30, 20 or just 5, how many ingredients do cosmetics need today?

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Why do cosmetics have so many ingredients today?

For our grandmothers, the daily care routine was completely different: Minimalist skin care you could say. They used very simple household remedies such as sugar scrubs, honey or milking fat and could count on one hand what their skin came into contact with. If she was sensitive, it was easy to use elimination to find out why and just leave something out.

Why did the ingredient lists keep getting longer since then? Simple: Because we want to see results the first time! Because we can't judge the long-term effect anyway. So, above all, a care product must smell good, absorb at turbo speed, conjure up an incredible glow on your cheeks, come out of the tube with the same consistency both on a skiing holiday and in midsummer and be durable into the next decade.

Convenience is not only in the foreground when it comes to food, but also includes care products. After all, we've gotten used to the fact that skin care has to feel good first and foremost.

But does it work?

To meet the requirements described above, it needs a bunch of additives in the products. Unfortunately, most of these have no use for your skin.

If you focus on the benefit instead of the convenience approach, the amount of ingredients - and thus the potential for irritation - can be reduced considerably.

This realization inspired me to found the minimalist natural cosmetics brand Five . Our vegan skin care consists of a maximum of five ingredients per product. five ingredients: absolutely manageable and everything that is necessary. Because if you manage to omit certain substances, the use of dubious fillers or additives becomes unnecessary.

But we also want skincare to be transparent. You should know and be able to understand what you put on your skin every day. Five things are easy to remember, as the famous study “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two” says. Psychologist George Miller found that our short-term memory can only hold 7 +/- 2 things at a time. That's why 5 is the magic number for us.

Why minimalist beauty products?

Even with a very simple care routine, cleansing lotion, day cream and foundation are used in the morning alone. At 20 to 30 ingredients each product are alone a lot of substances, that your skin has to process. With the multi-layering trend, which spilled over from Korea and Japan, it's easily 100 and more!

More and more women today are complaining about sensitive skin. ^[1] There is also a widespread phenomenon known as stewardess or mannequin disease. Perioral Dermatitis is a harmless but unsightly skin condition characterized by patches, scales, and pustules. Both phenomena affect women with an affinity for care, because excessive care disturbs the natural barrier function and causes the skin to become lazy.

What does the reduction in ingredients do?

Our premise is a better skin balance through fewer ingredients. The condition of sensitive skin does not necessarily improve as a result of highly complex formulas, but can also irritate it. At some point she becomes irritated by anything, sometimes even clear water. Those who consistently expect less of their skin do not intervene as much in the skin's own processes and help it to regenerate.

What your skin really needs

Your skin needs ingredients that support it in maintaining its own skin functions and that regeneration with a damaged skin barrier promotes. This is your main line of defense against moisture loss, pollution and oxidative damage to your skin cells. Nature provides you with the right nutrients in the form of natural vegetable oils and active ingredients. That's why it's not just a few, but the right ingredients that count. For Five there are a few criteria that automatically bring us to the right ingredients:

1. Only fabrics of natural origin

🌿 We make natural cosmetics and only use substances that absolutely meet the criteria of natural cosmetics. So mineral oils, silicones, parabens, microplastics and much more, which you would otherwise find on the packaging as an advertising 0% indication, are automatically excluded.

2. No substances without direct benefit

✨ We limit ourselves to substances that bring a specific benefit to your skin. An example: In March 2019 we launched the Five face serum, in which we use a ferment for preservation. But this raw material can do even more: it also has a moisturizing effect. Most of our ingredients are all-rounders, as you can see in the articles Beauty favorite shea butter - care for sensitive skin or Beauty elixir jojoba oil - the best oil for oily skin.

3. No added alcohol

🍷 We have declared certain types of ingredients for Five to be no-go, although they are otherwise common in natural cosmetics. For example alcohol (on the INCI list as alcohol, alcohol. denat or spirit of wine), which because of its broad-spectrum effect as a preservative, is No. 1 and is usually at the top of the INCI list, i.e. it contains plenty of it. While this is not a bad ingredient, it is a much discussed one. It liquefies the skin barrier layers so that active ingredients can penetrate deeper, but also allows more moisture to escape. ^[2] Since a balanced moisture balance is essential for sensitive skin, we prefer to leave out alcohol and instead use alternatives such as ferments for preservation .

💧 We rewrote the concept of «cream» and discarded an ingredient that is the main ingredient in almost every cream: water. Because this means that several other groups of ingredients are no longer necessary: ​​preservatives, because it quickly becomes contaminated with bacteria, emulsifiers, so that it combines with lipids, and stabilizers, which give it the consistency. Since all of these substances produce highly undesirable effects, this is a huge win. And water flows super cheaply from the tap at home. Simply apply our waterless Shea Cream to your face, which has previously been dampened with water, and the moisturizer is ready.

5. Better Organic

👍 We use if possible biological ingredients. Because they put significantly less stress on your skin with pesticides and similar substances with which plants are treated in conventional cultivation. We also see it as our duty to make our contribution to healthy soils in the cultivation of raw materials.

Conclusion: Less is more

Care products with just a few ingredients help you gain insight and thus self-determination when it comes to your skin care. But your skin will also thank you if it is not burdened with countless ingredients every day.