Our Skin Blog
Ingredients: Bakuchiol
Bakuchiol, how we of sensitive and problem skin provenance love thee! If you’re as nuts about skincare and ingredients as we are, you are bound to have heard about bakuchiol and how it tackles pigmentation, fine linesand congestion and impurities – without irritation. Small wonder we stuck it in our Renewing Serum. Read on for more bakuchiol greatness!
Ingredients: Glycine soja seed extract
If you’re a skincare geek, like we are, you’ll know that an emulsion will always require an emulsifier, to enable mixing water and oil into an emulsion. The tricky part, though, when dealing with sensitive and problem skin, is that emulsifiers are surfactants, and surfactants can be hell on finicky faces. So imagine how stoked we were when we found the non-ionic (e.g. gentle) soy-based lysophospholipid emulsifier we use in the Hydrating Face Mask & Cream and Renewing Serum! Read on for more INCI porn.
Ingredients: Giant kelp extract
Giant kelp extract from the Macrystis pyrifera kelp is a legendary skincare ingredient with top notch smoothing and hydrating properties. We tailor make our extract in France, so as to get the ratio between solvent and kelp the way we want. Read on!
Ingredients: Propanediol
It hydrates, dissolves, penetrates (sorry) and boosts preservative effect. Without any further ado, let us present propanediol, the glycol to end them all. And yes, it's plant-based, vegan and non-irritatating. Read on!
Ingredients: Argan oil
All hail argania spinosa! If you’ve tried our Face Oil and All-Around Balm, you’ve likely noticed that we are fans of argan oil. It's the base for both these products. Argan's been a skin and hair care superstar for many years now, but for us, it also boils down to some serious personal love - as our founder and CEO Kristina is fond of saying, nothing in terms of skincare impacted her finicky skin as much as switching her regular face cream to argan oil.
Ingredients: PCA salts in skincare
Sodium PCA, copper PCA and zinc PCA are all PCA salts, and are widely used in skincare, including ours. Here we break down the what and the why of these amino acid derivatives that pack a mean hydrating punch - while adding calming, skin-barrier strengthening, anti-bacterial, anti-microbial and sebum-regulating care.
Ingredients: Rhamnose
What brings that soothing punch to our Calming Serum? A cocktail of three: madecassoside, ectoin and last, but not least, something called rhamnose. Let’s take a look at what rhamnose is and why it’s wonderful for battling irritated and inflamed skin – while decreasing fine lines.
Ingredients: Thickeners in cosmetics - a short guide
When formulating cosmetics, one of the key aspects is viscosity – do we want a thick or a thin product? Thickeners are ingredients that increase the viscosity, i.e. thickness, of a product. They can also improve product stability (e.g. keep a cream from separating into oil and water), affect how a product looks, make application easier, and affect how the product flows, say, out of a tube. Our chemist Jaana explains more!
Ingredients: Algae-derived silica
Silica has been used in cosmetics for a long time, as an absorbing agent and a mattifier. It’s found in in sandstone, clay and granite, plants and animals, but the one we use in our Clarifying Serum is derived from the silica shells of a Swedish micro-algal group called diatoms and comes with one major additional benefit: cleansing and hydration in one go. Suffice to say it's great for sensitive and problem skin.
Ingredients: Madecassoside
Tigers are said to roll in it to heal their wounds, so what’s not to like? The Centellla asiatica plant, also known as Gotu Kola or Tiger Grass, is a perennial favourite in traditional Eastern medicine. It packs a powerful soothing, healing and hydrating skincare punch, and none so more than one of its main molecules, madecassoside.
Ingredients: Rosehip oil
One of the four oils in our Face Oil is organic, cold pressed rosehip oil. Often a lovely reddish colour when undiluted, rosehip is a real powerhouse when tackling sensitive and problem skin.
Ingredients: Glycerine - the queen of humectants
Glycerine is one of the most common ingredients in skincare, and is used in pretty much all kinds of products. Here our chemist Jaana breaks down what it is, what it does and why it's such a great and versatile material.
Ingredients: Our top calming skincare ingredients
For sensitive skincare, ingredients that soothe and calm skin are crucial. Here are our four favourites.
Ingredients: Betaine
Betaine is highly purified sugar beet extract and chemically speaking an amino acid derivative. In skincare it hydrates and conditions skin.
Ingredients: Liquorice root
Dipotassium Glycyrrhizate is a humectant and skin conditioner found in our Balancing Essence. A real skincare multi-tasker, dipotassium glycyrrhizate is the dipotassium salt of glycyrrhizic acid derived from liquorice root.
Ingredients: What is a humectant?
What actually hydrates skin in a skincare product? Answer: humectants, i.e. hydrating substances that attract water to skin. Our chemist Jaana breaks it down for you.
Ingredients: Sidestreams
We strive to use as locally and sustainably produced ingredients as possible, always going for quality, safety and efficacy of our products. We use use time and effort on sustainable sourcing. In our formulations, we use a few ingredients that are actually sidestreams from other industries, such as poppy seed oil and raspberry seed oil, making them great choices also from a sustainability angle.
Ingredients: Preservatives in skincare
It’s debatable whether or not Benjamin Franklin really said that wine makes us wise, but it is a fact that germs really require just one thing to grow, and that's water. So, any cosmetic product containing water usually needs an appropriate preservation system in order to be stable and safe to use. Still, preservatives in cosmetics sometime get an unjustly bad rap. Read on for our chemist Jaana breakdown on preservatives in skincare.
Ingredients: Raspberry seed oil
Rubus Idaeus seed oil, i.e raspberry seed oil, is a popular natural oil used in skincare and one of the four oils in our Face Oil for sensitive and problem skin. One of its key benefits in skincare is its ability to soothe skin. Raspberry seed oil is obtained by pressing raspberry seeds and is not to be confused with the raspberry essential oil used in aromatherapy.
Ingredient: Xylitol
Xylitol is one of our favourite skin hydrating and conditioning ingredients. Read on for more on why we love this plant-derived sugar so much!
Ingredients: Oat kernel oil
Oat kernel oil is an excellent choice in skincare for especially sensitive and problem skin. It has a nearly 50/50 balance of oleic and linoleic acids, rarely causes any adverse reactions or clogging, and softens and soothes skin.
Ingredients: Bisabolol
Bisabolol is the soothing, anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial star in our All-Around Balm. Bisabolol is a commonly used skincare ingredient, and has many perks for sensitive and problem skin.
Ingredients: Fatty alcohols and their use in skincare
Made from fatty acids, fatty alcohols are commonly used in cosmetics as thickening agents and co-emulsifiers. They are not the same as alcohol, and no, they are not dangerous. Read on and let our chemist Jaana educate you.
Ingredients: Ectoin
With it's soothing and hydrating properties, ectoin is one of our favourite multi-tasking ingredients for sensitive and problem skin. Read on to learn more about it and in which products we use it.
Ingredients: Poppy seed oil
Poppy seed oil has excellent skin barrier recovery properties, and is especially suitable for sensitive skin. The oil is obtained by lightly pressing the seeds of the White Poppy.