Vora Cura has been giving recommendations and reviews
on some products. This time, we teach you how to fish.
Ingredients are what make up your cosmetics.
They are the ones that determine the effectiveness!
Hence, paying attention to the ingredient is far more important
than reading the Utopian descriptions that are filled with hypes
(which only serve as marketing strategy).
The most important thing about ingredient is that
the ingredients are arranged from the the ingredient
with the most amount to that with least amount.
This allows you to estimate the amount of each functional ingredient.
With basic knowledge about the ingredients, you can then
properly compare products, focusing solely on your needs.
Here are some very common ingredients with their roles :
Solvent
water/aqua/deionized dihydrogen oxide (fancy name for ''H2O'')
alcohol/ alcohol denat./ denatured alcohol
Moisturizing Ingredients
butylene glycol, propylene glycol
hyaluronic acid
fatty alcohol
petrolatum
fatty acid
glycerin
Whitening Ingredients
ascorbic acid (vitamin C)
tranexamic acid
arbutin
Exfoliants
AHA
BHA
urea
Sunscreen Actives
Titanium dioxide
Zinc oxide
That's more like an introduction to the common ingredients.
Do check out
The Effective PORE ENLARGEMENT SOLUTION - Salicylic Acid (BHA).
if pore enlargement is your concern.
We will delve further about more ingredients in future posts.
2. UNDERSTANDING BEAUTY PRODUCTS
A common misconception of beauty products is that
people think they can solve any skin problem miraculously.
In fact, the beauty products were initially built
for the purpose of maintaining skin health,
not of curing severe skin problems or disease.
3. 'NATURAL' PRODUCT ≠ BEST PRODUCT
Consumers nowadays are always looking for words like
'natural', 'organic', 'handmade', 'without chemical/preservative' etc.
as if these words are an indication of good, safety products.
Many people thought that synthetic products are extremely harmful.
When they learn that petrolatum jelly is derived from petroluem,
they are so terrified and worried despite all its obvious effectiveness in moisturizing.
In fact it also has healing properties and other benefits for skin.
Preservative like parabens, on the other hand, plays a vital role
in preventing the growth of microorganisms in the products.
WAIT WHAT? I HEARD PARABEN CAUSES CANCER !!
Due to an misunderstanding of a research study in 2004,
parabens were thought to be associated with breast cancer when their
metabolites (different from parabens) were found in breast cancer tissue sample.
When this caused an 'public outrage' surrounding the paraben,
the same researcher clarified that
" No claim was made that the presence of parabens
had caused the breast cancers.”
If paraben still makes you worry, you should probably stop eating
mango, raspberries, blackberries or strawberries,
because all of them have molecules very related to paraben.
4. DO NOT TRUST NON-COMEDOGENIC
The reason is that there is no regulation on the usage of such claims.
This label only tells you the company formulates this products
to target acne prone skin market. But this is meaningless - without regulation,
the company can always claim its product as the best product in the world.
That's all for the basic things you need to know before buying any products.
We hope the points above can be your basic guidelines
while you're having fun shopping for effective and worthy products!
READ MORE ON PORE ENLARGEMENT INGREDIENT
FOR THE SCIENCE BUFF : MORE ABOUT PARABENS
Parabens exist in many different forms, such as methylparaben and propylparaben.
These compounds are widely used in many cosmetic and pharmaceutical products
for their effective bactericidal and fungicidal properties and low-cost.
Commercially used parabens are mostly synthetically produced.
But most are chemically identical to the naturally occuring ones,
so fret not if you're still subscribed into the notion of 'natural is better'.
What's the difference between methylparaben and propylparaben?
To answer this question, we'll need to deal with a bit of basic chemistry.
Here's a general chemical formula for paraben :
Most paraben will have a same formula as above.
As this is a skeletal formula, each vertex represents a carbon atom.
O stands for oxygen atom and H stands for hydrogen atom.
One thing that differentiates a type of paraben from another is the R group in the formula.
The R group can be replaced by alkyl group with different number of carbon,
hence giving the whole paraben molecule a different chemical formula.
In the case of methylparaben, the R group of the paraben is a methyl group, CH3.
While in propylparaben, the R group is a propyl group, C3H7.
The alkyl chain can keep lengthening with more carbon atom,
to give different names and types of paraben.
We can know the number of carbon atoms in the R group from the name,
as the names have been standardized, for example :
methyl - one carbon
ethyl - two carbon
propyl - three carbon
butyl - four carbon
etc.
Yours truly, K & Z.
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