Rating: Good
Categories: Emollient, Emulsifier, Texture-Enhancer
Emollient, emulsifier, cleansing and texture-enhancing ingredient. Protects skin's surface against water loss and helps shore up skin's protective barrier.

Rating: Good
Categories: Emollient, Emulsifier, Cleansing-Agent
This moisturizing ingredient is found naturally in the human body but is usually plant- or synthetically derived in cosmetics. It has been deemed safe as used in cosmetics and is also used as a food additive.

Rating: Good
Categories: Texture-Enhancer, Emulsifier, Cleansing-Agent
Multitasking ingredient that plays various roles including cleansing agent, solvent, texture enhancer, and skin-conditioning agent. Imparts a non-greasy, lightweight, silky feel.

Rating: Best
Categories: Humectant
Skin-replenishing mineral electrolyte that helps improve hydration levels, while strengthening skin's barrier. Also helps optimize skin’s desquamation (shedding) process.

Rating: Best
Categories: Humectant
Skin-replenishing mineral electrolyte that boosts hydration and optimizes skin’s barrier strength. Trains skin to maintain its moisture balance.

Rating: Best
Categories: Humectant
Mineral electrolyte that helps replenish skin’s barrier and works as a humectant to draw and hold moisture in skin’s uppermost layers.

Rating: Best
Categories: Emollient, Occlusive-Opacifying-Agent
An emollient derived from olive oil that helps prevent vital hydrating substances in skin from escaping. Leaves skin feeling soft and enhances spreadability of the formula.

Rating: Best
Categories: Emollient, Emulsifier
Multitalented ingredient that can work as an emulsifier, stabilizer, emollient, and cleansing agent. The olive oil portion of this ingredient is a beneficial source of fatty acids and antioxidants.

Rating: Best
Categories: Plant-Extracts, Antioxidant
Coffee seed extract with anti-aging skin tone evening benefits

Rating: Best
Categories: Antioxidant, Peptides
Combining several B vitamins with stabilizing yeast peptides leads to a skin-energizing blend that also helps hydrate and condition skin.

Rating: Best
Categories: Emollient, Antioxidant
Prevents moisture loss and restores suppleness to skin. Also strengthens skin’s barrier and provides antioxidant support.

Rating: Best
Categories: Emollient
This type of ceramide helps strengthen skin’s barrier against external stimuli.

Rating: Best
Categories: Emollient
This ceramide helps restore skin’s hydration, texture, and suppleness.

Rating: Best
Categories: Emollient
This type of ceramide helps improve the look and feel of skin thanks to its water retention properties.

Rating: Best
Categories: Emollient
This fatty acid is found naturally in the upper layers of skin and helps it retain its natural moisturizing factor (NMF), which benefits skin health. It also has calming properties.

Rating: Best
Categories: Emollient
Plays a key role in maintaining skin's health, softness, and hydration.

Rating: Best
Categories: Peptides, Humectant
This synthetic peptide is composed of amino acids (alanine, proline, serine, and glycine). It works to help skin’s layers maintain adequate hydration.

Rating: Best
Categories: Antioxidant
One of four forms of vitamin E. It can be naturally or synthetically derived. Regardless of its origin, tocopherol has potent oil-soluble antioxidant properties and can help defend skin from pollution and environmental stressors.

Rating: Best
Categories: Humectant
This amino acid is found in the human body and research shows it improves the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles, and boosts firmness.

Rating: Best
Categories: Plant-Extracts, Antioxidant
Soothing ingredient with significant skin-calming properties. Can be derived from plants (such as chamomile) or made synthetically.

Rating: Best
Categories: Humectant, Texture-Enhancer
This plant-derived or synthetic sugar is a very good humectant that is also used to enhance the stability of gels and maintain their clarity.

Rating: Best
Categories:
A hydrating ingredient that occurs naturally in many plants and animals. It’s a precursor ingredient that helps facilitate many biological processes.

Rating: Best
Categories: Humectant, Texture-Enhancer, Prebiotic-Probiotic-Postbiotic
This sugar alcohol primarily works to attract and hold moisture to skin. As a prebiotic, it positively influences skin’s microbiome.

Rating: Best
Categories: Emollient, Texture-Enhancer, Plant-Extracts
Emollient and skin-replenishing ingredient derived from coconut oil and glycerin. Contains fatty acids that help skin resist moisture loss.

Rating: Good
Categories: Humectant
This is the salt form of the organic compound levulinic acid, which softens and conditions skin; it can also be used as a cosmetics preservative.

Rating: Good
Categories: Emollient, Occlusive-Opacifying-Agent
This ester of behenic acid and behenyl alcohol hydrates skin and adds properties to lotions and creams that help to prevent moisture loss.

Rating: Good
Categories: Humectant, Occlusive-Opacifying-Agent
This mix of glycerin and behenic acid conditions skin and has been deemed non-irritating and safe as used in cosmetics.

Rating: Good
Categories: Texture-Enhancer, Emulsifier
Naturally derived ingredient which functions as an emulsifier, thickener, and surfactant in skin care products. It has been ruled safe as used in cosmetics.

Rating: Good
Categories: Texture-Enhancer, Cleansing-Agent, Emulsifier
This naturally derived ingredient is produced from the fermentation of simple sugars, and acts as a thickening agent, texture enhancer, and emulsion stabilizer in cosmetics.

Rating: Good
Categories: Texture-Enhancer, Polymer, Ph-Adjuster-Stabilizer
Often used to create gel-textured formulas or to influence the product’s thickness. Research also shows carbomers can enhance the penetration effectiveness of key actives.

Rating: Average
Categories: Ph-Adjuster-Stabilizer
Also known as lye, this ingredient is highly alkaline, meaning it is on the basic side of the pH range (its pH is naturally 13). It is used in small amounts in cosmetics (such as cleansers and exfoliants) adjust their pH.

Rating: Good
Categories: Chelating-Agent
This ingredient is one of the salt forms of EDTA, which is short for ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid. EDTA helps stabilize cosmetics formulas, preventing ingredients from binding to trace elements (often minerals) found in water.

Rating: Good
Categories: Preservative
Safe preservative known to be well-tolerated by skin; offers wide spectrum protection against unwanted microbials in a formula.

Rating: Good
Categories: Preservative, Humectant
Skin-softening agent with hydration boosting properties. Also plays an important preservative role to help keep cosmetic formulas stable.