Footnotes to unhealthy skincare ingredients

Skincare ingredients that make for an unhealthy combination

A good beauty regimen is personalized and consistent. With the multitude of skincare products on beauty aisles, creating a skincare routine can be difficult and confusing—it’s of no help as well that product labels read like a chemist’s handbook. To complicate things further, skincare ingredients, both on their own and combined with other components of other skincare products, can pose health risks when purchased and applied carelessly.

Vitamin C is having its moment in beauty. A potent source of antioxidants, this key ingredient improves the skin’s self-healing ability, reduces brown spots, and promotes healthy collagen production. However, a mix of vitamin C with copper peptides, useful for collagen formation, or benzoyl peroxide, found in acne treatment products, renders both ingredients useless. Vitamin C cancels the ingredients’ effectiveness and vice versa. Avoid using products containing vitamin C with other acid-based ingredients such as alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) as the combination may irritate your skin and cause excessive peeling. In fact, be wary of incorporating too many acid-based ingredients in your beauty routine.

Salicylic acid, glycolic acid, retinol (retinoic acid and retinyl palmitate), AHAs, and benzoyl peroxide are used to treat acne and exfoliate the skin, but layering on products with these ingredients dries out the skin and may cause it to peel excessively, which can lead to blisters, scars, and even discoloration.

Check the acid concentration in your skincare products: In product labels, ingredients are listed in descending order of concentration. Invest time in understanding what goes on your skin—a little research goes a long way, and the next time you visit the beauty aisle, you can make it your mini chemist’s library.