How I Shop For Skin Care

Here is the list that usually I mentally go through whenever I encounter a product I am tempted to purchase. I hope it will be helpful in some way next time you go shopping!

1. Jar packaging? I never ever purchase anything in a jar. Most of skincare ingredients are air and light sensitive. Once you open the lid, in just few days, all beneficial ingredients would fall apart (keeping product in refrigerator would not help!). Why waste my money on something that wouldn't work? I don't even start on the ingredient list. So if you ever have been wondering why you never saw any results from that nice cream in a jar, that my be the cause....
2. Price and appearance? Of course I want to find packaging appealing. Also no skin care product is worth 200$ per say. Big companies charge lots of money for the brand name, not actually for miracle ingredients. There are tons of products on the market with agreeable price tag with outstanding formulations. My reasonable upper limit for a product is around 60$ US (let's say for a serum, not a face wash). Mostly I am looking at 10-35$ range.
3. Ingredient list! The most important part. I keep good few hundred ingredients in my head, and I can tell pretty quick if something is worth buying. But still there are ingredients that may be are not as common and I have to look up research at home. If I am very suspicious of the ingredient/ingredients, I go home and check. Sometimes I just take a risk. Here are some guidelines for what should and should not be in the skin care product:

• Does this product has known irritants, especially in the first half of ingredient list (sometimes if they are the last few ingredients it is fine)? Bad: Alcohol (anything that has two parts to the name, like cetyl alcohol or cetearyl alcohol is fine; SD Alcohol is still a bad alcohol though), Essential oils (only exception is camomile essential oil; the most common offenders are lavender, peppermint, lemon, orange, grapefruit, resemary), Fragrance (in the first half of ingredient list is unacceptable);
• Does this product actually have any good ingredients? The list here can be pretty long, but the most common things to look for: vitamins (usually in the name there would be a word like - tocopheryl = vit E, ascorbyl = vit C, retinyl = vit A), good plant extracts (camomile, green tea, liquorice root, pomegranate), emollients (non fragrant plant oils, glycerin, hyaluronic acid), cell-communicating ingredients (niacinamide or vit B3, retinol or vit A), bonus (azelaic acid, allantoin, lecithin, resveratrol, ceramides, ubiquinone, squalene, peptides, AHAs) .
• Is this formulation well balanced/well rounded? I've already mentioned this in the previous post, but I like my products to have three type of ingredients: emollients/skin identical ingredients, anti-oxidants/anti-irritants, cell-communicating ingredients. Only in this case your skin is getting all it needs to be in top condition. Ideally I buy only those that have at least one ingredient from each of the group (better still if it has multiple). Sometimes though I can purchase product just for few specific components (usually anti-aging retinol, skin brightening vitamin C, anti acne salicylic acid).
• If the company promises certain results (for example, lightening hyper pigmentation), did they actually add ingredients to achieve that?
• Are those good ingredients in the first half of the ingredient list? Are those ingredients placed before preservatives (most common preservatives are parabens and phenoxyethanol)? If vitamins (and such) are in the bottom of ingredient list, they are most likely present in such a low concentration that they probably wouldn't be able to benefit skin.

This seems like a lot of things to consider, but once you've done it hundred of times it is almost automatic. I have to say that sometimes I go to stores and just read ingredient lists. It helps to see whats on the market and just  a fun activity for me. I hope you enjoyed this rambly post. If you have any questions about ingredients or products feel free to ask!