Yin Asks a 3 Part Question about High-end Skin Care Ingredients:

Thanks for the informative and impartial advice on your blog! I’m an avid DIY-skincare person and have started to look for more high-end ingredients to put into my products.

I’ve been looking at the active ingredients of top skincare lines and wonder
if you can advise me of better alternatives for or places to find these
impossible to source products.

1. There is a substance trademarked Amanduline, which is basically
hydrolyzed almond protein, and is supposed to have great calming effects for
the skin. Used in Gatineau’s Serenite Calming mask, and is manufactured by
Silab. None of the other hydrolyzed proteins, such as wheat, silk, etc, have
the same effect as this.

2. Hydrolyzed Fibronectin, which is supposed to be the main active
ingredient in Cellcosmet, a Swiss skincare line. Many of the users swear by
it’s miracle effects. I know it’s an animal by-product, so hopefully can
find a better alternative for it.

3. Vegetal placenta. It is replacing the porcine placenta that was commonly
used in DHC’s various products. This looks like a promising source of rich
nutrients for the skin, but sadly many products that use this only have it
in tiny concentrations.

If you guys could offer any advice as to the true effectiveness of these
products, please!

The Brain’s Reply:
Ok, Yin, first of all, we doubt you’ll be able to buy most of these ingredients because they’re typically only sold to cosmetic manufacturers. We’ve never seen these ingredients sold directly to consumers. But the bigger question is about their true effectiveness, so let’s deal with that.

As we’ve said before we believe you should buy whatever cosmetics you LIKE and can AFFORD. We also believe that you can create Do It Yourself cosmetics as long as you understand that you may be making some compromises in performance.

When it comes to specific ingredients, we’re a bit more particular. While we’re not saying that the ingredients you asked about don’t do ANYTHING, we’re also skeptical that you’ll notice a difference by adding them to your DIY cosmetics, even if you could buy them.

Here are our quick comments on each one:

1) Almond Protein
Proteins are good film formers which mean they can help moisturize and tighten skin. There’s no data that we’re aware of that shows almond protein is better in this regard than other vegetable or grain proteins.

2) Hydrolized Fibronectin
Fibronectin can be a powerful film former but it’s too big of a molecule to penetrate the skin. Hydrolyzing it breaks it into smaller pieces but severely reduces it’s ability to form films on the surface.

3) Vegetal Placenta
Vegetal placenta is a relatively new ingredient and we haven’t seen any data yet to indicate that it’s actually functional at any concentration. Remember, just because something is a nutrient for a plant, or another part of the human body, doesn’t mean it will have any benefit when applied to the surface of the skin.

I hope we haven’t totally burst your bubble on these ingredients, but we’d rather tell the truth now before you spend a lot of time or money trying to find them. We wish you luck with your DIY cosmetics - let us know how this turns out for you!

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