Understanding Skincare Products

It is a good idea to understand what a person eats or puts on their body as much as you can. Although it is impossible to understand everything, there are some good reasons for having a good knowledge of skincare products. Basically, several different things will determine if a skincare product that is applied directly to the skin will have an anti-aging effect:

  • Are there active ingredients in the topical agent? For example, do any compounds included in the cream or get promote skin regeneration, renewal, or remodeling? An example of this would be collagen synthesis.
  • Are the levels of active ingredients high enough to make an impact? Is the chemical makeup of the formula strong enough to allow active ingredients to stay fresh and useful during the course of the shelf life of the product?
  • Is the makeup of the ingredients effective enough to allow the penetration of the skin by-product?
  • Is there any problem with the way the active and inactive ingredients interact with each other? Are there side effects to using this, e.g., irritations, allergic reactions, or skin dehydration??

The best skincare products contain at least one active ingredient in amounts that are sufficient to make a difference. The active ingredients and the inactive ones do not negatively interact with each other. Optimal formulations should also have a good level of stabilization and preservation for the active ingredient both during storage as well when being applied to the skin. Ingredients should also be safe and not have a high potential to damage the skin.



Creating skin care products that fulfill all of the above conditions is not easy to do in a cost-effective manner that has a long shelf life and is easy to apply. Therefore, many (if not the majority) formulations sold today do not fulfill all of the ideal requirements. To find and buy a skincare product of as high a quality as possible, it is useful to comprehend the ingredients in good skincare products.

Most skincare products have a full listing of ingredients on the label or box. This labeling is required by the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act which mandates that all ingredients be listed. The law also gives guidelines on the format for the listing.
Discover definitions of the primary categories of skin care ingredients by their function/use.
Below you will find a list of some ingredients that may cause skin damage from prolonged use or which are simply unnecessary.
Dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE) is a popular ingredient that is used by a large number of manufacturers. It is trendy because it is one of a small number of agents (maybe even the only agent) that has been proved to produce skin tightening and to reduce facial sag (to a low level).