Beautyholics Anonymous » Ingredients Dictionary

Ingredients Dictionary: Titanium Dioxide

Tine — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:15:14 +0000

Titanium dioxide is one of the top 50 chemicals produced worldwide. It is a white, opaque and naturally-occuring mineral found in two main forms: rutile and anatase. Both forms contain pure titanium dioxide that is bound to impurities. Titanium dioxide is chemically processed to remove these impurities, leaving the pure, white pigment available for use. Titanium dioxide has a variety of uses, as it is odourless and absorbent.

With the pure white pigment, titanium dioxide imparts a whiteness to colour cosmetics and personal care products that are applied to the skin (including the eye area), nails, lips, and it helps to increase the opacity, and reduce the transparency of a product formula.

Titanium Dioxide also absorbs, reflects, or scatters light (including ultraviolet radiation in light), which helps protects skin from UVA and UVB radiation. This makes it one of the active ingredients in sunscreen.

It is also considered to have no risk of skin irritation.

For concerns on whether titanium is toxic or safe to be used, do check out the sources below (from which I’ve taken this short article from). If the articles are a tad dry for you, just know that titanium dioxide is listed as a safe pigment, with no known adverse effects.

Sources: The Organic Makeup Company, CosmeticsInfo.org and Beautypedia

Ingredients Dictionary: Salicylic Acid

Tine — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:05:59 +0000

Salicylic acid is also referred to as Beta Hydroxy Acid (BHA). There are a variety of AHAs (see Ingredients Dictionary: Alpha Hydroxy Acid), but only one BHA – salicylic acid.

It is a multifunctional ingredient that addresses many of the systemic causes of blemishes. For decades dermatologists have been prescribing salicylic acid as an exceedingly effective exfoliant, but it also is an anti-irritant. This is because salicylic acid is a derivative of aspirin (both are salicylates — aspirin’s technical name is acetylsalicylic acid), and so it also functions as an anti-inflammatory.

Another notable aspect of salicylic acid for treating breakouts is that it has antimicrobial properties It is also well documented that salicylic acid can improve skin thickness, barrier functions, and collagen production. As an exfoliant, in concentrations of 8% to 12%, it is effective in wart-remover medications. In concentrations of 0.5% to 2%, it is far more gentle, and, much like AHAs, can exfoliate the surface of skin. In addition, BHA has the ability to penetrate into the pore (AHAs do not), and thus can exfoliate inside the pore as well as on the surface of the skin, which makes it effective for reducing blemishes, including blackheads and whiteheads.

The main difference between alpha hydroxy acids and beta hydroxy acid is their lipid (oil) solubility. Alpha hydroxy acids are water soluble only, while beta hydroxy acid is lipid (oil) soluble. This means that beta hydroxy acid is able to penetrate into the pore which contains oil (sebum) and exfoliate the dead skin cells that are built up inside the pore. AHAs are much less able to do this because they can’t get through the fat content of the oil. Because of this difference in properties, beta hydroxy acid is better used on oily skin with blackheads and whiteheads. Alpha hydroxy acids are better used on thickened, sun-damaged skin where breakouts are not a problem.

Beta hydroxy acid appears to be less irritating than alpha hydroxy acid even though it penetrates deeper into the pore. This occurs because salicylic acid is, again, derived from acetylsalicylic acid, or aspirin, and salicylic acid retains many of these anti-inflammatory properties. Despite this fact, beta hydroxy acid can still cause skin irritation. Symptoms of irritation include redness, burning, itching, pain, and possibly scarring. People with darker colored skin are at a higher risk of scarring pigment changes with beta hydroxy acid.

Both AHAs and BHAs lost their effectiveness as a product’s pH level goes up and the concentration of the ingredient goes down. AHAs work best in a 5% to 8% concentration, in a product with a pH 3 to 4, whereas BHA works best in a 1% to 2% concentration, in a product with a pH of 3 to 4.

For those who are keen on trying out DIY aspirin masks as a method of exfoliation, please ensure that you are not allergic to aspirin, as some people can be.

An example of a beauty product with BHA is Clinique’s Total Turnaround (with 1% concentration of BHA).

Source: Beautypedia, About.com: Dermatology, The Beauty Bible

Ingredients Dictionary: Alpha Hydroxy Acid (AHA)

Tine — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:09:13 +0000

AHAs are derived from various plant sources or from milk. However, 99% of the AHAs included in cosmetics are synthetic. In low concentrations (less than 3%) AHAs work as water-binding agents. At concentrations over 4% and in a base with an acid pH of 3 to 4, these can exfoliate skin cells by breaking down the substance in skin that holds skin cells together. The most effective and well-researched AHAs are glycolic acid and lactic acid. Malic acid, citric acid, and tartaric acid may also be effective, but are less stable and less skin-friendly; there is little research showing that they have any benefit for skin.

AHAs may irritate mucous membranes and cause irritation. However, AHAs are widely used for therapy of photodamaged skin, and also have been reported to normalize hyperkeratinization (over-thickened skin) and to increase viable epidermal thickness and dermal glycosaminoglycans content. A vast amount of research has substantially described how the aging process affects the skin and has demonstrated that many of the unwanted changes can be improved by topical application of AHAs, including glycolic and lactic acid.

To find out if a cosmetic contains an AHA, look on the list of ingredients all cosmetics must, by law, have on their outer packaging. AHA ingredients may be listed as:
1. Glycolic acid
2. Lactic acid
3. Malic acid
4. Citric acid
5. Glycolic acid + ammonium glycolate alpha-hydroxyethanoic acid
6. Ammonium alpha-hydroxyethanoate
7. Alpha-hydroxyoctanoic acid
8. Alpha-hydroxycaprylic acid
9. Hydroxycapry lie acid
10. Mixed fruit acid
11. Tri-alpha hydroxy fruit acids
12. Triple fruit acid
13. Sugar cane extract
14. Alpha hydroxy and botanical complex L-alpha hydroxy acid
15. Glycomer in crosslinked fatty acids alpha nutrium (three AHAs)

AHAs are generally safe when used on the skin as a cosmetic agent using the recommended dosage. The most common side-effects are mild skin irritations, redness and flaking. The severity usually depends on the pH and the concentration of the acid used. Chemical peels tend to have more severe side-effects including blistering, burning and skin discoloration, although they are usually mild and go away a day or two after treatment.

The FDA has warned consumers that care should be taken when using AHAs after an industry-sponsored study found that they can increase photosensitivity to the sun. This is because AHAs exfoliate sun-damaged skin from the surface of the skin, and because this layer imparts some (albeit minimal) sun protection for skin. Wearing a sunscreen can eliminate this risk. Or better yet, use products with AHA at night.

An example of a product with AHA is Estee Lauder’s Frution Extra Multi-Action Complex.

Source: Wikipedia, Y2K Health and Detox Center, Don’t Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me by Paula Begoun

Introducing The Ingredients Dictionary

Tine — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:54:41 +0000

From now on, I shall be adding a short section called The Ingredients Dictionary. I have been using beauty products for many years, and it was only until very recently that I started to actually notice the ingredients list in the products. I had no idea which does what! And to think I’ve been putting a lot of junk on my face for so many years, e.g. alcohol. It was no wonder that I had breakouts and dry patches.

As part of the learning process, I thought I’d share with you the meanings of the some of the popular ingredients we see in our beauty products. We’d get to learn together and hopefully avoid the stuff which we had no idea was causing irritation and breakouts to the skin.

The short excerpts regarding product ingredients that I’d be using will be from Paula Begoun’s books, Don’t Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me, and The Beauty Bible. Now I understand that there’s been a lot of mixed reviews about the books, especially with the biased reviews in the former book.

Okay, to be honest, I couldn’t be arsed by her biased reviews of beauty products. It was fun reading most of them, even though I disagreed with some. Always take reviews, no matter who writes them (me included), with a pinch of salt, I’d say, as everyone have different opinions about everything. But I admittedly respect her research into the ingredients of the skincare and therefore believe that the information gathered from the books could be useful (reviews aside). Ingredients are simply, well, ingredients. It’s biology. It’s chemistry. You can’t make it up, you can’t lie about what it can or cannot do. You know what I mean?

In between, do also check out for more information about product ingredients at Viva Woman, where Sesame has written a lot of great articles on debunking certain product ingredients, which I’m sure you’ll find useful.

Stay tuned