Why All Skin Care Ingredients Aren’t Created Equal

Picture this: You have two bottles of serum from two different brands. You read both labels and each bottle contains the same 10 ingredients.

Are the two serums interchangeable?

Maybe… but probably not. Because the quality of a skin-care product doesn’t just come down to the words written on the label. Just like two white cotton T-shirts—one mass-produced by a fast-fashion brand and another painstakingly woven and stitched by an artisan—could look and feel unique, so can two skin-care products sound similar and be very different in reality.

Here are just a few of the factors that may affect ingredient quality.

How and where ingredients are sourced

Natural ingredients need to be carefully tended in the proper climates, which means that some regions of the world produce better avocados while other areas make the best camellia oil. Finding the highest quality ingredients that are sustainably grown and harvested takes a lot of research. These ingredients also tend to come with a higher price tag.

Natural vs nature-identical ingredients

Natural ingredients are literally sourced from nature, typically from plants or minerals. But there are also synthetic ingredients, produced in labs, that have the same chemical composition as natural ingredients. They’re called “nature-identical” or “chemically identical” ingredients. While they aren’t necessarily “bad,” they’re not sourced from nature.

How ingredients are tested

If using products that are cruelty free is important to you, look for two things: that the product isn’t tested on animals, of course, but that the ingredients it includes also aren’t tested on animals. A cruelty-free skin-care product will disclose both facts and make the safety of animals a top priority.

Order of ingredients

Finally, the order that ingredients are listed on the label makes some degree of difference, though it can be hard to analyze as a consumer. Ingredients are listed in descending order, from highest to lowest concentration (although anything that makes up less than one per cent of the product can be written in any order at the end of the list). But just because an ingredient is listed sixth, seventh or eighth in line, doesn’t mean it’s inactive. Some ingredients are safest in smaller doses and can still provide benefits for you skin.

At Back To Earth Skin, we use only the very best ingredients that nature can provide. They’re 100% natural (never nature identical),  sourced from the best producers in the world and they’re never, ever tested on animals.