Eminence Stone Crop Gel Wash is a beauty best seller on Amazon this week. Let’s look at the label.
The Eminence website doesn’t list all the ingredients in the product, instead they provide the following “key ingredients”:
- Stone Crop Juice and Pulp: hydrating and nourishing for uneven skin tones
- Soap Base (free of sodium lauryl sulphate): cleanses and softens
- Shea Butter: calming and restorative agent
Whenever a company lists “key ingredients” it’s always a red flag in my book. It’s another way of saying “we’re only going to tell you about the ingredients we WANT you to know about so you can’t ask any probing questions.” Sooo, I snooped around until I found the complete ingredient list.
Stone Crop Plant, Stone Crop Juice, Shea Butter Extract, Meadow Foam Seed Oil, Cellulose (Plant Source), Alpha Olefin Sulphonate (Plant Source), Benzoic Acid (Plant Source), Citric Acid, Essential Oil
“Stone crop,” in case you weren’t aware, is a flowering plant belonging to the genus Sedum. There are somewhere around 600 species in this family and there’s no way to figure out which version they’re using. My guess is s. acres because it’s traditionally used to treat skin disease.
The ingredient list is still a bit of a puzzle because if the plant itself is really the first ingredient I’d expect the product consistency to be more like a veggie smoothie. But from the picture on the website it’s a clear gel. That tells me that the plant extract is likely diluted in water. Strange how that doesn’t show up on the label.
The cleansing agent in the formula is alpha olefin sulphonate (AOS) a high foaming surfactant that is frequently used in sulfate free formulas. AOS is milder than sulfates but in comparison to other sulfate free systems it’s considered “economy” class meaning it’s less expensive but not necessarily the mildest. Considering that Stone Crop sells for somewhere between $25 and $35 for 4 ounces, it would be nice if they used something milder than an economy class surfactant.
Finally, note that the product lists an “essential oil” instead of fragrance. Unfortunately, that’s not a legal choice in the US or EU. You can either list “fragrance” and not have to disclose the specific essential oils that are used (because fragrances can have hundreds of components) OR you can skip using a compounded fragrance and just use single essential oils. But then you have to list those oils by name. They have done neither in this case so this product could contain fragrance allergens and you wouldn’t be able to tell.
The Beauty Brains bottom line
This may be a perfectly fine product but the fact that it’s so expensive and that the company isn’t very transparent regarding the ingredients is troubling. Still, if you’d care to buy Eminence Stone Crop Gel Wash