Basic skincare

Skincarisma; What is ingredient analysis

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The answer is really simple. It is a way to analyze the ingredients in your skincare products and understanding why your skin reacts to some products and not to others. We usually know a lot about ingredients when it comes to food, but skincare is just as important.

I prefer using the analyzing website Skincarisma

for analyzing my ingredients, simply because it is an easy tool. And I can check products I want to buy or to analyze why my skin reacted to certain products and what ingredients I should avoid in the future.

Full guide to use Skincarisma, further down.

All skins are different

You probably always heard that one divide skin types into oily, combination, normal, dry or sensitive skin types. Truly it is really misleading since two people with oily skin types can still have the opposite reaction to the same product. So, dividing your skin into one of these categories are just the first step. To really know what you skin reacts to or like, you need to analyze the ingredients of your product. By doing this it is easy to see what product and ingredients your skin actually like. My skin for examples usually hates alcohol, and when there is a product I don’t like this is often the reason for it

Consequences of ingredients not matching your skin

  • Dryness/flaking/peeling
  • Acne
  • Burning sensation
  • Allergic reaction
  • Redness
  • itching
  • Clogging pores
  • Skin damage
  • Increase sebum
  • Burning or stinging sensation

When something feels “bad” on your skin it is often a sign that you are sensitive to something in the product. This is your skins defense, to simply shield itself from a “bad” ingredient. That ingredient can be fragrance, preservative, alcohol or other additives. Some product does sting a little without being a “bad” product. But that feeling should disappear rather quickly, if not wash it off immediately.

It is also very common to read that a product “promises” you or says “8 out of 10 women” etc. By using an ingredient analysis, you can simply check for yourself before buying the product that promise so much. The manufacturer of the product simply wants you to buy their product. By using these words and other fancy once, you are simply fooled into believing this must be a miracle product. I too have read the text of a product and thought wow, I simply need this one, I will look so much better. But it never works like that, does it?

Using the Skincarisma website

When you know what you want to avoid

It is really simple to check. If you for example know that you need to avoid alcohol in your skincare (like I do) it takes one second to check if the product you have bought or is going to buy contains that ingredients.

Full guide to Skincarisma

The first page you come to is simply the starter page

Here you can see the recent posted reviews and added products.

If you can’t find the product in the database

  1. The first step is to search for the product you are looking for, someone else might already added it to the page.
  2. If you don’t find your product in the list. Go to the cosmetic analyzer, here you can add the ingredients that are in your product, usually you can find the ingredients on the manufacturers homepage. Then just copy, paste and click analyze. If you have a CosDNA link you can just copy that one under the title “Coming from CosDNA? Copy a CosDNA ingredient list right onto Skincarisma”. It is located just underneath the analyzer.
  3. You can also add this product to the database, but it will take some time before it is registered since all new products are manually checked.

The results

  1. The first thing you will see is the full ingredient list you just added. Here you can also see if there are any ingredients not found by Skincarisma.
  2. Quick product notes: this is the quick summary where you see if a product contains alcohol, parabens etc. Also what the effect of the ingredients have on the skin, like brightening, anti-aging, acne-fighting etc. You can also click these symbols to get a simple explanation
  3. Notable effects and ingredients: Skincarisma keep track of five notable effects and they are acne-fighting, anti-aging, brightening, promotes wound healing and UV-protection.
  1. Ingredients related to skin type: In this section you can see if the product is ok for you skin type. Note that this is only based on three skin types, oily, dry and sensitive. By holding the mouse over the colors after the different skin types you will get the information on what ingredients are good or bad for different skin types.
  2. Product ingredient list EWG and CIR; EWG this is a scoring system between 1 and 10 and falls under the category of low, medium, high risk and unknown. CIR stands for The Cosmetic Ingredient review  and they basically study individual chemical compounds as they are used in cosmetic products. Skincarisma uses A – Safe as Used, B – Safe with Qualifications and C – Insufficient Data to Support Safety

On the right side of the window you will also see a list of Icons and their meaning. Which makes it really easy to interpret the results.

If your product is already in the database it will basically look the same except their might be a few reviews and ratings of the product.

The reason why I use Skincarisma and not CosDNA is basically since I think this is easier, gives me more accurate information, and also more important information to help me in the search of great skin care products.

You can also create a profile, save ingredients that you think or know are good for your skin type and write your own reviews of products. This will help others to learn about the products you like or dislike. So I hope to see you there.

I’d love to meet you on Instagram you can follow me here. And don’t forget to subscribe to my Youtube channel.

**Disclaimer: This blog contains both affiliate and non-affiliate links. By clicking on an affiliate link, I receive a small commission (from the company I am in affiliation with, not you of course) which goes to keep this blog to support itself. For more information see disclaimer and contact.

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