5 Reasons Why We Must Preserve Our Clean Beauty Skincare Products
Face Creams, Face Serums, skincare preservation has always been a challenge to the formulation chemist and the Lab’s around the globe, but it is even more important and fundamental in clean skincare.
Have you ever wondered why even all-natural formulations need preserving? You might be surprised to hear that most clean beauty products do contain some types of preservatives to maintain their stability – and they should! Preservatives aren’t always a bad thing, and it is key to know why you still need them to have safe and clean cosmetics products.
There are different skincare preservatives myths and truths out there, making it challenging to understand the entire topic.
Our experts are here to explain the science of it all – exactly why natural or clean beauty skincare products need preserving and how to preserve your best face antiaging cream products safely.
Table of Contents
Reason #1: Natural and clean beauty products spoil more easily
Clean beauty and minimalistic skincare beauty routine use few ingredients, but efficient ones. However, it’s precisely this purity and lack of toxic ingredients that make these types of products more prone to microbial growth. And nobody wants that in their best face cream.
This is especially the case with water-based products such as moisturizers. Oilier products like butters might not spoil that easily, even in unsterilized conditions. However, natural water-based products won’t do well without preservatives.
In most cases, microbe overgrowth won’t be visible to the naked eye. Instead, you will probably end up with side effects like acne, allergies, eczema, or similar. This is exactly why natural formulations need preserving and stabilizing.
Fast Fact:
Reason #2: External contaminants enter once the package is opened
Even if your product is sterile throughout the entire production and packaging process (which is close to impossible), it will get contaminated as soon as the consumer opens it and we put our fingers in.
Without any preservation, the product will be susceptible to all types of contaminants from the external environment: UV rays, oxygen, fungi, bacteria. These are conditions that you cannot influence unless you preserve your product.
Fast Fact:
A preservative is a natural or synthetic ingredient that is added to skincare to protect the formulation’s integrity and the health of your skin.
Reason #3: To protect the efficiency, stability, and texture of the product
Proud of that heavenly, silky texture you finally achieved for your product? It’s all useless unless you preserve it. This will avoid things like:
- Viscosity and substance separation (oil floats up and the rest of the product stays down, sound familiar?)
- Changes in color, scent, or texture
- Loss of efficiency (especially in products rich with active ingredients susceptible to oxygenation or contamination)
- Cross-reactions and side effects from exposure to microorganisms
- Unstable pH values
Reason #4: To protect the consumer’s health and wellbeing
Without any type of preservatives or stabilizers, you cannot control the safety of your product under different conditions. This endangers your reputation as a brand, and, more importantly, the health of your customers.
As such, preservatives should also be seen as a legal requirement put in place with one primary reason – to protect the consumer from an accidentally unsafe product.
At this stage, you have to consider that not all of your customers are in perfect health. Many of them might have immunocompromised health which makes them prone to more severe infections. And, of course, nobody wants their unstable skincare product to be the reason for a person’s damaged health.
Reason #5: There are safe preservatives we can use
The fifth and final reason why we should preserve natural skincare formulations is the fact that there are many safe preservatives available for use nowadays.
As a conscious brand that supports sustainability and clean beauty, we’re completely against using harmful preservatives like:
- Formaldehyde
- Parabens (especially Propylparaben and Butylparaben)
- Ureas (Diazolidinyl Urea, Imadozolidinyl Urea)
- DMDM hydantoin
- BHA (Butylated Hydroxyanisole)
- Quaternium-15
- MIT (Benzisothiazolinone)
These preservatives can disrupt the endocrine system, cause hormonal imbalances, and are even linked to different cancers.
However, we also understand that SKINCARE WITHOUT ANY PRESERVATIVES IS NOT BETTER OR SAFER!
So, instead, we opt for safe alternatives:
- Phenoxyethanol (less than 1% is safe, and we aim to use less than 0.001%)
- Benzyl alcohol
- Sodium benzoate
- Potassium sorbate
- Glyceryl caprylate
- Propylene glycol
Naturally, the amounts of the preservatives also matter, even in the case of the safe ones.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Natural and clean beauty skincare formulations are prone to easy spoiling if they’re not preserved
Even if skincare products are produced in completely sterile conditions, which is not very possible to start with, they still get contaminated by the consumer as soon as they’re opened
Preserving skincare products protects the formula’s stability, efficiency, and texture
Preserving skincare formulations protects your consumers’ health and wellbeingNot all preservatives are toxic and bad to use – there are many safe alternatives
Some of the best and safest preservatives are phenoxyethanol, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, glyceryl caprylate, and propylene glycol
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