Hydrolyzed proteins & amino acids!

This claims it’ll reduce the appearance of hyperpigmentation and dark spots, promotes even skin tone, “Reduces blotchiness & blurs skin imperfections for a flawless appearance”, “Enhances skin glow & radiance to achieve healthy looking skin”, and “promotes a luminous skin complexion” in as few as seven days. Wow, those are some big claims for a water soluble active we use at 1% to 5%!

It can restore hydration and draw water to the skin, soothing and smoothing skin. This is a powerhouse of some powerful humectants combined with wheat amino acids to work as a film former and hydroxyproline to work as an anti-oxidant and skin or lip plumper, all of which work to make our skin feel better by offering more hydration. Because it hydrates our skin, our fine lines and wrinkles will look smoother or fainter. That’s pretty awesome, if you ask me!

This is a hair, skin, and scalp active that offers hydration, conditioning, film forming, while improving skin’s barrier to reduce transepidermal water loss (TEWL).

For hair care, it’s a “24 hour frizz control” that does all the lovely things it does for hair, as well as conditioning, improving manageability, moisturizing, reducing detangling, softening ends, and improving shine.

Good for all skin types, including sensitive or irritated skin, babies’ skin, and intimate areas.

If you’ve seen ads for products that promise to firm and lift your skin instantly when you use them, they’re probably using this ingredient or Pepha-Tight®️ CB. As it dries, it creates it creates a film that tightens to make skin appear smoother.

The hydrolyzed soy protein hydrates skin by forming a film, too.

Because it has a slightly negative (anionic) charge, you might not want to use it with cationic ingredients, like BTMS-50 or BTMS-25.

This is a water soluble active ingredient that claims it “visibly reduces deep set wrinkles and fine lines to smooth skin” and “noticeably minimizes the appearance of age spots…for a more even complexion” in 4 to 8 weeks (56 days) when used at 2% in clinical studies.

For hair, it’s claimed it can repair damage and increase hair strength, making it feel smoother, reducing friction between the strands, which reduces damage. It can reduce breakage and increase elasticity by hydrating hair, which is great for all hair types, especially textured or fine hair.

For skin, it’s claimed that it can reduce “DNA damage after UV exposure”, which is making a pretty huge claim there, and one that I can’t really confirm. It works as a great film former that can prevent transepidermal water loss while hydrating skin without feeling super occlusive or cloying. It works as an anti-irritant for all skin types.

INCI: Hydrolyzed Cannabis Sativa Seed Extract

It’s a larger protein over at least 3,500 Daltons*, it won’t penetrate skin or hair, but forms a film to increase smoothness and decrease flakiness by increasing hydration in skin while strengthening hair, increasing its elasticity while reducing friction and combing forces that can cause damage.

In skin care products, it’s a film former that increases hydration, which reduces feelings and appearance of rough skin to make it look smoother, less ashy or flaky. It might work to repair skin damage, like sun spots.

You’ll find this one suggested a lot for hair, especially coloured hair treatments, for film forming and moisture retention as well as increased shine, damage repair, body, and ease of styling. It offers quite a lot of awesome properties, as you’ll see more in a moment.

In skin care products, it works as a film former, hydrator, conditioner, and anti-irritant, making it great for sensitive skin.

The suggested usage is 1% to 5% or even to 10% in the water phase of a product at 40˚C (104˚F) or lower after the emulsion has formed or in the final phase of making a gel, but I generally use 2% to 4% in hair and skin care products.

This is an ingredient from Croda called Keravis. This article notes that the protein has a molecular weight of 1800, which means it can penetrate “the hair shaft to optimize moisture content and plasticity of the hair, while also forming a cross-linking film that coats the hair to lubricate, protect and reinforce the cuticle.” This is supposed to make hair stronger while remaining flexible, which reduces breakage.

It’s a “film former, moisturizer and hair strengthening agent” that can penetrate “the hair shaft to increase moisture content & coating to lubricate hair and reinforce the cuticle.” (Reference) It can reduce combing forces, which reduces damage from friction, and it can keep water out, preventing the hair from swelling, which can lead to a raised cuticle and frizzies. And it can help our hair maintain and increase elasticity and flexibility. (Reference)

It’s claimed to improve moisturization of skin and decrease transepidermal water loss (TEWL) to hydrate all skin types. We use it as we would use other hydrolyzed proteins or amino acids in our skin care products, as water soluble ingredients we can add to form films, reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles by hydrating skin, reducing roughness, and increasing smoothness.

Importantly, it’s a vegetable based collagen replacement if you’re looking for plant based or vegan products.

This ingredient is suggested for hair care products, like rinse-off conditioners as well as leave-in conditioners and styling products. They claim it can increase the diameter of hair fibres to provide us with “fuller, thicker, healthier looking hair” without increasing friction between the hair strands. It’s great for volumizing products as it doesn’t weigh down hair, giving it more bounce and movement, which always looks lovely. It claims to increase gloss and shine by smoothing down the hair strand, and reduces friction between strands, which reduces damage and increases manageability. Elasticity in our hair is important so it’ll spring back from being pulled or combed, and this ingredient can help restore elasticity and make hair stronger in that way by hydrating our hair strands.

Reduces the appearance of hyperpigmentation, dark spots, and skin roughness while promoting a more uniform complexion with a smoother texture for “healthier, flawless skin”. It claims it also “reduces skin imperfections from photo-damage, inflammation, aging & vascular conditions”, so it might be good for those of us with rosacea or inflammation from acne too and might help sensitive skin*.

It’s also works as a film former and hydrator, making hair and skin feel smoother and softer. Works as a volumizing and hydrating ingredient for fine or weighed down hair as it can help plump up or increase hair diameter. It can help increase the ease of wet and dry combing as well as improve shine.

Also works as an anti-oxidant.

For eye bags, creases, and puffiness around the eyes.

Facial care active

Hydrating ingredient

What does this do? It claims it can increase hair strength, increase hair elasticity, reduce breakage, reduce wet and dry combing forces, reduce frizz and static, increase detangling, and generally make hair look shinier and healthier by protecting the cuticle, the outer layer of our hair. It also works as an anti-oxidant to reduce oxidative stress by ROS (reactive oxygen species), which weakens hair strands and can irritate the scalp.

This is a product suggested for all hair types to strengthen it and increase elasticity, which can prevent breakage. When we brush, comb, or style hair, the more elastic the hair – the more it can stretch without breaking – the more resilient it is, the healthier it is.

It reduces wet and dry combing forces pretty substantially, which is important in not having hair break.

also found in the e-book, Botanical extracts, part one