Gentle cleanser is a creamy, mild cleanser formulated with an emollient-rich surfactant and 3% concentration of key ingredients combining glycerin and coconut oil to soften and restore skin’s surface.
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Ingredients overview
Distilled Water, Organic Aloe Vera Extract, Vegetable Glycerin, Coco-Glucoside, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Coconut Oil, Stearic Acid, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate, EDTA, BHT, Jasmine Extract
Read more on how to read an ingredient list >>
Highlights
#alcohol-free #fragrance & essentialoil-free
Alcohol Free
Fragrance and Essential Oil Free
Key Ingredients
Skin-identical ingredient: Vegetable Glycerin
Soothing: Organic Aloe Vera Extract, Jasmine Extract
Other Ingredients
Antioxidant: BHT
Chelating: EDTA
Emollient: Organic Aloe Vera Extract, Coconut Oil, Stearic Acid
Emulsifying: Sodium Laureth Sulfate
Moisturizer/humectant: Organic Aloe Vera Extract, Vegetable Glycerin, Jasmine Extract
Perfuming: Coconut Oil
Preservative: Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate, BHT
Solvent: Distilled Water
Surfactant/cleansing: Coco-Glucoside, Sodium Laureth Sulfate
Viscosity controlling: Stearic Acid, Xanthan Gum
Skim through
| Ingredient name | what-it-does | irr., com. | ID-Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distilled Water | solvent | ||
| Organic Aloe Vera Extract | soothing, emollient, moisturizer/humectant | goodie | |
| Vegetable Glycerin | skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | 0, 0 | superstar |
| Coco-Glucoside | surfactant/cleansing | ||
| Sodium Laureth Sulfate | surfactant/cleansing, emulsifying | ||
| Coconut Oil | emollient, perfuming | 0, 4 | goodie |
| Stearic Acid | emollient, viscosity controlling | 0, 2-3 | |
| Xanthan Gum | viscosity controlling | ||
| Sodium Benzoate | preservative | ||
| Potassium Sorbate | preservative | ||
| EDTA | chelating | ||
| BHT | antioxidant, preservative | ||
| Jasmine Extract | soothing, moisturizer/humectant |
The AloeLab Gentle Facial Cream Cleanser - Dry And Sensitive Skin
Ingredients explainedDistilled Water
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.
Organic Aloe Vera Extract - goodie
Also-called: Aloe Leaf Extract;Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract | What-it-does: soothing, emollient, moisturizer/humectant
The extract coming from thejuice containing leaves of the Aloe vera plant. It's usually ahydroglycolicextract (though oil extractfor the lipid parts also exists) that has similar moisturizing, emollient and anti-inflammatory properties as the juice itself. We have written some more about aloe here.
Vegetable Glycerin - superstar
Also-called: Glycerol;Glycerin | What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0
- 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 for dry skin at higher concentrations up to 20-40%
- High-glycerin moisturizers are awesome for treating severely dry skin
Read all the geeky details about Glycerin here >>
Coco-Glucoside
What-it-does: surfactant/cleansing
A vegetable origin (coconut/palm kernel oil, glucose) cleansing agent that givesmoderate to high stable foam. It's also biodegradable and mild to the skin.
Sodium Laureth Sulfate
Also-called: SLES | What-it-does: surfactant/cleansing, emulsifying
It’s probably the most common cleansing ingredient of all. It’s usually the Chief Bubble Officer responsible for bigbubbles in cleansing products through the foam it creates is a bit airy and loose and not as dense and luxurious as the foam created by infamous SLS.
As for mildness, it goes somewhere in the middle. It’s often confused with sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), but they are absolutely not the same. The SLES molecule has a bigger water-soluble head part that makes it milder and much less irritating. It is considered absolutely ok in the amount used in cosmetic products, though if you are looking for a mild facial cleanser, you have better chances with a formula withoutSLES. For an average shower gel? SLES works just fine.
Coconut Oil - goodie
Also-called: Cocos Nucifera Oil | What-it-does: emollient, perfuming | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 4
There is definitely some craze going on for coconut oil both in the healthy eating space (often claimed to be the healthiest oil to cook with but this is a topic for another site) and in the skin and hair care space.
We will talkhere about the latter two and seewhy we might want to smear it all over ourselves. Chemically speaking, coconutoil has a unique fatty acid profile. Unlike many plant oils that mostly contain unsaturatedfatty acids (fatty acids with double bonds and kinky structure such as linoleic or oleic), coconut oil is mostly saturated (fatty acids with single bonds only) and its most important fatty acid is Lauric Acid(about 50%). Saturated fatty acids have alinear structure that can stack niceand tight and hence they are normally solid at room temperature. Coconut oil melts around 25°C so it is solid in the tub but melts on contact with the skin.
The saturated nature of coconut oil also means that it is a heavy-duty-oil ideal for dry skin types. A double-blind research confirmed that extra virgin coconut oilis as effective in treating xerosis (aka very dry skin) as mineral oil.Another study found that coconut oil is more effective than mineral oil in treatingmild to moderate atopic dermatitis (aka eczema) in children.
So when it comes to dry skin,coconut oil is a goodie, noquestionthere. The question is ifit is good or bad for acne-prone skin. Its main fatty acid, Lauric Acid has some research showing that it is a promising ingredient againstevil acne-causing bacteria, P. acnes but at the same time, both Lauric Acid and coconut oil have a very high comedogenic rating (4 out of 5). Though comedogenic ratings are not very reliable, anecdotal evidence (i.e. people commenting in forums) shows that people havemixed experiences. While some claim that it worked wonders on their acne others say that it gave them serious blackheads and zits. Try it at your own risk.
As for hair care, coconut oil has pretty solid research showing that it can penetrate into the hair very well (better than mineral oil and sunflower oil) and it can prevent hair protein loss as well as combing damage. If you have problems with damaged hair, split ends, coconut oil is worth trying as a pre- or/and post-wash treatment. Labmuffin has an awesome blogpost explaining in more detail why coconut oil is good for your hair.
A couple of other things worth mentioning: coconut oil might help with wound healing (promising animal study), it has some antifungal activity (against dermatophytes that cause the thing known as ringworm) and it also works as an insect repellent against blackflies.
Overall, coconut oil is definitely a goodie for the hair and dry skin. If that warrants for the magic oil status it enjoys, we don't know.
Stearic Acid
What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 2-3
A common multi-tasker fatty acid. It makes your skin feel nice and smooth (emollient), gives body to cream type products and helps to stabilize water and oilmixes (aka emulsions).
Xanthan Gum
What-it-does: viscosity controlling, emulsion stabilising
It's one of the most commonly used thickeners and emulsion stabilizers. If the product is too runny, a little xanthan gum will make it more gel-like.Used alone, it can make the formula sticky and it is a good team player so it is usually combined with other thickeners and so-calledrheology modifiers (helper ingredients that adjust the flow and thus the feel of the formula). The typical use level of Xantha Gum is below 1%, it is usually in the 0.1-0.5% range.
Btw, Xanthan gum is all natural, a chain of sugar molecules (polysaccharide) produced from individual sugar molecules (glucose and sucrose) via fermentation. It’s approved by Ecocert and also used in the food industry(E415).
Sodium Benzoate
What-it-does: preservative
A helper ingredient that helps to makethe products stay nice longer, aka preservative. It works mainly against fungi.
It’s pH dependent and works best at acidic pH levels (3-5). It’s not strong enough to be used in itself so it’s always combined with something else, often with potassium sorbate.
Potassium Sorbate
What-it-does: preservative
It's one of those things that help your cosmetics not to go wrong too soon, aka a preservative. It’s not a strong one and doesn’t really work against bacteria, but more against mold and yeast. To do that it has to break down to its active form, sorbic acid. For that to happen, there has to be water in the product and the right pH value (pH 3-4).
But even if everything is right, it’s not enough on its own. If you see potassium sorbate you should see some other preservative next to it too.
BTW, it’s also a food preservativeand even has an E number, E202.
EDTA
What-it-does: chelating
An abbreviation that pops up on alot of ingredient lists. It stands forEthyleneDiamineTetraacetic Acid and it's a famous molecule for being an excellentchelating agent, i.e. a molecule that can bind to metal ions (coming usually from water) and make them harmless in a cosmetic formula. With a chelating agent, cosmetic formulas stay nice longer.
EDTA is an acid molecule and its salt versions are even more often used, such as the super commonDisodium EDTA.
BHT
Also-called: Butylated Hydroxy Toluene | What-it-does: antioxidant, preservative
It's the acronym for Butylated Hydroxy Toluene. It's a commonsynthetic antioxidant that's used as a preservative.
There is some controversy around BHT. It's not a new ingredient, it has been used both as a food and cosmetics additive since the 1970s. Plenty of studies tried to examine if it's a carcinogen or not. This Truth in Aging article details the situation and also writes that all these studies examine BHT when taken orally.
As for cosmetics, the CIR (Cosmetic Ingredient Review) concluded that the amount of BHT used in cosmetic products is low (usually around 0.01-0.1%), it does notpenetrate skin far enough to be absorbed into the bloodstream and it is safeto use in cosmetics.
Jasmine Extract
Also-called: Jasminum Officinale Extract | What-it-does: soothing, moisturizer/humectant
We don't have description for this ingredient yet.
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Normal (well kind of - it's purified and deionized) water. Usually the main solvent in cosmetic products. [more] The extract coming from thejuice containing leaves of the Aloe vera plant with moisturizing, emollient and anti-inflammatory properties. [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 vegetable origin (coconut/palm kernel oil, glucose) cleansing agent that givesmoderate to high stable foam. It's also biodegradable and mild to the skin. It’s probably the most common cleansing ingredient of all. It’s usually the Chief Bubble Officer responsible for bigbubbles in cleansing products through the foam it creates is a bit airy and loose and not as dense and luxurious as the foam created by infamous SLS.As for mildness, it goes somewhere in the middle. [more] There is definitely some craze going on for coconut oil both in the healthy eating space (often claimed to be the healthiest oil to cook with but this is a topic for another site) and in the skin and hair care space.We will talkhere about the latter two and seewhy we might want to smear it all over ourselves. [more] A common multi-tasker fatty acid that works as an emollient, thickener and emulsion stabilizer. [more] A super commonly used thickener and emulsion stabilizer. [more] A preservative that works mainly against fungi. Has to be combined with other preservatives. [more] A not so strong preservative that doesn’t really work against bacteria, but more against mold and yeast. [more] An abbreviation that pops up on alot of ingredient lists. It stands forEthyleneDiamineTetraacetic Acid and it's a famous molecule for being an excellentchelating agent, i.e. a molecule that can bind to metal ions (coming usually from water) and make them harmless in a cosmetic formula. [more] It's the acronym for Butylated Hydroxy Toluene. It's a commonsynthetic antioxidant that's used as a preservative.There is some controversy around BHT. [more] what‑it‑does solvent what‑it‑does soothing | emollient | moisturizer/humectant what‑it‑does skin-identical ingredient | moisturizer/humectant irritancy,com. 0, 0 what‑it‑does surfactant/cleansing what‑it‑does surfactant/cleansing | emulsifying what‑it‑does emollient | perfuming irritancy,com. 0, 4 what‑it‑does emollient | viscosity controlling irritancy,com. 0, 2-3 what‑it‑does viscosity controlling what‑it‑does preservative what‑it‑does preservative what‑it‑does chelating what‑it‑does antioxidant | preservative what‑it‑does soothing | moisturizer/humectant
