Skin Care Ingredients Worth Your Time
Posted by Dr. Hannah Sivak with Brendan Leonard on Jun 18th 2021
Ingredients are important. The presence or absence of ingredients is what makes a product work or not.
But also, the presence and position of an ingredient on a label will go a long way as to whether someone will buy it or not.
The skincare industry as a whole is acutely aware of this reality.
Sometimes this can be to the advantage of the consumer, because we are able to more accurately discern what is right for us. Sometimes it’s used to our collective disadvantage, as skincare messaging can be designed to provoke buy-response rather than encourage us to take the best care of your skin possible.
So, absent the outcome, and beyond the placebo effect, what’s the difference? And how do we as consumers discern meaning about ingredients from message?
Classic Skin Care Ingredient Fads
Let’s take a trip down memory lane and revisit a couple of the classics!
The Aloe Fad - Do you remember the aloe fad, that magical time when everything had aloe in it? Doesn’t seem like that long ago, but it was likely longer than you think.
Well aloe as an ingredient is still in lots of stuff! It’s still a great ingredient and we use it here at Skin Actives Scientific. You don’t see the words “contains Aloe” a half an inch high on the front of skincare products any more though. That’s not because aloe is bad, or that we somehow discovered something new that works better, it’s just because aloe had it’s time in the sun, and now that’s over.
Full disclosure,there are some of us around the office who are old enough that we can remember at least TWO Aloe fads. Who knows, give it enough time and we may live to see a third!
The Benzoyl Peroxide Fad - This one was a bit more recent (but still at least 10 years ago). A certain skincare company that shall remain nameless was making a lot of hay on their anti-acne routines. They were on TV a lot, you couldn’t miss it. They had vending machines in malls for a while too.
Now, benzoyl peroxide is also still around as an active. We’re less excited about that. You won’t find benzoyl peroxide in our products regardless of whether “dermatologists recommend” it. Is it great for removing unwanted acne, sure, we’ll give it that. But at what cost? Read the fine print and the cost is your skin’s long-term well-being. Oxidizing your face will kill bacteria, for sure. But it will also saturate your cells with the free radicals that we spend so much time and energy trying to avoid! It’s an invitation to damage your skin that you’ll be fighting an uphill battle to repair for the rest of your life.
Finding the Best Skincare Actives
Knowing what is best for you is a process, it takes time.
But most things that are worth doing take time and maybe a little bit of work on your part. This is no different.
There are three traits that should guide your journey into becoming your own skin health expert.
- Know Yourself - This can be hard. Our society is not oriented towards an emphasis on introspection and our perceptions of the mirror will lie to us. But knowing your own self and being honest with yourself is critical. Is your skin oily? Is it dry? What products do you react to? Are there things that “everybody is doing” that just don’t seem to work for you?
- Get Educated - We live in a time where there is perhaps an overabundance of information available to us at almost any time, and yet there is the distinct irony that because of that abundance, good information is hard to find. Perhaps the hardest part of being your own skin health expert is navigating the internet trying to find good, solid information about skincare, active ingredients and overall skin health. Everyone seems to have something to say on these points!
- Try New Things - If after you have learned about your own skin, and educated yourself on the realities of the new actives you want to experiment with, give new things a try! Like aloe in the example above, just because there is a lot of buzz around an active doesn’t mean that it’s bad for you, or a waste.
There are no value judgements wrapped up in the answers, merely a road map for the path forward. You are not a bad person, or any less valuable or worthy because you have skin care challenges. Be kind and understanding of yourself and who you are.
It’s also important to know your history here a little bit. Are you allergic to medicines, particular chemicals or foods? What is your health care history?
If you are fortunate enough to have living parents, ask them! Get the details on your family history that just might not have come up in conversation! Learn about your struggles, your parent’s struggles and the struggles of their parents. We bet that you’ll learn a lot about what you should be doing with your own skin, diet, and health.
Keep in mind that whatever you learn about yourself now, will probably change. Our bodies are always changing as we age, and this means that the wisdom of today won’t necessarily work for you tomorrow. Check in with yourself every few months, every couple of years, and relearn what it is you need to take the best care of yourself possible.
Well, as it turns out, we do too!
You can always start here with the Skin Actives Scientific blog written by Dr. Hannah Sivak with the help of her assistant, Brendan. The Skin Actives ingredient Glossary is an indispensable resource for learning about active, and you can always check out Dr. Sivak’s personal blog where she muses about all aspects of the skincare world.
(Meanwhile, we may have been told that there is a new edition of Dr. Sivak’s The Scientific Revolution in Skin Care coming down the line, so that is something to look forward to).
In addition to these great resources, we highly recommend reading the web pages of healthcare providers such as Mayo Clinic or Kaiser Permanente. These sites are written in an approachable way, high on fact and directed at keeping you healthy and informed.
But it does mean that you have to be discerning in your selections. Don’t go against what you know about your health, or what you learn about the potential side effects of an active. Don’t try and force your skin into a box of being like “everyone else’s” skin.
When you are trying out a new skin care ingredient or routine, take it easy! As we always say, in skincare, less is often more. Trying products with new ingredients in an unobtrusive location on your skin, or in small amounts is a nice way to head off reactions and to always make sure you are getting the most from the products you choose to use.
Skincare Ingredients That Stand the Test of Time
At Skin Actives Scientific, we use the methods above to inform us about what kind of skincare formulations we want to pursue.
First we are always looking at what are the needs of ourselves and our communities? What are our customers asking for that they can’t get anywhere else?
Then we go to the research. This is, admittedly, our favorite part.
As it turns out there are decades worth of scientific papers on the chemical compositions and methods of action that make up the core actives at the center of the skincare industry. While many actives get marketed in such a way that it makes them sound like they were discovered yesterday, the fact is that many of them have been around for a long time, and their potency, side-effects and mechanism of action.
On each product page you can scroll down to the bottom and find a section called “Research” these are the scientific papers that describe the findings of professional knowledge seekers all over the world who have dedicated themselves to understanding and cataloging material reality.
These are our references when we formulate products at Skin Actives Scientific.
We don’t follow fads, because fads change.
We don’t believe in “label value” because we want you to get the actives, vitamins, and nutrients that your body needs to perform and look its best.
We believe in science and the scientific method. We stake our reputations on it.
Dr. Sivak’s Favorite Skincare Ingredients
So all that being said, what are some of our personal favorite skincare ingredients?
Below you will find a selection of some of the ingredients that our founder, Dr. Hannah Sivak personally recommends. As you might imagine, many of them factor into her formulations for Skin Actives Scientific!
For Aging Skin:
For Acne:
For Hyperpigmentation:
Hair loss:
So, if you still have questions about what ingredients to look for, or are maybe curious as to our personal favorite products and ingredients around the office, reach out to us! Our Skin Care Expert, Rachel can be reached at info@skinactives.com and she’s more than happy to hear from you. Or give us a call at 480-813-5633. We’re available from 9-4 M-F. We look forward to hearing from you!
