient. It's in many plants, e.g. rosemary, eucalyptus, lavender, lemongrass, peppermint and it's the main component (about 50-90%) of the peel oil of citrus fruits.

It does smell nice but the problem is that it oxidizes on air exposure and the resulting stuff is not good for the skin. Oxidized limonene can cause allergic contact dermatitis and counts as a frequent skin sensitizer.

Limonene's nr1 function is definitely being a fragrance component, but there are several studies showing that it's also a penetration enhancer, mainly for oil-loving components.

All in all, limonene has some pros and cons, but - especially if your skin is sensitive - the cons probably outweigh the pros.

It's the - sodium form - cousin of the famous NMF, hyaluronic acid (HA). If HA does not tell you anything we have a super detailed, geeky explanation about it here.  The TL; DR version of HA is that it's a huge polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) found in the skin that acts as a sponge helping the skin to hold onto water, being plump and elastic. HA is famous for its crazy water holding capacity as it can bind up to 1000 times its own weight in water.

As far as skincare goes, sodium hyaluronate and hyaluronic acid are pretty much the same and the two names are used interchangeably. As cosmetic chemist kindofstephen writes on reddit  "sodium hyaluronate disassociates into hyaluronic acid molecule and a sodium atom in solution".

In spite of this, if you search for "hyaluronic acid vs sodium hyaluronate" you will find on multiple places that sodium hyaluronate is smaller and can penetrate the skin better. Chemically, this is definitely not true, as the two forms are almost the same, both are polymers and the subunits can be repeated in both forms as much as you like. (We also checked Prospector for sodium hyaluronate versions actually used in cosmetic products and found that the most common molecular weight was 1.5-1.8 million Da that absolutely counts as high molecular weight).

What seems to be a true difference, though, is that the salt form is more stable, easier to formulate and cheaper so it pops up more often on the ingredient lists.

If you wanna become a real HA-and-the-skin expert you can read way more about the topic at hyaluronic acid (including penetration-questions, differences between high and low molecular weight versions and a bunch of references to scientific literature).

Also-called: Form of Vitamin C, Ascorbyl Isotetrapalmitate, Ascorbyl Tetraisopalmitate, ATIP | What-it-does: antioxidant, skin brightening

Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate is a stable, oil-soluble form of skincare big shot Vitamin C. If you do not know, why Vitamin C is such a big deal in skincare, click here and read all about it. We are massive vitamin C fans and have written about it in excruciating detail.

So now, you know that Vitamin C is great and all, but it's really unstable and gives cosmetics companies many headaches. To solve this problem they came up with vitamin C derivatives, and one of them is Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate (let's call it ATIP in short).

It's a really promising candidate (see below), but while reading all the goodness about it in a minute, do not forget that derivatives not only have to be absorbed into the skin but also have to be converted to pure vitamin C (ascorbic acid or AA) and the efficacy of the conversion is often unknown. In addition, vitamin C's three magic properties (antioxidant, collagen booster, skin brightener) are all properly proven in-vivo (on real people), but for the derivatives, it's mostly in-vitro studies or in the case of ATIP, it's in-vitro and done by an ingredient supplier.

With this context in mind let's see what ATIP might be able to do. First, it is stable (if pH < 5), easy to formulate and a joy to work with for a cosmetic chemist.

Second, because it's oil-soluble, its skin penetration abilities seem to be great. So great in fact, that it surpasses the penetration of pure vitamin C threefold at the same concentration and it penetrates successfully into the deeper layers of the skin (that is usually important to do some anti-aging work). There is also in-vitro data showing that it converts to AA in the skin.

Third, ATIP seems to have all three magic abilities of pure vitamin C: it gives antioxidant protection from both UVB and UVA rays, it increases collagen synthesis (even more than AA) and it has askin brightening effect by reducing melanogenesis by more than 80% in human melanoma cell cultures.

So this all sounds really great, but these are only in-vitro results at this point. We could find Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate mentioned only in one published in-vivo study that examined the anti-aging properties of a silicone formula containing 10% AA and 7% ATIP. The authors theorized that the 10% AA is released slowly from the silicon delivery system and probably stays in the upper layer of the skin to give antioxidant benefits, while ATIP penetrates more rapidly and deeply and gives some wrinkle-reducing benefits. The study was a small (10 patients), double-blind experiment, and the formula did show some measurable anti-aging results. However, it is hard to know how much pure vitamin C or ATIP can be thanked.

Bottom line: a really promising, but not well-proven vitamin C derivative that can be worth a try especially if you like experimenting (but if you like the tried and true, pure vitamin C will be your best bet).

Super common little helper ingredient thathelps products to remain nice and stable for a longer time. It does so by neutralizing the metal ions in the formula (that usually get into there from water) that would otherwise cause some not so nice changes.

It is typically used in tiny amounts, around 0.1% or less.

It's a common fragrance ingredient that has a light floral smell.  It's one of the "EU 26 fragrances" that has to be labelled separately (and cannot be simply included in the term "fragrance/perfume" on the label) because of allergen potential. Best to avoid if your skin is sensitive.

A common fragrance ingredient that smells like jasmine. It is one of the "EU 26 fragrances" that has to be labelled separately because of allergen potential. Best to avoid if your skin is sensitive.

Linalool is a super common fragrance ingredient. It's kind of everywhere - both in plants and in cosmetic products. It's part of 200 natural oils including lavender, ylang-ylang, bergamot, jasmine, geranium and it can be found in 90-95% of prestige perfumes on the market.

The problem with linalool is, that just like limonene it oxidises on air exposure and becomes allergenic. That's why a product containing linalool that has been opened for several months is more likely to be allergenic than a fresh one.

A study made in the UK with 483 people tested the allergic reaction to 3% oxidised linalool and 2.3% had positive test results.

Aloe Vera is one of today's magic plants. It does have some very nice properties indeed, though famous dermatologist Leslie Baumann warns us in her book that most of the evidence is anecdotal and the plant might be a bit overhyped.

What research does confirm about Aloe is that it's a great moisturizer and has several anti-inflammatory (among others contains salicylates, polysaccharides, magnesium lactate and C-glucosyl chromone) as well as some antibacterial components. It also helps wound healing and skin regeneration in general. All in all definitely a goodie.

Also-called: Camu Camu Fruit Extract

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

It's a common fragrance ingredient that smells like lemon and has a bittersweet taste.  It can be found in many plant oils, e.g. lemon, orange, lime or lemongrass.

It's one of the "EU 26 fragrances" that has to be labelled separately (and cannot be simply included in the term "fragrance/perfume" on the label) because of allergen potential. Best to avoid if your skin is sensitive.

Also-called: Vitamin E | What-it-does: antioxidant | Irritancy: 0-3 | Comedogenicity: 0-3

• Primary fat-soluble antioxidant in our skin
• Significant photoprotection against UVB rays
• Vit C + Vit E work in synergy and provide great photoprotection
• Has emollient properties
• Easy to formulate, stable and relatively inexpensive

Read all the geeky details about Tocopherol here >>

Malic acid comes from apple and is an AHA. If these magic three letters don't tell you anything, click here and read our detailed description on glycolic acid, the most famous AHA.

So malic acid is an exfoliant, that can - just like other AHAs - gently lift off the dead skin cells of your skin and make it more smooth and fresh.

There is not much research out there about malic acid itself. We could find one comparative study, that compared the effectiveness of glycolic acid, lactic acid, citric acid and malic acid. The first two ones were the winners while malic and citric acid were less effective.

Also-called: Orange 4;Ci 15510 | What-it-does: colorant

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Also-called: Yellow 6;Ci 15985 | What-it-does: colorant

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

You may also want to take a look at...

Normal (well kind of - it's purified and deionized) water. Usually the main solvent in cosmetic products. [more]

Alcohol with some additives to make it unconsumable. It is great solvent, penetration enhancer, creates cosmetically elegant, light formulas, great astringent, and antimicrobial. In large amounts, it can be very drying to the skin. [more]

A real oldie but a goodie. Great natural moisturizer and skin-identical ingredient that plays an important role in skin hydration and general skin health. [more]

A natural corn sugar derived glycol. It can be used to improve skin moisturization, as a solvent, to boost preservative efficacy or to influence the sensory properties of the end formula. [more]

A kind of polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) that helps to create beautiful gel-like textures. It's also a texturizer and thickener for oil-in-water emulsions. [more]

Pretty much the current IT-preservative. It's safe and gentle, and can be used up to 1% worldwide. [more]

The generic term for nice smelling stuff put into cosmetic products so that the end product also smells nice. It is made up of 30 to 50 chemicals on average. [more]

Emollient plant oil coming from the seeds of Sesame. Contains high amounts of nourishing and moisturizing fatty acids (about 38% of oleic 48% of linoleic acid). [more]

Lye - A solid white stuff that's very alkaline and used in small amount to adjust the pH of the product.  [more]

A super common fragrance ingredient found naturally in many plants including citrus peel oils, rosemary or lavender. It autoxidizes on air exposure and counts as a common skin sensitizer. [more]

It's the salt form of famous humectant and natural moisturizing factor, hyaluronic acid. It can bind huge amounts of water and it's pretty much the current IT-moisturizer. [more]

A stable, oil-soluble form of Vitamin C, that might have (in-vitro results) all the magic abilities of pure vitamin C (antioxidant, collagen booster, skin brightener). [more]

Super common little helper ingredient that helps products to remain nice and stable for a longer time. It does so by neutralizing the metal ions in the formula (that usually get into there from water) that would otherwise cause some not so nice changes. [more]

It's a common fragrance ingredient that has a light floral smell.  It's one of the "EU 26 fragrances" that has to be labelled separately (and cannot be simply included in the term "fragrance/perfume" [more]

A common fragrance ingredient that smells like jasmine. It is one of the "EU 26 fragrances" that has to be labelled separately because of allergen potential. [more]

A super common fragrance ingredient that can be found among others in lavender, ylang-ylang, bergamot or jasmine. The downside of it is that it oxidises on air exposure and might become allergenic. [more]

The famous aloe vera. A great moisturizer and anti-inflammatory ingredient that also helps wound healing and skin regeneration. [more]

A common fragrance ingredient that smells like lemon. [more]

Pure Vitamin E. Great antioxidant that gives significant photoprotection against UVB rays. Works in synergy with Vitamin C. [more]

An AHA that comes from apple. An exfoliant, that can gently lift off the dead skin cells of your skin and make it more smooth and fresh. Less effective than glycolic or lactic acid. [more]

Body Shop Vitamin C Moisturiser Ingredients

Source: https://incidecoder.com/products/the-body-shop-vitamin-c-glow-boosting-moisturiser