BioAqua Makeup Remover Hyaluronic Acid Polypeptide Gantle Cleansing Water ingredients (Explained) (2024)

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Fragrance and Essential Oil Free

Antioxidant: Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract

Skin-identical ingredient: Glyserin, Hyaluronic Acid

Soothing: Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract

Other Ingredients

Aqua

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.

Sodium Lauraminopropionate

What-it-does: surfactant/cleansing

Glyserin - 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 >>

Propylene Glycol

What-it-does: moisturizer/humectant, solvent | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

• It's a helper ingredient that improves the freeze-thaw stability of products
• It's also a solvent, humectant and to some extent a penetration enhancer
• It has a bad reputation among natural cosmetics advocates but cosmetic scientists and toxicology experts do not agree (read more in the geeky details section)

Read all the geeky details about Propylene Glycol here >>

Diazolidinyl Urea - icky

What-it-does: preservative

An antimicrobial preservative that helps your products not to go wrong too quickly. It works especially well against bacteria, specifically gram-negative species, yeast,and mold.

Somewhat controversial, it belongs to an infamous family of formaldehyde-releasers. That is, it slowly breaks down to form formaldehyde when it is added to a formula. We have written more aboutformaldehyde-releasing preservatives and the concerns around them atDmdm Hydantoin, but do not get too scared, those are more theories than proven facts.

Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate

What-it-does: preservative

It's one of those things that help your cosmetics not to go wrong too soon, aka a preservative. Its strong point is being effective againstyeasts and molds, and as a nice bonus seems to be non-comedogenic as well.

It is safe in concentrations of less than 0.1%but is acutely toxic when inhaled, so it's not the proper preservative choice for aerosol formulas like hairsprays. Used at 0.1%, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate has an extremely low rate of skin-irritation when applied directly for 24 hours (around 0.1% of 4,883 participants) and after 48 hours that figure was 0.5%, so it counts as mild and safe unless your skin is super-duper sensitive.

Methylisothiazolinone - icky

What-it-does: preservative

As you may guess, if something is only recommended in products that you rinse off (cleansers and shampoos), then it’s probably not the best ingredientfor the skin.

Methylisothiazolinone (MI) is a preservative that' super efficient against bacteria at surprisingly low concentrations. The problem with it though is that itcan also sensitize and irritate the skinquite easily when it comes in leave-on formulas.

Currently,some countries are considering to ban it entirely (like Denmark) and the permitted use level is very low(under 0.01%). Luckily there are plenty of products on the market with other preservative options so if you are a better safe than sorry typeit's probably best to avoid it.

Fragrance Component

Finished Fragrance

Hydrolyzed Collagen - goodie

What-it-does: emollient, moisturizer/humectant

The chemically chopped up version of the big protein molecule, collagen. It is often derived from fish or bovine sources and works as a nice moisturizer and humectant that helps the skin to hold onto water.

To understand a bit more whatHydrolyzed Collagen is, you have to know that proteins are large chains of amino acids connected with so-called peptide bonds. These bonds can be broken up when a water molecule is added and the resulting thing is a mix of shorter length amino acids, also called peptides. SoHydrolyzed Collagen is not really collagen, it is rather an undefined and varying mix of largish peptides. Based on a manufacturer's data, the whole, soluble collagen has an average molecular weight of 300 000 Da, while this chopped up mixturehas an average MW of 12 000 Da (still pretty big).

Hexapeptide-1

Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract - goodie

Also-called: Green Tea | What-it-does: antioxidant, soothing

• Green tea is one of the most researched natural ingredients
• The active parts are called polyphenols, or more precisely catechins (EGCG being the most abundant and most active catechin)
• There can be huge quality differences between green tea extracts. The good ones contain 50-90% catechins (and often make the product brown and give it a distinctive smell)
• Green tea is proven to be a great antioxidant, UV protectant, anti-inflammatory, anticarcinogenic and antimicrobial
• Because of these awesome properties green tea is a great choice for anti-aging and also for skin diseases including rosacea, acne and atopic dermatitis

Read all the geeky details about Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract here >>

Alcohol Denat - icky

What-it-does: antimicrobial/antibacterial, solvent, viscosity controlling, astringent

• It's a super common and super debated skincare ingredient
• It has several benefits: great solvent, penetration enhancer, creates cosmetically elegant, light formulas, great astringent and antimicrobial
• It can be very drying if it's in the first few ingredients on an ingredient list
• Some experts even think that regular exposure to alcohol damages skin barrier and causes inflammation though it's a debated opinion (read more in geeky details tab)

Read all the geeky details about Alcohol Denat. here >>

Hyaluronic Acid - goodie

What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant

• It’s naturally in our skin and behaves there like a sponge
• It can bind up to 1000 times its own weight in water
• It is a big molecule from repeated subunits (polymer) so different molecular weight versions exist (unfortunately there is no way to determine MW from INCI list only)
• High-molecular-weight-HA (>500 kDa) is an excellent surface hydrator, skin protectant and can act as an osmotic pump helping water-soluble actives to penetrate deeper into the skin
• Low-molecular-weight-HA (< 500 kDa) can hydrate the skin somewhat deeper though it is still a big molecule and works mainly in the epidermis (outer layer of the skin)
• Low-molecular-weight-HA might also help the skin to repair itself by increasing its self-defense (~ 200kDa used in the study)
• Ultra-low-molecular-weight-HA (<50kDa) is a controversial ingredient and might work as a pro-inflammatory signal molecule

Read all the geeky details about Hyaluronic Acid here >>