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  • Cetaphil Daily Hydrating Lotion: Where the Hyaluronic Acid Actually Sits

    Cetaphil Daily Hydrating Lotion is marketed on hyaluronic acid, and it does contain it, with one wrinkle: the label says hydrolyzed hyaluronic acid, a distinct INCI ingredient, and it sits at position eight of sixteen. The ingredient that takes up more of the formula than the HA is at position four, a volatile silicone (cyclopentasiloxane) that the EU has scheduled to phase out of leave-on cosmetics by June 2027. Neither fact is printed on the front of the tube. The US product is legal and unchanged.

    Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, so read us as interested rather than neutral. What we do here is dull and checkable: we copy the public INCI list, we name where we got it, and we point at where the ingredient on the front of the bottle actually lands on the back. Cetaphil is a good one to do it to, because it is the default dermatologist recommendation for sensitive skin, so a lot of people reading a tallow debate end up holding this tube instead.

    What is actually in Cetaphil Daily Hydrating Lotion?

    Here is the list as published on the brand’s own US product page, read on 27 October 2026. Verbatim, in sequence:

    Water, Dicaprylyl Carbonate, Hydroxyethyl Urea, Cyclopentasiloxane, Glycerin, Glyceryl Stearate, PEG-100 Stearate, Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid, Sodium Hydroxide, Homarine HCl, Sodium PCA, Cetyl Alcohol, Caprylyl Glycol, Phenoxyethanol, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Erythritol

    Source: cetaphil.com/us Daily Hydrating Lotion page, read 2026-10-27. The same sixteen ingredients in the same order were confirmed word-for-word by a Galderma brand account in the product’s retailer Q&A.

    Sixteen ingredients. The hero, hydrolyzed hyaluronic acid, is the eighth of them. Everything above it is a solvent, two emollients, a humectant, a silicone and two emulsifiers, none of them the ingredient the product is sold on.

    Pencil sketch of Nib, a small round creature, holding a magnifying glass up to a tube of lotion whose front label reads 'hyaluronic acid' in big letters.
    Nib picks up a lotion sold on hyaluronic acid and turns it over to find the hyaluronic acid.

    Why does "hydrolyzed" change the ingredient?

    This is the detail worth slowing down on, because it is easy to wave past. “Hyaluronic Acid,” “Sodium Hyaluronate” and “Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid” are three distinct INCI names, not three spellings of one thing. Hydrolyzed HA is ordinary hyaluronic acid that has been enzymatically fragmented into much smaller pieces, with a lower molecular weight.

    That is not marketing hair-splitting; it changes how the ingredient behaves. A 2025 review of HA molecular weight and skin penetration found that HA below roughly 100 kDa can penetrate skin, with lower-weight fragments able to reach the dermis, while the large high-weight form mostly sits on the surface and holds water there. Hydrolyzed HA is the small-fragment end of that range. So the front of the tube saying “hyaluronic acid” and the back saying “hydrolyzed hyaluronic acid” are describing genuinely different molecules doing a genuinely different job.

    We cannot tell you the exact molecular weight Cetaphil uses, or the concentration. The hydrolyzed-HA INCI name typically means something under 100 kDa, but a brand’s specific supplier grade is not public, and Cetaphil does not disclose a percentage. What we can say from the label alone is that it sits above the preservative line (phenoxyethanol is at fourteen), which suggests it is present at a functional rather than a trace amount, just not near the front.

    Pencil sketch of Nib running a pencil down a numbered ingredient list, pausing partway when the hero ingredient finally turns up well below the top.
    Counting down the back: water, dicaprylyl carbonate, hydroxyethyl urea, a silicone, glycerin… the HA is still a way off.

    What is at position four, and why does it have a date on it?

    Position four is cyclopentasiloxane, a volatile silicone often written as D5. It is there for slip and a dry, silky finish, and on this list it ranks ahead of the glycerin and well ahead of the HA, so there is a meaningful amount of it in the formula.

    The reason it is worth pointing at is regulatory, not medical. EU Commission Regulation 2024/1328, adopted 16 May 2024, restricts D4, D5 and D6 across all cosmetics, including leave-on products like this lotion, from 6 June 2027. The regulation’s own wording is that “there is an unacceptable risk arising from the emissions of D4, D5 and D6” from consumer products, a concern centred on environmental persistence rather than a claim about your skin. Europe’s chemicals agency reinforced the point in an October 2024 enforcement sweep that still found hundreds of cosmetic products containing these silicones despite earlier wash-off restrictions, describing D5 as persistent and bioaccumulative.

    Two honest caveats. First, the United States has no equivalent restriction, so the Cetaphil product on a US shelf is entirely legal and may never be reformulated for this market. Second, this is a rule about emissions and persistence in the environment, and we are not going to stretch it into a claim about what the ingredient does on a face. The interesting thing is simply the gap: the ingredient taking up more of the formula than the advertised hero is one a major regulator has decided to phase out, and nothing on the front of the tube mentions either fact.

    Advertised hero ingredient
    Hydrolyzed hyaluronic acid, position 8 of 16.
    Ingredient ranked above it, position 4
    Cyclopentasiloxane (D5 silicone).
    EU status of that silicone
    Restricted in all cosmetics from 6 June 2027 (Reg. 2024/1328).
    US status
    No restriction; product is legal and may not change.
    Pencil sketch of Nib holding a card that reads 'Hydrolyzed' and frowning thoughtfully, with a small bottle labelled 'HA' and another labelled 'hydrolyzed HA' side by side.
    Nib notices the one word that changes the ingredient: hydrolyzed.

    Does any of this matter for acne-prone skin?

    It is a fair question, because this lotion is pitched hard at sensitive and acne-prone skin, which is exactly the audience that lands here wondering whether tallow is a comedogenic disaster. A couple of details on the label are worth naming calmly.

    Cetyl alcohol sits at position twelve. It is a fatty alcohol used as an emollient and co-emulsifier, and it rates a 2 out of 5 on the old Kligman comedogenicity scale, which tested ingredients neat on rabbit ears, not in finished formulas on human faces. At position twelve of sixteen it is almost certainly present at a low level, and formulation concentration matters at least as much as the ingredient’s identity. We flag it because the audience is watching for it, not because a fatty alcohol at the bottom of a list is a smoking gun.

    The word on the front doing a lot of quiet work is “non-comedogenic.” Worth knowing: that is a self-declared marketing term, not a standard any regulator defines. Industry practice is a patch test on the upper backs of ten to twenty volunteers, and nothing more binding than that. It is a reasonable-sounding claim; it is just not the guarantee the typography implies.

    Pencil sketch of Nib pointing at the fourth item on the list and holding up a calendar page marked 2027, eyebrows raised.
    The ingredient at position four is a silicone with a date on it in Europe.

    What does a formula built on fewer moving parts look like?

    Once you have read a sixteen-ingredient list and found the hero at number eight behind a silicone, the natural question is what the short version looks like. For contrast, our own beef tallow moisturizer from Evil Goods (yes, ours) is built on tallow, Manuka honey and olive oil, with the fat doing the occlusive-and-emollient job that the silicone and the stack of emulsifiers handle here. We are not going to tell you it hydrates better, because that would need a side-by-side study nobody has shown us, and we would be breaking our own rules to promise a result. If you are specifically weighing tallow against mainstream picks on the comedogenic question, our longer write-up on whether beef tallow is comedogenic lays out what the (thin) evidence actually says.

    The only point worth making is structural. A long ingredient list is not automatically worse than a short one, and a silicone is not a villain. But when a product is named for an ingredient, it is worth checking where that ingredient sits, because the name and the formula are two different decisions. Here they point in slightly different directions: the tube sells hyaluronic acid, and the label puts a fragmented version of it eighth, behind a silicone on its way out of another market.

    That is Nib’s standing advice at the end of every desk shift: read the list, not the name.

    Frequently asked questions

    Does Cetaphil Daily Hydrating Lotion actually contain hyaluronic acid?

    Yes, but specifically hydrolyzed hyaluronic acid, a distinct INCI ingredient, at position eight of sixteen on the brand’s own US label. The front of the tube says “hyaluronic acid”; the back says “hydrolyzed hyaluronic acid.”

    Is hydrolyzed hyaluronic acid the same as regular hyaluronic acid?

    No. It is HA fragmented into lower-molecular-weight pieces, which carries a different INCI name and penetrates skin differently. A 2025 review found HA below about 100 kDa can penetrate skin while high-weight HA mostly holds water on the surface.

    Why is the silicone at position four a talking point?

    Cyclopentasiloxane (D5) ranks above the glycerin and the HA, so there is a meaningful amount of it. The EU has scheduled D4, D5 and D6 for removal from all cosmetics by June 2027 over environmental persistence. The US has no such rule, so the product is legal and may not change.

    Is this lotion safe for acne-prone skin?

    We cannot make a skin-outcome claim. The label carries cetyl alcohol (rated 2/5 on an old, neat-ingredient comedogenicity scale) at position twelve, likely at a low level, and “non-comedogenic” on the front is a self-declared term, not a regulated standard.

    Pencil sketch of Nib setting down the magnifying glass, satisfied, beside a short note that reads 'read the list, not the name'.
    Nib’s takeaway, same as every desk shift: the front of the tube is a marketing decision; the back is the formula.

  • Eucerin Advanced Repair Lotion: Ceramide Is #17

    On the current Eucerin Advanced Repair Lotion label, ceramide NP sits at position 17 — behind shea butter, a silicone, tapioca starch and eleven others, in a list that runs all the way down to phenoxyethanol. Ceramide is the third word in the product’s marketed “Triple Moisturizing Complex,” yet it is the least-concentrated of the three. The urea claim is the opposite story: Eucerin states 5% urea, and urea’s spot at position 3 is genuinely consistent with that.

    Eucerin Advanced Repair is one of the most-sold pharmacy body lotions in the US, and it is marketed on three named actives: 5% urea, ceramide, and “Natural Moisturizing Factors.” The front of the bottle treats them as equals. The ingredient list does not. Reading the label here is unusually rewarding, because it tells two stories at once — one where the marketing oversells, and one where it is, for once, backed up.

    Nib the round pencil-sketch creature peers through a magnifying glass at a tall lotion bottle labelled 'Triple Complex', counting on its stubby fingers.
    Nib counts down the Triple Moisturizing Complex — and finds the three actives are nowhere near equal.

    What is actually in Eucerin Advanced Repair Lotion?

    Here is the full ingredient list, quoted verbatim from the retailer product listing for the current 16.9 fl oz unscented bottle (item A-11005178), captured 26 October 2026:

    water, glycerin, urea, cetearyl alcohol, glyceryl glucoside, sodium lactate, butyrospermum parkii (shea) butter, caprylic/capric triglyceride, methylpropanediol, octyldodecanol, dicaprylyl ether, tapioca starch, dimethicone, glyceryl stearate se, hydrogenated coco-glycerides, carnitine, ceramide np, sodium pca, arginine hcl, serine, arginine, alanine, histidine hcl, citrulline, lysine hcl, lactic acid, glycogen, mannitol, sucrose, pca, glutamic acid, threonine, chondrus crispus (carrageenan), sodium chloride, sodium cetearyl sulfate, tocopherol, 1,2-hexanediol, phenoxyethanol

    That is a long list — it runs from water down to phenoxyethanol. Under US cosmetic labeling rules, everything above 1% is listed in descending order by weight (21 CFR 701.3(c)), so position is a usable proxy for concentration — with one caveat worth remembering: ingredients at or below 1% can be listed in any order, so the back half of a long list is not strictly ranked.

    Where does the ceramide actually sit?

    Ceramide NP — the INCI name for what Eucerin’s own marketing calls “Ceramide-3,” the same compound under an older trade name — appears at position 17. Sixteen ingredients come before it, including water, glycerin, 5% urea, two emulsifiers, shea butter, three emollients, tapioca starch and a silicone (dimethicone). So the ingredient printed third in the hero claim is, by weight, outranked by a tub of plant butter and a drop of silicone.

    This is the pattern this desk sees constantly: the named active is real, it is in the jar, and it is near the bottom. Ceramides matter in skin — they make up roughly half of the lipid in the outer barrier, and topical ceramides can measurably reduce water loss (Yong et al., Experimental Dermatology, 2025). The same review notes the catch: a single ceramide works best alongside cholesterol and fatty acids in roughly equal measure. This lotion lists ceramide NP and no cholesterol at all. (The richer Advanced Repair Cream, confusingly, does include cholesterol.) None of this makes the lotion bad — it makes “ceramide” a smaller part of the story than the front label implies.

    Marketed hero actives, by label position
    Urea — position 3 (claim: 5%)
    “Natural Moisturizing Factors” — a suite of amino acids starting at position 18, each present in trace amounts
    Ceramide NP — position 17, behind shea butter (7) and dimethicone (13)
    Nib tips a jar of shea butter that is comically larger than a tiny ceramide vial sitting next to it, eyebrows raised in surprise.
    Shea butter outranks the headline ceramide — and gets no mention on the front of the bottle.

    So is the “5% urea” claim honest?

    Yes, and that is the interesting half. Urea sits at position 3, right after water and glycerin. A stated 5% is entirely consistent with a position that high — this is one of the few mainstream body lotions where a printed percentage lines up with where the ingredient actually falls in the list.

    Urea also happens to be one of the better-evidenced moisturizer actives. A clinical review found urea effective across dry-skin conditions at 5–10%, with 5% behaving mainly as a humectant that binds water into the skin (Pan et al., Dermatology Online Journal, 2013). A later paper specifically on low-concentration urea reaches the same place for xerosis and barrier maintenance (Lacarrubba et al., Int J Clin Pract, 2020). So the active Eucerin buries in the middle of its three-part claim — urea — is the one with the strongest footing and the most plausible concentration. The one it leads with — ceramide — is the one sitting near the bottom.

    One label footnote worth flagging: there is lactic acid at position 26, which is why the bottle carries an AHA sunburn-sensitivity warning. At that position the amount is small, and this is not a reason to avoid the product — just context for the warning text.

    Why does the formula feel different lately?

    If you have used this lotion for years and the current bottle feels grainier or sandier, you are not imagining a change. The formula was quietly reworked: Cyclomethicone, a volatile silicone that used to sit at position 6, has been removed. The older formula is still documented on ingredient databases — INCIDecoder still lists Cyclomethicone at 6 and ceramide NP all the way down at 22, with no tocopherol. The current retailer label has no Cyclomethicone, adds tocopherol near the end, and moves ceramide NP up to 17. Two different formulas, two different labels, same bottle design.

    What is not certain is the cause of the texture complaints. Tapioca starch at position 12 is a plausible suspect for a sandy feel, but the only confirmed change is the silicone removal, so we are not going to assert a mechanism we cannot show. If the current texture does not work for you, that is a real and common reaction to this specific reformulation — and a reason some people go looking for a simpler formula.

    Nib holds two nearly identical lotion bottles side by side, a small 'before' and 'after' tag on each, scratching its head at the different ingredient scrolls unfurling from both.
    Same bottle, two formulas: the silicone that left changed how the current version feels.

    What does a simpler dry-skin formula look like?

    The reader who lands here is usually using Eucerin because of chronic dry skin and wants it handled with less of a mystery list. That is a reasonable place to want fewer moving parts. For full disclosure, this site is published by the team behind Evil Goods, and their tallow-for-dry-skin page (our product) is the comparison point we would point you to: a tallow-based approach built around occlusive, skin-similar fats rather than a long humectant stack. It is a genuinely different formula philosophy, not a cheaper copy of this one — whether that trade (fewer ingredients, more occlusive feel) suits you is a matter of skin and preference. We would rather you compare labels than take our word for it.

    Nib sits cross-legged with a short, neat ingredient scroll in its lap and a very long one trailing off the edge of the desk, comparing the two with a satisfied nod.
    Fewer lines on a label is not automatically better — but it is easier to actually read.

    Frequently asked questions

    Is ceramide the main ingredient in Eucerin Advanced Repair Lotion?

    No. On the current label ceramide NP is 17th. Water, glycerin, urea, shea butter, a silicone and several emollients all come first by weight.

    Is the 5% urea claim accurate?

    It is consistent with the label. Urea is listed third, which is where a ~5% ingredient would be expected to sit — unusually, the printed percentage and the label position agree.

    What is the difference between “Ceramide-3” and Ceramide NP?

    They are the same ingredient. “Ceramide-3” is an older cosmetic trade name; Ceramide NP is the current INCI name. Eucerin’s marketing uses the former, the ingredient list uses the latter.

    Did Eucerin change the Advanced Repair Lotion formula?

    Yes. Cyclomethicone, a silicone, was removed, and the ingredient order shifted. Older label records still show Cyclomethicone and a lower ceramide position; the current retail label does not. The exact date of the change is not publicly stated.

    Does the lotion contain sunscreen?

    No. There are no SPF or sunscreen actives in this ingredient list. A years-old customer question on the retailer listing raised this; the label confirms there are none.

    For the record, this desk’s INCI quote comes from the retailer listing for item A-11005178, cross-checked against a published older-formula record; the two differ exactly where the reformulation changed things.

    Nib leans against the final ingredient scroll, magnifying glass lowered, giving a small satisfied wave to the reader, the words 'read the label' pencilled faintly behind it.
    Read the label yourself — the order tells you more than the front of the bottle does.

  • CeraVe Resurfacing Retinol Serum: The Retinol Is the 19th Ingredient

    On CeraVe Resurfacing Retinol Serum’s own ingredient list, retinol appears at position 19 of 33 — after water, a humectant, two silicones, several emollients and a buffer. The ingredient the product is named for is the last of its advertised “heroes” to show up by weight. That is not a flaw; retinol is meant to be used at a low percentage. It is simply not the story the front of the box tells.

    I like a product that tells on itself. CeraVe’s Resurfacing Retinol Serum ($21.99 for 1 fl oz, stocked just about everywhere) is marketed on its named stars: encapsulated retinol, ceramides, niacinamide and licorice root extract. The label mostly backs that up — with one quiet twist about where “retinol” actually lands, and a second about a silicone that never gets a mention.

    Here is the full list, copied verbatim from CeraVe’s US product page on 25 October 2026, and matching the list carried on a major US retailer’s listing for the same SKU (label code F.I.L. D233672/1):

    Aqua/Water/Eau, Propanediol, Dimethicone, Cetearyl Ethylhexanoate, Niacinamide, Ammonium Polyacryloyldimethyl Taurate, Dipotassium Glycyrrhizate, Hydrogenated Lecithin, Potassium Phosphate, Ceramide NP, Ceramide AP, Ceramide EOP, Carbomer, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Methosulfate, Dimethiconol, Lecithin, Sodium Citrate, Retinol, Sodium Hyaluronate, Sodium Lauroyl Lactylate, Cholesterol, Phenoxyethanol, Alcohol, Isopropyl Myristate, Caprylyl Glycol, Citric Acid, Trisodium Ethylenediamine Disuccinate, Pentylene Glycol, Phytosphingosine, Xanthan Gum, Polysorbate 20, Ethylhexylglycerin

    Count it yourself — the verbatim text runs to 33 positions. (One retailer Q&A page says 32; that is a counting discrepancy on their end, not a different formula.) CeraVe’s page also notes it updates lists periodically, so always check the carton you actually bought.

    Where does the retinol actually sit?

    INCI lists are ordered by weight down to roughly the 1% mark, below which a brand can arrange the trailing ingredients as it likes. Retinol is number 19. Sitting just above it at 18 is sodium citrate, a pH buffer; just below it at 23 is phenoxyethanol, a preservative that tops out around 1%. So retinol is present well under one percent by weight — which, for an over-the-counter retinol, is exactly where you would expect it to be. The number is not the scandal. The naming is the interesting part: of the four stars CeraVe prints on the front, retinol is the one that lands lowest by weight.

    What sits above it tells you what the formula is mostly made of: water (1), propanediol (2), then dimethicone (3), a fatty ester (4), niacinamide (5), a polymer thickener (6), the licorice salt (7), and on down through the ceramides at 10–12. By the time you reach retinol you have passed most of the bottle’s actual mass.

    Nib the little round desk creature squints through a magnifying glass at a tall serum bottle, reading the tiny back-label type.
    Nib reads the back of the bottle, not the front. That is the whole job.

    What is the third ingredient, and why is it not on the box?

    Position 3 is dimethicone, a silicone. Position 16 is dimethiconol, a second one. Silicones are not a problem — they are why a serum feels like silk and spreads without dragging, and dimethicone is one of the most-studied cosmetic ingredients there is. The point is simply that the third-largest ingredient by weight in a product sold as a “retinol serum” is a silicone, and you would never know it from the marketing. That is the sort of thing the label will tell you and the front of the box never will.

    There is a fair counter-argument, and I will give CeraVe the credit: several of the ingredients stacked above retinol — hydrogenated lecithin (8), lecithin (17), cholesterol (22), phytosphingosine (30) — are the pieces of CeraVe’s MVE encapsulation system, the carrier that releases retinol slowly. Some of why retinol sits low is that its delivery shell is listed separately and weighs more. That is a real, defensible reason, not a dodge.

    Nib stands beside a ladder of numbered ingredient rungs, pointing a pencil at the third rung from the top.
    Third rung from the top is a silicone, and nobody put that on the front of the box.

    Is “licorice root extract” doing what the box implies?

    CeraVe markets “licorice root extract to help brighten your skin’s appearance.” On the label that ingredient is dipotassium glycyrrhizate (position 7) — a licorice-derived salt whose main cosmetic job is soothing, not brightening. Most of the published brightening evidence for “licorice” is built on a different fraction, glabridin, studied in post-inflammatory marks. A 2010 review in the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology notes there are very few clinical trials on licorice extracts for pigmentation at all, and a 2021 review in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology describes them as mild on their own, better suited as an adjunct. So: same plant, a different piece of it, and a thinner evidence base than the word “licorice” suggests. I am not saying it does nothing. I am saying the marketing leans on a reputation earned mostly by its cousin.

    Nib holds up a small paper slip reading nineteen, looking mildly surprised at where the hero ingredient landed.
    The ingredient the product is named for turns up at number nineteen.

    How much retinol is in there, and does the amount matter?

    CeraVe does not disclose the percentage; its own retailer replies call ingredient percentages “proprietary.” A figure of 0.3% circulates in retailer Q&As, but it comes from a community answer CeraVe has not confirmed, so treat it as a rumour, not a fact. What is on record is useful context: EU Commission Regulation 2024/996 caps retinol in leave-on face products at 0.3% from November 2025, and a 2022 study in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science (note the authors include L’Oréal researchers) found 0.3% retinol performed comparably to 1% with fewer reactions. If CeraVe is near that level, it is a sensible, well-tolerated dose. The EU also requires a “Contains Vitamin A” line on the pack; the US does not, so a US buyer is simply told less. Either way, label position tells you about relative amount, not about whether the product works — that is a separate question, and an honest one to keep separate.

    Nib weighs two labelled jars on a tiny balance scale, one marked licorice and one marked glabridin, and they do not sit level.
    Same plant, different piece of it. Nib keeps the two jars on separate shelves.

    So what would an active-forward serum look like instead?

    The useful habit here is not “retinol bad, something else good.” It is reading the back of any bottle the way Nib does and asking whether the front matches it. Plenty of serums put their named active low and their texture ingredients high; some do the opposite. CeraVe’s is a competent, cheap, widely available formula whose only real sin is a name that oversells where retinol lands.

    If you would rather build a routine around a different active, our own Copper Peptide Blue Honey Serum (that is Evil Goods — this site is published by the team behind it, so treat this as the house pick) leads on copper peptides with hyaluronic acid, niacinamide and Manuka honey, and skips the retinol question entirely. One honest caveat, because this site runs on being checkable: Evil Goods does not publish a numbered INCI list for that serum the way CeraVe does, so I cannot show you where each ingredient sits by weight — and I will not pretend a position I cannot source. Judge it on its named ingredients, not on a ranking I do not have.

    Frequently asked questions

    Where does retinol appear on the CeraVe Resurfacing Retinol Serum label?

    At position 19 of 33, below niacinamide (5), the three ceramides (10–12) and both silicones, and just above sodium hyaluronate (20).

    Is it bad that retinol is so far down the list?

    No. Over-the-counter retinol is used well under 1%, so a low position is expected and normal. The label order reflects weight, not effectiveness.

    What is the third ingredient?

    Dimethicone, a silicone. A second silicone, dimethiconol, sits at 16. Both are cosmetically legitimate; neither is named in the marketing.

    Does the licorice extract brighten skin?

    The ingredient is dipotassium glycyrrhizate, primarily a soothing agent. The brightening evidence for “licorice” rests mostly on a different fraction, glabridin, and is limited even there.

    How much retinol does it contain?

    CeraVe does not say. A 0.3% figure circulates in retailer Q&As but is unconfirmed by the brand, so we do not state it as fact.

    Nib sits cross-legged on a tall stack of ingredient lists, pencil behind one ear, closing a notebook with a satisfied look.
    Order on the label is a clue about amount, not a verdict on whether it works. Nib files it and reaches for the next bottle.

  • L’Oreal Revitalift HA Serum: The Buffer Above the Hero Is #3

    L’Oreal Revitalift’s serum is named “1.5% Pure Hyaluronic Acid,” and on the US label the hyaluronic acid — listed as sodium hyaluronate — sits fourth, which is actually consistent with a 1.5% dose. The surprise is one slot up. At position 3, above the hero ingredient, is a synthetic pH buffer called HEPES that L’Oreal’s marketing never mentions by name. Two more real actives, a peptide and a vitamin C derivative, sit further down at 8 and 9 — also unmentioned on the front of the bottle.

    This desk runs one exercise on everything: quote the real ingredient list from a public source, then point at where the thing on the front of the bottle actually lands. Most of the time the hero ingredient is further down than the name implies. This L’Oreal serum is the rarer and more interesting case — the hyaluronic acid is right where the “1.5%” claim says it should be. The story here is not that the headline is a lie. It is what the headline leaves out.

    What is actually in L’Oreal Revitalift 1.5% Pure Hyaluronic Acid Serum?

    Here is the full ingredient list, quoted verbatim. I read it on the Ulta listing for this product (SKU pimprod2001763) on 23 October 2026 — a direct fetch that returned the same list across several SKU and pagination variants in one session. An independent review by Insider Beauty (September 2026) describes the same short US formula and places “sodium hyaluronate fourth.” This is the US formula specifically; the UK and some international listings carry a materially different formula, so region matters here.

    Aqua/Water, Glycerin, Hydroxyethylpiperazine Ethane Sulfonic Acid, Sodium Hyaluronate, PEG-60 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Secale Cereale Seed Extract/Rye Seed Extract, Calcium Pantothenate, Dipeptide Diaminobutyroyl Benzylamide Diacetate, Ascorbyl Glucoside, Disodium EDTA, Pentylene Glycol, Phenoxyethanol, Chlorphenesin.

    Thirteen entries. (Ulta’s page splits the eighth ingredient across a comma as “Dipeptide Diaminobutyroyl, Benzylamide Diacetate” — that is a display quirk; it is one INCI ingredient, Dipeptide Diaminobutyroyl Benzylamide Diacetate.) The usual caveat holds on any product: formulas get revised and retailer pages lag the physical bottle, so if you are checking your own, read the panel printed on it. This is the list that source showed on the date above.

    Nib, a small round desk creature, peering through a magnifying glass at the long chemistry name Hydroxyethylpiperazine Ethane Sulfonic Acid at position three in the ingredient list, one line above Sodium Hyaluronate at position four.
    Nib stops at number three — a word nobody can pronounce, sitting directly above the hyaluronic acid everyone came for.

    What is the third ingredient, sitting above the hyaluronic acid?

    Its full name is Hydroxyethylpiperazine Ethane Sulfonic Acid, which the lab world shortens to HEPES. It is not hyaluronic acid, and it is not a filler. The ingredient reference INCIDecoder describes it plainly as “a slightly basic molecule used to adjust the pH” in cosmetic formulas — a buffer, in other words. But it earns its keep twice over: the ingredient supplier LGB Chem lists its functions as “keratin softener, desquamating agent, pH buffer” — desquamating meaning it helps lift dead surface cells, so it acts as a gentle chemical exfoliant alongside its pH role. Not an inert filler, then, but a working ingredient the marketing stays quiet about.

    The reason its position is worth pointing at is concentration. INCI lists are written heaviest-first above roughly one percent (the US rule is 21 CFR 701.3). HEPES is listed third, directly above the sodium hyaluronate that the “1.5%” claim describes. LGB Chem gives its typical use range as 0.2–3.0%. Sitting above a 1.5% ingredient, HEPES is plausibly present at or above that 1.5% too — making it, by weight, one of the two or three most prominent things in a bottle sold entirely on hyaluronic acid. And L’Oreal’s consumer copy for this product never names it.

    I want to be careful about what that does and does not mean. HEPES is doing a real job, and a useful one: a well-buffered formula helps the hyaluronic acid behave. This is not a “gotcha” that the serum is secretly bad. It is a narrower, checkable point — the third-most-present ingredient in a “hyaluronic acid serum” is a synthetic exfoliating buffer that the marketing is silent about.

    Nib tapping a pencil on position four, Sodium Hyaluronate, with a small check mark drawn beside it, the big 1.5% front-of-bottle claim visible nearby.
    Nib checks the hero off: sodium hyaluronate at number four, which lines up with a 1.5% dose. Nothing wrong here — the surprise was the line above it.

    Is the hyaluronic acid itself where it should be?

    Yes — and this is the part the site does not usually get to say about a mass-market serum. Sodium hyaluronate is the fourth ingredient, and a hero at position four is entirely consistent with a 1.5% total. The formulation-education site Personal Care Science notes you “don’t need much in a formula for great skin benefits,” with as little as 0.1–0.5% sodium hyaluronate showing measurable effect. A 2025 review in PubMed Central on topical hyaluronic acid reports high-molecular-weight HA producing “significant moisturizing effect in vivo” at 0.1 to 0.5%. By that literature, 1.5% is a generous dose, not a token one.

    A couple of points deserve a note before anyone reads “deception” into the name, because they are standard practice rather than tricks:

    First, “pure.” The front says “1.5% Pure Hyaluronic Acid”; the INCI form is sodium hyaluronate, the sodium salt rather than free acid. That is not mislabeling. As The INKEY List’s ingredient explainer puts it, “a product marketed as a hyaluronic acid serum that lists sodium hyaluronate on the INCI is not mislabeling anything… Front-of-pack marketing language and back-of-pack INCI naming operate under different rules.” Sodium hyaluronate is simply the form that survives in a water formula. The industry convention for “pure” here usually means unencapsulated, not chemically pure.

    Second, the grades. L’Oreal markets this as a blend of molecular weights — “macro” and “micro” HA at different percentages. That may well be true. But INCI names do not capture molecular weight, so on the US label all of it collapses into one line: Sodium Hyaluronate. There is no way to verify the grade split from the label alone. (Notably, the UK formula lists a second, distinct HA form — Sodium Acetylated Hyaluronate — which would show a second grade on the label; the US formula does not.) The INKEY source makes the same point: molecular weight is the variable that matters most, and it is the one the label cannot show you.

    Nib holding up a pencil beside positions eight and nine on the list — a peptide and a vitamin C derivative — both circled, with a puzzled expression and a small question mark, since neither appears on the front of the bottle.
    Nib finds two more real actives further down — a peptide at eight, a vitamin C derivative at nine — neither of them printed anywhere on the front of the bottle.

    What are the two actives nobody put on the front of the bottle?

    This is the quietly interesting part. Two genuine actives sit in the back half of the list, and neither is on the front panel:

    Position Ingredient What it is
    3 Hydroxyethylpiperazine Ethane Sulfonic Acid (HEPES) Synthetic pH buffer and mild chemical exfoliant — above the HA, never named in marketing
    4 Sodium Hyaluronate The marketed hero, consistent with the 1.5% claim
    8 Dipeptide Diaminobutyroyl Benzylamide Diacetate “Syn-ake” — a synthetic peptide that mimics a snake-venom compound
    9 Ascorbyl Glucoside A stable vitamin C derivative

    The one at position 8 has a memorable nickname: “syn-ake,” a lab-made peptide designed to mimic a compound found in snake venom, used in cosmetics as a muscle-relaxing “expression-line” ingredient. It is a real active that costs money to include. At position 8 of 13 it is almost certainly present at a fraction of a percent — trade literature puts its working range as low as 0.002% — so I would not tell you it is doing heavy lifting here. The striking thing is simply that it is there at all, and the bottle never says so.

    The one at position 9, ascorbyl glucoside, is a stable vitamin C derivative. Here the marketing does gesture at it: Ulta’s product copy says the serum is “infused with Vitamin C serum to help boost skin’s radiance.” But the vitamin C sits ninth — below the emulsifier, the rye extract, the B5 and the peptide. “Infused with” is carrying a lot of weight for an ingredient that far down the list. I cannot read its exact concentration off a label, and I am not going to guess one; the position is the fact, and the position is modest.

    Add it up and you get a formula that is actually richer than its own marketing — a buffer, a peptide and a vitamin C derivative all present, none of them on the front — while the front of the bottle talks almost entirely about molecular-weight grades of the hyaluronic acid everyone already knows.

    HEPES (#3)
    Synthetic buffer and mild chemical exfoliant, sitting above the hero. Supplier use range 0.2–3.0%; above a 1.5% ingredient, plausibly ≥1.5%. Unnamed in L’Oreal’s marketing.
    Sodium Hyaluronate (#4)
    The marketed hero, at a position consistent with the “1.5%” claim. The one thing the label and the front of the bottle agree on.
    Syn-ake peptide (#8)
    A synthetic snake-venom-mimicking peptide. Real active, likely a fraction of a percent at this position, absent from the front panel.
    Ascorbyl Glucoside (#9)
    A vitamin C derivative. Ulta says “infused with Vitamin C,” but it sits ninth of thirteen.
    Nib the round desk creature setting down the magnifying glass and holding up a short, tidy ingredient list with its named actives circled near the top, nodding approvingly.
    Nib’s takeaway: find a reference line on any label, then read what sits above and below it — a serum that leads with its named actives is giving you more to go on.

    What should you actually look for in a serum, then?

    A label that puts its working ingredients where you can see them, in a position you can reason about. The useful habit is the one this whole piece is built on: turn the bottle around, find a known reference line — a preservative like phenoxyethanol, or a dosed hero like this one — and read what sits above and below it. A serum that leads with its named actives, rather than naming the hero and quietly carrying a buffer, a peptide and a vitamin C derivative behind it, is giving you more to go on.

    If you want a serum where the actives on the front are the actives leading the formula, that is the kind of thing we make: our copper peptide serum puts copper peptides, hyaluronic acid and Manuka honey at the top of its own list rather than behind a buffer. (Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, and I point to it here because the entire piece is about which ingredient sits where — so it is only fair to say where ours sits.) Being straight with you: a shorter list is a different trade-off, not an automatic upgrade, and anyone who has reacted to a serum before should read any new label — ours included — before switching. The back of the bottle is the document that tells the truth; the front is the advertisement.

    FAQ

    Where does the hyaluronic acid sit in L’Oreal Revitalift 1.5% Pure Hyaluronic Acid Serum?
    On the US Ulta listing, read 23 October 2026, sodium hyaluronate is the fourth of thirteen ingredients. Position four is consistent with the product’s 1.5% claim — the hero is roughly where the label says it is.

    What is the third ingredient, and why does it matter?
    It is Hydroxyethylpiperazine Ethane Sulfonic Acid, or HEPES — a synthetic pH buffer that also acts as a mild chemical exfoliant. It sits directly above the hyaluronic acid, so by weight it is one of the most prominent ingredients in the bottle, yet L’Oreal’s marketing never names it. Supplier literature puts its typical use at 0.2–3.0%.

    Is “1.5% Pure Hyaluronic Acid” misleading?
    Not on the dose. The HA form listed is sodium hyaluronate, which is standard industry practice and not mislabeling. The “pure” qualifier usually means unencapsulated. The one unverifiable part is the molecular-weight “grade” split L’Oreal markets, because INCI names do not capture molecular weight — on the US label it all appears as one line of sodium hyaluronate.

    Are there ingredients not mentioned on the front of the bottle?
    Yes. A synthetic peptide nicknamed “syn-ake” sits at position 8 and a vitamin C derivative, ascorbyl glucoside, at position 9. Both are real actives; both are absent from the front panel, though Ulta’s copy mentions vitamin C. At those positions they are present in small amounts.

    Is the serum bad or a bad value?
    That is not what this analysis says, and it is not a call a label can make. The hyaluronic acid is well dosed and the formula is actually richer than its marketing — a buffer, a peptide and a vitamin C derivative are all in there. The narrower, checkable point is that the bottle’s story is deliberately partial: it talks about molecular-weight grades of the hyaluronic acid while staying silent about the buffer sitting above it.

    Nib the round desk creature holding up the full thirteen-line L'Oreal ingredient panel like a document of record and tapping it with a pencil, the big 1.5% front-of-bottle claim small in the background.
    Nib’s parting note: the front sells you 1.5% hyaluronic acid, and the back agrees — but it also names the buffer above it, the peptide and the vitamin C the front never mentions. The whole label is the story.

  • Elemis Marine Cream: The Algae Is #26, Collagen Is #34

    Elemis Pro-Collagen Marine Cream is sold on a marine algae complex and a name that says “Pro-Collagen.” On the US label, all three marketed algae extracts and the collagen ingredient sit below phenoxyethanol — a preservative used in finished cosmetics at up to 1%. Padina Pavonica, the lead marine hero, is the 26th entry on a 42-line label; Collagen Amino Acids is the 34th. Everything the product is named after is present at under one percent by weight.

    This desk runs one exercise on everything: quote the real ingredient list from a public source, then point at where the thing on the front of the pack actually lands. The Pro-Collagen Marine Cream is a good one to run it on. It is Elemis’s flagship anti-aging moisturizer, sold in the US only through Ulta, where the 1.6oz jar runs $150 — roughly $3.19 a milliliter — and carries thousands of reviews. The whole pitch is the marine algae complex and the “Pro-Collagen” name. So let us line the marketing up against the back of the jar.

    Nib, a small round desk creature, peering through a magnifying glass at the back of an Elemis Pro-Collagen Marine Cream jar, reading the long ingredient panel while the front of the jar shows the Pro-Collagen name.
    Nib turns the jar around and starts down the panel: water, glycerin, triglycerides, silicone — a long way to go before the marine algae the front of the jar is selling.

    What is actually in Elemis Pro-Collagen Marine Cream?

    Here is the full ingredient list, quoted verbatim. I read it on the Elemis US product page on 22 October 2026, and cross-checked the identical list on the Ulta listing for the same SKU the same day. The two match exactly. This is the US face-cream formula specifically — a different gel-cream INCI circulates on some non-US listings, so the region and SKU matter here:

    Aqua/Water/Eau, Glycerin, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Glyceryl Stearate SE, Isononyl Isononanoate, Dicaprylyl Carbonate, Dimethicone, Phenoxyethanol, Polyacrylate-13, Cetyl Alcohol, Stearic Acid, Tocopheryl Acetate, Coco-Caprylate, Xanthan Gum, Polyisobutene, Fragrance (Parfum), Tocopherol, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Chlorphenesin, Triticum Vulgare (Wheat) Germ Oil, Chlorella Vulgaris Extract, Glyceryl Polyacrylate, Daucus Carota Sativa (Carrot) Root Extract, Glyceryl Acrylate/Acrylic Acid Copolymer, Disodium EDTA, Padina Pavonica Thallus Extract, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Polysorbate 20, Sorbitan Isostearate, Ginkgo Biloba Leaf Extract, Porphyridium Cruentum Extract, Mimosa Tenuiflora Bark Extract, Rosa Damascena Flower Extract, Collagen Amino Acids, Linalool, Citronellol, Leuconostoc/Radish Root Ferment Filtrate, Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Benzoate, Limonene, Geraniol, Citric Acid

    The panel runs to 42 entries. The usual caveat holds on any product: formulas get revised and retailer pages lag the physical jar, so if you are checking your own tub, read the panel printed on it. This is the list those two US sources showed on the date above, and they agree with each other.

    Nib pointing a pencil at the word Phenoxyethanol at position eight in the ingredient list, with a dotted line drawn under it marking everything below as a separate, smaller region.
    Nib draws the line at number eight: phenoxyethanol. Under EU rules it is capped at one percent, so everything printed below it is present at less than that.

    Where is phenoxyethanol, and why does it matter?

    Phenoxyethanol sits at position 8. That one position does a lot of work for a label-reader, because it is a preservative with a legal ceiling. Under the EU Cosmetics Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, Annex V), phenoxyethanol is permitted in finished cosmetics at a maximum of 1.0%. INCI lists are written heaviest-first for everything above roughly 1% (the US version of that rule is 21 CFR 701.3). So phenoxyethanol is at most 1% here — and every single ingredient printed after it is present at a smaller amount still.

    That turns position 8 into a measuring stick. You cannot read an exact percentage off a label. But you can read a hard upper bound: anything below the phenoxyethanol line is under one percent. And on this label, that is where the entire marine story lives.

    Nib tapping a pencil on three circled entries far down the ingredient list — Chlorella at 21, Padina Pavonica at 26, Porphyridium at 31 — all well below the phenoxyethanol line.
    Nib marks the three marine heroes: Chlorella at 21, Padina Pavonica at 26, Porphyridium at 31 — all of them a good distance below the one-percent line.

    Where do the three marine heroes actually sit?

    Below the line, and spread out. The three algae extracts the product is marketed on land at positions 21, 26 and 31 of 42:

    Position Ingredient What it is
    8 Phenoxyethanol Preservative, capped at 1% — the line everything below is under
    16 Fragrance (Parfum) Undisclosed scent blend — above all three algae
    21 Chlorella Vulgaris Extract Green microalgae — marine hero #1
    26 Padina Pavonica Thallus Extract Brown algae — the lead marketing extract
    31 Porphyridium Cruentum Extract Red microalgae — marine hero #3
    34 Collagen Amino Acids The “Pro-Collagen” ingredient

    Padina Pavonica is the one to watch, because it is the extract most closely tied to the product’s identity. It sits at number 26 — eighteen positions below the one-percent preservative, and below water, glycerin, silicone, shea butter, wheat germ oil and another algae before it. How low is it in real terms? Nobody outside the lab can read the exact figure off a label. But there is a useful reference point: the patent describing Padina Pavonica’s cosmetic use (KR100419134B1) states that below 0.1% “no visible effect is expected,” and recommends a working range of 0.1% to 20% for the inventors’ own formula. At position 26, eighteen slots under a 1% ceiling, this extract is comfortably in the low end of that range — present, declared, and real, but not the bulk of what you are paying for.

    I want to be careful about what that does and does not mean. It is not a statement that the cream does nothing, and it is not a claim that the algae is useless. It is a narrower, checkable point: the ingredients the product is named and sold on are present in small amounts, below a preservative that is legally required to be under one percent.

    Nib holding up the Pro-Collagen Marine Cream jar and squinting at the word Collagen on the front, then at Collagen Amino Acids near the bottom of the back panel, with a small question mark drawn in pencil.
    Nib lines up the name against the label: “Pro-Collagen” on the front, “Collagen Amino Acids” at number 34 on the back — after the fragrance, the shea butter and all three algae.

    Does the “Pro-Collagen” name match the label?

    The ingredient behind the name is Collagen Amino Acids, at position 34 of the 42 — after the fragrance blend, the shea butter, the silicone, and all three marine extracts. A couple of points are worth separating here, because they get muddled in marketing.

    First, the wording. “Collagen Amino Acids” is collagen hydrolysate — collagen broken down into small fragments. It is a moisturizing, film-forming conditioning agent on skin. It is not intact collagen, and topical collagen fragments are not established to rebuild the collagen in your dermis; that is a different mechanism from what the name suggests. I am not going to tell you it does nothing useful on the skin surface — hydrolysed proteins are perfectly reasonable conditioning ingredients — but the leap from “Collagen Amino Acids at #34” to “this restores your skin’s collagen” is a leap the label does not support.

    Second, the placement. Whatever you think the ingredient does, it sits 34th of 42, below the one-percent preservative line along with the algae. The name is the headline; the label is the fine print, and the fine print puts the collagen ingredient near the bottom.

    What about the fragrance, sitting above all of it?

    This is the quietly telling part. Fragrance (Parfum) is at position 16 — above every one of the three marine extracts and above the collagen. In a list ordered by weight, the scent blend is present at a higher level than any of the ingredients the product is actually marketed on.

    Fragrance in a leave-on cream is also the one part of this formula with a documented downside worth stating plainly, and at its real strength. This label individually declares Linalool, Citronellol, Limonene and Geraniol — four fragrance components that EU rules require to be named separately once they exceed a set threshold in a leave-on product, precisely because they are recognised contact allergens. The European Commission’s own scientific committee puts the scale of fragrance allergy at “1 to 3% of the general population”, measured against a standard indicator called Fragrance Mix I. So: a minority of people, not most — but a real and specific minority, and this cream carries four declared allergens listed above the marine actives it is sold on. If you have reacted to a scented moisturizer before, that is the section of the label worth your attention.

    Phenoxyethanol (#8)
    Preservative capped at 1% in finished cosmetics under EU Annex V. The reference line: everything below it is present at under one percent.
    Fragrance / Parfum (#16)
    Undisclosed scent blend, present at a higher level than any marine extract. Four of its allergenic components are declared separately further down.
    Padina Pavonica (#26)
    The lead marine hero, 26th of 42 — below water, glycerin, silicone and fragrance, and well under the 1% line.
    Collagen Amino Acids (#34)
    The ingredient behind the “Pro-Collagen” name: hydrolysed collagen fragments, a surface conditioning agent, not intact dermal collagen.

    If what you want is a moisturizer where you are not paying prestige money for a hero ingredient that turns up two-thirds of the way down the panel, that is a different kind of formula — fewer ingredients, built on a fat rather than a water-and-silicone base. That is the thing we make: our beef tallow moisturizer page walks through what the Evil Goods formula looks like (Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, and I point to it here because the whole piece is about which ingredient sits where). Being honest with you: a simpler formula is a different trade-off, not a guaranteed upgrade, and anyone who reacts to one cream should read any new label — ours included — before switching. The back of the jar is the document that tells the truth; the front is the advertisement.

    FAQ

    Where does Padina Pavonica sit in Elemis Pro-Collagen Marine Cream?
    On the US Elemis and Ulta listings, read 22 October 2026, Padina Pavonica Thallus Extract is the 26th ingredient of 42. It sits below water, glycerin, silicone, a preservative capped at 1%, and the fragrance blend.

    How much marine algae is actually in it?
    You cannot read an exact percentage off a label. What you can read is the ceiling: all three algae extracts sit below phenoxyethanol, a preservative legally limited to 1% in finished cosmetics, so each is present at under one percent by weight. A patent on Padina Pavonica’s cosmetic use notes that below 0.1% no visible effect is expected, which is the low end of its own recommended range.

    Is the “Pro-Collagen” name accurate?
    The ingredient behind the name is Collagen Amino Acids at position 34 of 42 — hydrolysed collagen fragments, a surface conditioning and film-forming agent. It is not intact collagen, and topical collagen fragments are not established to rebuild collagen in the dermis. The name is a brand name, not a claim the label substantiates.

    Does it contain fragrance allergens?
    Yes — the label declares Linalool, Citronellol, Limonene and Geraniol, four components EU rules require to be named separately in a leave-on product because they are recognised contact allergens. The fragrance blend sits at position 16, above all three marine extracts. The European Commission’s scientific committee estimates fragrance allergy affects 1 to 3% of the general population.

    Is the cream bad or unsafe?
    That is not what this analysis says, and it is not a call a label can make. The base is a standard, well-made emulsion of water, glycerin and emollients — nothing wrong with it. The checkable point is narrower: the marine algae and collagen the product is named and sold on are present at under one percent, below the fragrance, and that is a lot to pay for at $150.

    Nib the round desk creature holding up the full Elemis ingredient panel like a document of record and tapping it with a pencil, the front-of-jar Pro-Collagen name small in the background.
    Nib’s parting note: the front of the jar sells the marine collagen, but the back puts the algae at 26 and the collagen at 34 — under the fragrance, under the one-percent line, and the back is the document worth reading.

  • Rhode Peptide Glazing Fluid: Where the Peptide Actually Sits

    Rhode’s Peptide Glazing Fluid is named for a peptide, and it contains exactly one of them: acetyl hexapeptide-8. On the brand’s own current ingredient list it appears at position nine of twenty-two, after water, glycerin, butylene glycol, marula oil, niacinamide and a pair of texture ingredients. An independently uploaded 2022 label shows the same peptide last. Either way, it sits behind niacinamide, the ingredient on this label with the deeper evidence base.

    Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, so read us as interested rather than neutral. What we do here is dull and checkable: we copy the public INCI list, we name where we got it, and we point at where the ingredient on the front of the bottle actually lands on the back. The peptide glazing fluid is a good one to do it to, because the name makes a promise the list can be measured against.

    What is actually in Rhode Peptide Glazing Fluid?

    Here is the list as published on the brand’s own product page, read on 21 October 2026 (the UK storefront shows an identical order). Verbatim, in sequence:

    water (aqua) (eau), glycerin, butylene glycol, sclerocarya birrea seed oil, niacinamide, tetradecane, capryloyl glycerin/sebacic acid copolymer, diheptyl succinate, acetyl hexapeptide-8, sodium hyaluronate, hydroxyacetophenone, caprylyl glycol, glyceryl oleate, dilauryl thiodipropionate, acrylates/c10-30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer, carbomer, sucrose palmitate, sodium phosphate, disodium phosphate, phenoxyethanol, sodium hydroxide, benzyl alcohol

    Source: rhodeskin.com/products/peptide-glazing-fluid, read 2026-10-21.

    That list runs to twenty-two entries. “Sclerocarya birrea seed oil” is marula oil. The single peptide, acetyl hexapeptide-8, is the ninth thing listed. Everything above it is a solvent, a humectant, an oil, a vitamin or a texture agent — all perfectly ordinary, none of them the peptide the product is sold on.

    Pencil sketch of Nib, a small round creature, holding a magnifying glass up to a dewy skincare bottle labelled with a long ingredient list.
    Nib finds a bottle named after a peptide and goes looking for the peptide.

    Why does the peptide’s position matter?

    Cosmetic labels run in descending order of weight, but only down to one percent. Below that line, both US and EU rules let a brand list ingredients in any order it likes. Preservatives such as phenoxyethanol usually live in that sub-one-percent zone, and on this list phenoxyethanol sits at position twenty. So some of the ordering below the first handful of ingredients is a presentation choice, not a strict ranking.

    That caveat cuts two ways, and it is why this particular product is worth a careful look rather than a quick dunk. There is a second, independently sourced version of the list that disagrees:

    Water/Aqua/Eau, Butylene Glycol, Glycerin, Sclerocarya Birrea Seed Oil, Niacinamide, Tetradecane, Capryloyl Glycerin/Sebacic Acid Copolymer, Diheptyl Succinate, Benzyl Alcohol, Glyceryl Oleate, Sucrose Palmitate, Hydroxyacetophenone, Carbomer, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Caprylyl Glycol, Sodium Hydroxide, Disodium Phosphate, Sodium Phosphate, Sodium Hyaluronate, Dilauryl Thiodipropionate, Acetyl Hexapeptide-8

    Source: INCIDecoder, user submission uploaded 2022-06-15, read 2026-10-21.

    On that 2022 list the peptide is dead last — position twenty-one — and phenoxyethanol does not appear at all. We cannot tell you which ordering is printed on the bottle on your shelf today without checking a physical label, and we have not done that, so we are not going to claim one is “the” truth. Three readings are possible: the formula was tweaked between 2022 and now, the brand’s site uses the legal reordering of sub-one-percent ingredients to present the peptide higher, or the old user entry simply had it wrong. The honest version is the one we can stand behind: on the most charitable current source the peptide is ninth, on the other it is last, and neither puts it anywhere near the front.

    Ingredient the product is named for
    Acetyl hexapeptide-8 — the only peptide present.
    Position, brand’s current site
    #9 of 22.
    Position, 2022 user-submitted label
    #21 (last).
    Ingredient with the deeper evidence base here
    Niacinamide, at #5.
    Pencil sketch of Nib counting down a numbered ingredient list with a pencil, mouthing the numbers as the peptide stays out of reach near the bottom.
    Counting down the list: water, glycerin, butylene glycol, marula oil, niacinamide… still counting.

    What does the evidence say about acetyl hexapeptide-8?

    This is where it gets genuinely interesting, and where we would rather lay out the uncertainty than pretend it away. Acetyl hexapeptide-8 — you may know it as Argireline — is a real research ingredient, not a fairy tale. A 2026 systematic review pulled together eleven studies and 412 participants and found it at ten percent produced close to a 49% reduction in wrinkle depth against zero for placebo at four weeks. That is a meaningful result.

    But the same review is careful, and so are we. One included study (Henseler 2023) found no significant reduction at all — the authors reported p = 0.829 — for an Argireline serum that also contained hyaluronic acid. The review’s own summary is that these peptides “do not yet match the rapid, high-magnitude response” of injectables. The effect is real, inconsistent, and heavily dependent on concentration.

    Concentration is the catch. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review’s safety assessment cites an industry survey in which acetyl hexapeptide-8 is used in leave-on face products at up to 0.005%. The wrinkle studies that impress people use it at ten percent. That is a two-thousand-fold gap between the dose that gets studied and the dose that typically goes into a jar. Rhode does not disclose a percentage for its peptide, so we cannot tell you which end of that range this fluid sits at — only that the ingredient’s position on the list does not suggest the high end.

    There is one more quiet constraint. A 2025 review of acetyl hexapeptide-8 in cosmeceuticals notes that, being water-loving and fairly large, the molecule “faces limited permeability through the lipophilic stratum corneum, making effective dermal delivery challenging.” A peptide has to get past the surface to do the work it is studied for, and that is not a given from a leave-on fluid.

    Pencil sketch of Nib squinting at two different copies of the same label pinned side by side, each showing the peptide in a different spot.
    Two sourced labels, two different spots for the same peptide. Nib pins both up.

    So what is doing the glow?

    Look back at the top of the list. Glycerin is second; it is one of the best-evidenced humectants there is. Niacinamide is fifth — and its position above the one-percent line matters, because a 2025 dermatology review notes that “clinical studies consistently show significant improvements in ageing signs with 2–5% niacinamide concentrations.” Marula oil and a stack of emollients fill in the texture. Those ingredients, not the ninth one, are what most formulators would credit for a dewy finish. We will not tell you what literally produces the “glaze” — that would need rheology testing nobody has shown us — only that the hydrators and oils doing the visible work all sit ahead of the namesake peptide.

    None of this makes the Peptide Glazing Fluid a bad product. It is a competent, pleasant humectant-and-niacinamide formula with a peptide along for the ride and a very good name. The thing to notice is the distance between the word on the front and the position on the back: the ingredient the product is sold on is not the ingredient doing the most measurable work in it.

    Pencil sketch of Nib holding up a small card that reads up to 0.005 percent, eyebrows raised at the gap between a studied dose and a typical one.
    The regulator-adjacent survey number Nib keeps coming back to.

    What does a serum built around the peptide look like instead?

    A fair question once you have seen the list is: what would a formula look like if the peptide were the point rather than the name? For contrast, our own Copper Peptide Blue Honey Serum from Evil Goods (yes, ours) leads with copper tripeptide-1, a different class of peptide, and lists it up front rather than ninth. We are not going to claim it outperforms anything — different peptide, different evidence, and we would be breaking our own rules to promise a result. The only point worth making is structural: when an active is the argument, it tends to appear where the weight is, near the top. When it is the brand name, it can appear anywhere.

    The takeaway is the same one Nib reaches for at the end of every desk shift: read the list, not the name. A product can be named for its least-concentrated ingredient entirely legally, and plenty are.

    Frequently asked questions

    Does Rhode Peptide Glazing Fluid actually contain a peptide?

    Yes — acetyl hexapeptide-8, one peptide. On the brand’s current list it is the ninth ingredient of twenty-two; on a 2022 user-submitted label it is the last. Neither source places it near the front.

    Is acetyl hexapeptide-8 proven to reduce wrinkles?

    The evidence is real but mixed and dose-dependent. At ten percent, pooled studies show roughly 49% wrinkle reduction at four weeks; one study found no significant effect; typical leave-on use is reported at up to 0.005%. The brand does not disclose its concentration.

    Why do two sources list the peptide in different positions?

    Ingredients under one percent can legally be listed in any order. The brand’s site may reorder sub-one-percent ingredients, the formula may have changed since 2022, or the older entry may be wrong. Confirming it needs a physical bottle, which we have not checked.

    What is the best-evidenced active on this label?

    Niacinamide, at position five. A 2025 review reports consistent improvement in signs of ageing at 2–5% concentrations — and position five implies it sits above the one-percent line.

    Pencil sketch of Nib setting down the magnifying glass, satisfied, beside a short note that says read the list, not the name.
    Nib’s takeaway: the name on the front is a marketing decision; the list on the back is the formula.

  • St. Ives Apricot Scrub: Walnut (#2), Corn (#6), Apricot (#23)

    St. Ives Fresh Skin Apricot Scrub is named after apricot, but on the current label the apricot extract sits at position 23 of 24 — second-to-last, almost certainly a trace amount. The particles that actually scrub your face are walnut shell powder, the second ingredient, and corn kernel meal, the sixth. Neither is on the front of the tube. We read the label so you can see exactly where the apricot lands.

    This is one of the most-searched face products in the United States, and a 2026 reformulation quietly changed what is inside it. So we did the thing the name discourages: we read the back of the tube instead of the front.

    What is actually in the St. Ives Apricot Scrub?

    Here is the full ingredient list, quoted verbatim from the brand’s own US product page at stives.com (retrieved 20 October 2026) and confirmed line-for-line against two major-retailer listings — a national big-box retailer and a national pharmacy chain — for both the 6 oz and 10.15 oz sizes. All of them match.

    Water (Aqua), Juglans Regia (Walnut) Shell Powder, Glyceryl Stearate SE, Glycerin, Cetearyl Alcohol, Zea Mays (Corn) Kernel Meal, Cetyl Alcohol, Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Glyceryl Stearate, PEG-100 Stearate, Cetyl Acetate, Benzyl Alcohol, Ceteareth-20, Acetylated Lanolin Alcohol, Carbomer, Polysorbate 60, Triethanolamine, Fragrance (Parfum), Disodium EDTA, Benzoic Acid, Sorbic Acid, Prunus Armeniaca (Apricot) Fruit Extract, Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891)

    That is a long list. Reading an INCI list is simpler than it looks: by US labelling rules, ingredients are listed in descending order of weight down to 1 percent, after which they can appear in any order. So the top of the list is most of the jar, and the bottom is the part measured in fractions of a percent. The useful question is never “is the ingredient in here?” — it is “how far down the list is it?”

    Nib, a small round desk creature in loose pencil, holding a magnifying glass over the back of a St. Ives Apricot Scrub tube, reading down a long ingredient list while the front of the tube just says the word apricot.
    Nib reads the back of the tube, not the front.

    Where does the apricot actually sit?

    Position 23 of 24. The only ingredient below it is Titanium Dioxide, which is there for opacity — to make the cream look white. By INCI convention everything in that tail is present at well under 1 percent, and in practice the last few ingredients are usually fractions of that. Prunus Armeniaca (Apricot) Fruit Extract is, on this label, a finishing touch rather than a working ingredient.

    So where does the apricot smell come from? Almost certainly from “Fragrance (Parfum)” at position 19 — a single composite entry that, under US law, does not have to disclose its individual components. The apricot you smell is the fragrance blend; the apricot in the name is the extract near the bottom. Those are two different things, and only one of them is doing any work.

    One thing we could not resolve: the stives.com page still describes the product as “packed with 100% natural exfoliants including milled walnut shells and apricot pits.” The current INCI lists no apricot pit or seed powder at all — only the fruit extract at 23. That reads like website copy that was not updated after the reformulation, but we have not checked a freshly purchased physical tube, so we are flagging it rather than asserting it.

    Nib pointing a pencil at two grains on the desk labelled walnut shell and corn, with a third tiny grain labelled apricot pushed to the far edge of the desk.
    The two grains doing the scrubbing — and the one that is not.

    What is doing the scrubbing — and why walnut and corn?

    The physical exfoliation comes from walnut and corn — both high on the list, and neither on the front of the tube:

    Juglans Regia (Walnut) Shell Powder — position 2
    The main scrub particle, and the second-largest component after water. This is the ingredient at the centre of the old debate about whether ground shell is too sharp for facial skin.
    Zea Mays (Corn) Kernel Meal — position 6
    A second, softer physical exfoliant. Corn. Not in the name, not in the marketing, but sitting well above the apricot.
    Prunus Armeniaca (Apricot) Fruit Extract — position 23
    The ingredient the product is named after. Second-to-last. Not an exfoliant at this level and not perceptible as one.

    About the sharpness debate: walnut-shell scrubs were the subject of a 2016 US lawsuit alleging the particles caused micro-tears. A California judge dismissed it in 2018, concluding the plaintiffs had not shown the scrubs caused micro-tears or that micro-tears were a safety hazard. That is worth being precise about: dismissed for lack of evidence is not the same as disproven, and it is not the same as proven harm. The honest summary is that the mechanism is disputed, and many dermatologists simply prefer rounded particles or chemical exfoliants for the face. We are not telling you the scrub hurt anyone; we are telling you where the grains sit on the label.

    Nib holding two versions of the same ingredient list side by side, an old one and a new one, circling where one preservative was swapped for another.
    Same tube, two formulas: Nib compares the old list with the new.

    What changed in the 2026 reformulation?

    Older tubes of this scrub carried a different preservative system. The previous formula used Methylisothiazolinone — a well-known sensitiser that is restricted in leave-on products in the EU — and individually disclosed the fragrance allergens Limonene and Linalool. The current formula drops Methylisothiazolinone in favour of a Benzyl Alcohol / Benzoic Acid / Sorbic Acid system, and no longer breaks out individual fragrance allergens: they are folded into “Fragrance (Parfum).”

    Benzyl Alcohol, at position 13, is worth a note of its own. In March 2026 the American Contact Dermatitis Society named it the 2026 Allergen of the Year. The point of that designation is awareness, not alarm: in the 2021–2022 North American patch-test cycle its overall positivity rate was low, around 0.5 percent, but the share of positives that were currently relevant was the highest of any allergen tested. If you have a known Benzyl Alcohol sensitivity it is useful to know it is in here as a preservative; for most people it is an ordinary, widely used ingredient.

    The quieter change is the fragrance disclosure. US law lets a brand list “Fragrance” as one word and keep the components a trade secret, so the loss of the individually named Limonene and Linalool is entirely legal — see the FDA’s own page on fragrances in cosmetics and its list of fragrance allergens. It does mean that if you reacted to the old tube because of a specific fragrance allergen, the new label gives you less to go on. A 2026 review of adverse effects from cosmetic products notes that fragrances remain the most common cause of cosmetic contact dermatitis and that US labelling is less granular than the EU’s on exactly this point.

    Nib setting the St. Ives tube down and picking up a plain bar of soap with a short label, weighing the long list against the short one.
    A long list on one side of the desk, a short one on the other.

    What should you use instead?

    That depends on what you actually wanted the scrub to do. If the appeal was a creamy cleanser that also buffs, there are gentler physical and chemical exfoliants on the market built around rounded beads or mild acids rather than ground shell. If the appeal was simply “something natural to wash my face with,” the honest answer is that a scrub is more than you need most days — a plain cleanser and the occasional, gentle exfoliant does the same job with less friction.

    Full disclosure, because this site is published by the team behind Evil Goods and we say so everywhere: our own cleanser is a tallow soap bar. We are not going to pretend it exfoliates — it does not, and this piece is about reading labels honestly. What it does have is a short, readable ingredient list, which is the whole contrast worth drawing against a long-list emulsion whose named hero sits near the bottom. If redness and reactivity are what sent you looking, our page on tallow for sensitive skin walks through why a shorter list is easier to troubleshoot. Neither is a treatment for anything; they are a simpler thing to wash with.

    Frequently asked questions

    Is there any apricot in the St. Ives Apricot Scrub?
    Yes — Prunus Armeniaca (Apricot) Fruit Extract is on the label, but at position 23 of 24, which by INCI convention means well under 1 percent. The exfoliating particles are walnut shell powder (2) and corn kernel meal (6), not apricot.
    What is the grit in the scrub made of?
    Walnut shell powder, the second ingredient, with corn kernel meal as a softer second exfoliant at position 6.
    Did St. Ives change the formula?
    The current US label shows a preservative system of Benzyl Alcohol, Benzoic Acid and Sorbic Acid, where older tubes used Methylisothiazolinone and individually listed the fragrance allergens Limonene and Linalool. We could not confirm the exact date the formula changed, so we are not stating one.
    Is walnut shell bad for your face?
    It is disputed, not settled. A 2016 lawsuit over micro-tears was dismissed in 2018 for lack of evidence. Many dermatologists prefer rounded particles or chemical exfoliants for facial skin, but “dismissed” is not the same as “proven harmful.”
    Nib waving from behind the ingredient desk, the St. Ives tube and the magnifying glass set down, a small sign on the desk reading read the back of the tube.
    Nib’s standing advice: the name is the marketing; the list is the product.

  • Weleda Skin Food: Where the Phyto-Infusion Botanicals Really Sit

    Weleda markets Skin Food around its “Phyto-Infusion” of rosemary, calendula, chamomile and pansy, calling it “at the heart of the formula.” On Weleda’s own US ingredient list, those four extracts sit at positions #10, #13, #14 and #15 of a list that runs to 22 lines. The actual top of the formula is water, sunflower oil, lanolin, sweet almond oil, beeswax and alcohol. The botanicals are real and they are in the jar — they are just not where the volume is.

    Skin Food turned 100 in 2026, and the centennial campaign has handed it a second life: BeautyMatter reports 22.3 million TikTok views in 2024, up more than 2,400% year on year, and Google Trends shows searches peaking in May 2025 around the anniversary. A lot of new buyers are about to flip the tube over and read the back. This is what they will find, in the order the brand itself prints it.

    Full disclosure up front, because this site is openly owned: Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, which makes a tallow moisturizer. I will point to it once, clearly labelled, where it is relevant. The INCI reading below is checkable against Weleda’s own page regardless of who is writing it.

    What does the Weleda Skin Food ingredient list actually say?

    Here is the list verbatim from Weleda’s US product page (weleda.com, fetched 19 October 2026), with the four advertised botanicals marked:

    # INCI name Note
    1 Water (Aqua) The dominant phase — standard for an oil-in-water cream
    2 Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil Largest oil
    3 Lanolin Primary occlusive
    4 Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil
    5 Beeswax (Cera Alba)
    6 Alcohol Grain-fermented ethanol, per Weleda
    7 Polyglyceryl-3 Polyricinoleate Emulsifier — items below here are usually under ~1%
    8 Glycerin
    9 Limonene Declared fragrance allergen
    10 Viola Tricolor Extract Phyto-Infusion botanical — pansy
    11 Hydrolyzed Beeswax
    12 Sorbitan Olivate Second emulsifier
    13 Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Extract Phyto-Infusion botanical
    14 Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract Phyto-Infusion botanical
    15 Calendula Officinalis Flower Extract Phyto-Infusion botanical
    16 Arginine
    17 Zinc Sulfate
    18 Fragrance (Parfum)
    19 Linalool Declared fragrance allergen
    20 Geraniol Declared fragrance allergen
    21 Citral Declared fragrance allergen
    22 Coumarin Declared fragrance allergen

    The exact same order, line for line, appears on a major US retailer’s 1 fl oz listing (retrieved 19 October 2026). One caveat worth being honest about: an Amazon listing and the same retailer’s 2.5 fl oz SKU show a slightly different order — sweet almond oil higher, fragrance earlier, limonene later — which may reflect a different tube size, a regional (EU-packaged) label, or a minor revision around the centennial repackaging. I have used Weleda’s own US page as the primary reference and flagged the discrepancy here rather than papering over it. Both orders agree on the part that matters: all four named botanicals sit in the bottom half.

    Nib, a small round desk creature in loose pencil, holding a magnifying glass over the back of a Weleda Skin Food tube, squinting at a long ingredient panel while the front of the tube shows its familiar green-and-orange label.
    Nib does what the marketing hopes you won’t: reads all 22 lines, not just the four on the front.

    Where does the “Phyto-Infusion” really sit in the formula?

    INCI order is declared by descending concentration down to roughly 1%, after which brands can list the remainder in any order. Polyglyceryl-3 Polyricinoleate at #7 is an emulsifier of the kind usually dosed at about 0.5–2%, so everything from there down is most likely present at trace levels. That puts the first advertised botanical, pansy (Viola Tricolor) at #10, almost certainly under 1% — and rosemary, chamomile and calendula below it.

    I want to be careful here: “likely below 1%” is an inference from how INCI lists work, not a number Weleda publishes. The brand does not disclose exact percentages, and I cannot tell you the figure. What the list does tell you, unambiguously, is the ranking. The “heart of the formula,” by the brand’s own ordering, is the oil-and-wax base. The named botanicals are the garnish, not the main course. That is not a criticism of the product — a well-built oil-in-water balm is exactly what Skin Food is. It is a note about the gap between the front of the tube and the back.

    Nib standing next to a tall stacked bar chart drawn in pencil, where the bottom blocks labelled water, sunflower oil, lanolin and beeswax are huge, and four tiny slivers near the top are labelled pansy, rosemary, chamomile and calendula.
    By INCI convention the first block is the whole base. The four hero botanicals are the slivers near the top.

    What about the fragrance allergens and the lanolin?

    Five compounds on this label — Limonene (#9), Linalool (#19), Geraniol (#20), Citral (#21) and Coumarin (#22) — are fragrance ingredients the EU requires to be declared individually in leave-on cosmetics once they exceed 0.001% (10 ppm), under Cosmetics Regulation No 1223/2009. Their presence on the list tells you they are above that threshold; it does not tell you by how much.

    Weleda’s point — stated on its own “free-of” page — is that it uses no synthetic fragrance; the scent comes from natural essential oils, and the grain alcohol at #6 acts in part as a natural preservative. That is accurate. It is worth reading their reasoning before second-guessing the alcohol. But “natural” and “low-allergen” are different claims: natural essential oils still carry those same five declarable compounds. In a Copenhagen study of 6,004 dermatitis patients (Heisterberg et al., Contact Dermatitis 2017), oxidised linalool was the single most common fragrance allergen at 3.9% positive patch tests and oxidised limonene was third at 2.5%. Both compounds are “pre-haptens” that become more sensitising as they oxidise on air contact — relevant for a leave-on cream, as the open-access review by Ogueta et al. (2022) lays out.

    Then there is lanolin at #3, one of the larger components here. Lanolin is a genuinely good occlusive, which is why it is high on the list. It is also a recognised sensitiser in specific high-risk groups: the American Contact Dermatitis Society named it Allergen of the Year for 2023 precisely because its sensitising potential is widely underestimated. Reported contact-allergy rates run about 0.4% in the general European population, rising to a few percent in referred dermatitis patients and those with atopic skin or chronic leg ulcers. None of this says the product harms anyone — most people use lanolin creams without any trouble. It is context for the “gentle, good for sensitive skin” framing this cream often gets: a formula built on lanolin plus five declared fragrance allergens is a reasonable one, but it is not an obvious first pick for reactive skin.

    Nib holding up five small cards drawn in pencil, each lettered Limonene, Linalool, Geraniol, Citral and Coumarin, with a tiny magnifier icon on each, while a scroll beside Nib reads EU 1223/2009.
    Five separately declared fragrance allergens. ‘Natural’ scent still has to list them — that is the whole point of the rule.

    So what should you take from the label?

    If you love Skin Food, this is not a reason to stop. It is a rich, oil-heavy balm that does the occlusive job well, and the botanicals — small as they are — are really in there. The honest reading is just that the marketing puts four trace extracts at the “heart” of a formula whose heart is actually sunflower oil, lanolin, sweet almond oil and beeswax, with a fragrance system that carries five EU-declarable allergens.

    If what drew you to Skin Food was the idea of a simple, oil-based cream for dry patches and you would rather have fewer fragrance compounds to track, that is the point at which our own product is a fair thing to mention. Evil Goods makes a Whipped Tallow & Manuka Honey Moisturizer (ours) built on tallow, Manuka honey and olive oil, with a short, fully visible ingredient list and no added fragrance. It is a different base — animal fat rather than plant oils and lanolin — so it is not for everyone, and tallow is its own debate. Compare the labels side by side and decide for yourself; that is the entire spirit of this site.

    Nib sitting cross-legged with a notebook, writing a tidy summary; beside Nib a simple drawn jar labelled ‘fewer moving parts’ sits next to the Weleda tube, both the same size, no winner marked.
    Nib’s takeaway: nothing scary here — just more moving parts than the front of the tube suggests.

    Frequently asked questions

    Marketed hero
    “Phyto-Infusion” of pansy, rosemary, chamomile and calendula
    Where they sit
    #10, #13, #14 and #15, out of 22 lines (weleda.com US order)
    Actual base
    Water, sunflower oil, lanolin, sweet almond oil, beeswax, alcohol (#1–6)
    Declared fragrance allergens
    Limonene, Linalool, Geraniol, Citral, Coumarin (5)
    Source
    weleda.com product page, fetched 19 Oct 2026; corroborated by a major US retailer’s 1 fl oz listing

    Where do rosemary, calendula, chamomile and pansy fall on the Weleda Skin Food ingredient list?
    On Weleda’s US page they are at positions #10 (pansy/Viola Tricolor), #13 (rosemary), #14 (chamomile) and #15 (calendula), out of 22 lines — all in the bottom half, after both emulsifiers, so almost certainly present at trace levels.

    What are the first ingredients in Weleda Skin Food?
    Water, sunflower seed oil, lanolin, sweet almond oil, beeswax and alcohol — that is the real base of the cream by INCI order.

    Does Weleda Skin Food contain fragrance allergens?
    Yes — five are individually declared on the label: Limonene, Linalool, Geraniol, Citral and Coumarin. They come from natural essential oils, but the EU still requires each to be listed once it exceeds 0.001% in a leave-on product.

    Is Weleda Skin Food good for sensitive skin?
    It depends on the skin. It is lanolin-based (ACDS Allergen of the Year 2023) and carries five declared fragrance allergens, which is worth knowing if your skin reacts easily. Most people use it without issue; a patch test is sensible if you are prone to contact allergy.

    Why does the ingredient order differ between retailers?
    Weleda’s US site and a major retailer’s 1 fl oz SKU agree (limonene at #9). An Amazon listing and that retailer’s 2.5 fl oz SKU show a different order — likely a size, region or minor-revision difference. Always trust the physical tube in your hand over any website.

    Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods. We read labels, including those of products that compete with ours, and we link outward to the regulators and studies so you can check us.

    Nib waving from behind the ingredient desk, the Weleda tube and Nib’s magnifying glass set down, a small sign on the desk reading ‘read the back of the tube.’
    Nib’s standing advice for every hundred-year-old cult product: read the back of the tube.

  • Tom’s of Maine: Hops Is Ingredient #6. Propylene Glycol Leads.

    Tom’s of Maine Long Lasting Unscented is sold on its “odor-fighting hops.” Read the back of the Unscented stick and hops (Humulus Lupulus Extract) is the 6th ingredient of 9. The thing in first place — the single largest ingredient by weight — is Propylene Glycol, a solvent and humectant that Tom’s thought worth its own FAQ entry to explain. The ingredient the brand leads with on the front of the pack sits two-thirds of the way down the back.

    This desk runs the same exercise on everything: quote the real ingredient list from a public source, then point at where the thing on the front of the pack actually lands. Tom’s of Maine is a good one to run it on, because it is probably the most widely shelved “natural” deodorant in the US — it turns up at CVS, Walgreens, H-E-B and Whole Foods — and its marketing and its label are easy to line up side by side.

    Nib, a small round desk creature, holding a magnifying glass over the back of a Tom's of Maine deodorant stick, reading the ingredient panel while the front of the pack shows a hops cone.
    Nib turns the stick around and starts down the panel: propylene glycol, water, sodium stearate — a fair way to go before the hops the front of the pack is selling.

    What is actually in Tom’s of Maine Long Lasting Unscented?

    Here is the ingredient list, quoted verbatim. I read it on the EWG Skin Deep entry for the unscented SKU on 18 October 2026, and cross-checked the identical list on H-E-B’s product listing (heb.com, product 778780) the same day — the two match exactly:

    Propylene Glycol, Aqua/Water/Eau, Sodium Stearate, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice (Organic/Biologique), Glyceryl Laurate, Humulus Lupulus (Hops) Extract, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil (Organic/Biologique), Ascorbic Acid, Cymbopogon Flexuosus Oil (Organic/Biologique).

    Sources: EWG Skin Deep and the H-E-B retailer listing (heb.com, product 778780), both read 18 October 2026. Nine ingredients. One standing caveat on any product: formulas get revised and retailer and database listings lag the physical stick, so if you are checking your own tube, read the panel printed on it. There is a real wrinkle on this one — see the note on zinc below. This is the list those two sources showed on the date above, and they agree.

    Nib pointing a pencil at the word Propylene Glycol at the very top of the ingredient list, eyebrows raised, having expected to find the hops up there instead.
    Nib finds propylene glycol in first place — the single biggest ingredient in the stick, and the one with its own explainer on the brand’s site.

    Where does the hops actually sit?

    At position 6 of 9. That puts Humulus Lupulus (Hops) Extract — the ingredient the pack is named for in all but so many words — below propylene glycol, water, sodium stearate, the aloe, and glyceryl laurate. Under US labeling rules (21 CFR 701.3), ingredients above 1% are listed heaviest-first; anything at or below 1% can go in any order after that. You cannot read a percentage off a label. But the shape of a nine-item list with the marketed hero at sixth, and three botanicals trailing behind it, tells you plainly that the hops is a minor part of the stick by weight, not the bulk of it.

    There is a quieter ingredient worth flagging one slot above the hops. Glyceryl Laurate at position 5 is a genuine odor-control ingredient — it is a monoglyceride with documented activity against gram-positive bacteria, the kind that live in an armpit — and Tom’s does not market it at all. So alongside the hops it advertises at #6, the stick carries an unmarketed antibacterial ingredient at #5. The marketed hero is not the only thing in the formula with a reason to be there; it is the one with the best story on the front of the pack.

    Nib holding up the ingredient list and tapping the pencil on position six, where Humulus Lupulus Hops Extract sits, two-thirds of the way down the short panel.
    Nib marks the spot: the hops the stick is sold on turns up at number six of nine, below the aloe and an antibacterial ingredient the brand never mentions.

    Why does propylene glycol lead the list — and should you care?

    Propylene glycol is first because it is the base the stick is built on: a solvent and humectant that carries everything else and keeps the stick soft. Tom’s addresses it directly on its ingredients page, writing that “it’s not your typical version” and that they use a plant-derived propylene glycol “sourced from vegetable oils—not nonrenewable fossil fuels.” Worth being precise here: plant-derived and petroleum-derived propylene glycol are the same molecule once made, so the sourcing is an environmental point, not a difference your skin can tell apart.

    The reason a label-reader notices propylene glycol at all is contact allergy, and this is where I want to be careful to stay inside what the evidence says. Propylene glycol is a recognised contact allergen and sits in the North American Contact Dermatitis Group’s standard screening series. A large NACDG dataset (PMID 19321115, 23,359 patients patch-tested) found about 3.5% reacted to it, with personal-care products the most common source of exposure. A review in the dermatology literature puts it bluntly — “it is especially important to think of propylene glycol allergy in cases of contact dermatitis from deodorant.” That is a minority of people, and a 3.5% patch-test rate is not “this will irritate you.” It means a small but real share of users react to it, deodorant is a classic place it shows up, and it is sitting at position #1 here. If you have had a reaction to a deodorant before, that is the ingredient worth knowing is in first place.

    Propylene Glycol (#1)
    Solvent/humectant base — the largest ingredient by weight, and a recognised contact allergen in the NACDG standard series.
    Sodium Stearate (#3)
    The soap-like ingredient that sets the stick into a solid.
    Glyceryl Laurate (#5)
    An antibacterial monoglyceride doing quiet odor-control work — not marketed.
    Humulus Lupulus / Hops Extract (#6)
    The marketed hero, sixth of nine, below the aloe and the glyceryl laurate.
    Sunflower Oil, Ascorbic Acid, Lemongrass Oil (#7–9)
    Trace-level botanical additions at the tail of the list.
    Nib looking puzzled at two different printed ingredient panels side by side, one with a Zinc Ricinoleate entry and one without, holding the pencil up as a question mark.
    Nib spots the catch: an older panel lists zinc ricinoleate, the current ones do not — and the deodorant’s own marketing still mentions “zinc salts.”

    What is going on with the zinc?

    This is the honest loose end, and I would rather show it than tidy it away. The same H-E-B listing that carries the nine-ingredient list above also describes the product in its marketing copy as using “odor trapping zinc salts” — yet there is no zinc ingredient anywhere in that list. An older INCIDecoder entry for the same product, uploaded by a user in 2021, does include Zinc Ricinoleate, sitting at position 5 and pushing the hops down to #7 of 10. The two current sources I read (H-E-B and EWG) do not show it.

    I am not going to tell you Tom’s removed the zinc, because I cannot confirm that against a current physical label — the difference could be a reformulation, or it could be a database and SKU lag, and those look identical from the outside. What I can say is that the current public lists I quoted do not contain zinc, the marketing copy still references it, and an older list did. If you have a current stick, the back panel settles it in a second. It matters for one specific reason, which is the next section.

    Does the hops claim stand up on its own?

    Hops does have real antibacterial activity — this is not a made-up ingredient. The study usually behind deodorant hops claims is Dumas et al. 2009 in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, which showed a supercritical hops extract was active in vitro against Corynebacterium xerosis and Staphylococcus epidermidis — two gram-positive organisms involved in body odor. So far so good for the ingredient.

    The nuance a label-reader should know: the in vivo part of that same study, the part that measured actual underarm odor over eight hours, tested a hops and zinc ricinoleate stick — not hops on its own. Zinc ricinoleate is itself a well-described odor-binder (Abendrot & Lauffer, 2018). I am not going to claim the current Tom’s stick does or does not work — I have not tested it, and efficacy is not a call this desk makes from a label. The checkable point is narrower: the best-known human evidence for “hops in a deodorant” pairs it with zinc, and the current public ingredient lists for this stick do not show zinc. That is a fair question to sit with, not a verdict.

    If what you want is a deodorant where you are not reading a solvent in first place and then hunting for the active two-thirds of the way down, that is a different kind of formula — and it is the thing we make. Our aluminum-free tallow deodorant at Evil Goods is built on tallow rather than a propylene-glycol base (Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, and I point to it here because this whole piece is about which ingredient sits where). Being straight with you: a different base is a different trade-off, not a magic fix, and anyone who reacts to one deodorant should read any new label — ours included — before switching. The back of the pack is the honest document; the front is the advertisement.

    FAQ

    Where does hops sit in Tom’s of Maine Long Lasting Unscented?
    On the current H-E-B and EWG Skin Deep listings, read 18 October 2026, Humulus Lupulus (Hops) Extract is the 6th ingredient of 9. It sits below propylene glycol, water, sodium stearate, aloe and glyceryl laurate.

    What is the first ingredient?
    Propylene Glycol. By the heaviest-first convention of INCI lists, that makes it the single largest ingredient by weight in the stick. It is a solvent and humectant that forms the base of the formula, and Tom’s has a dedicated FAQ entry explaining it.

    Is propylene glycol a problem in deodorant?
    For most people, no. It is a recognised contact allergen in the North American Contact Dermatitis Group standard series, and a large patch-test dataset found about 3.5% of tested patients reacted to it, with personal-care products the commonest source. That is a minority, but deodorant is a classic place it shows up, so it is worth knowing it is in first place if you have reacted to a deodorant before.

    Does the deodorant contain zinc?
    The two current public lists I quoted do not list any zinc, but the retailer’s marketing copy still mentions “zinc salts,” and an older 2021 ingredient list included Zinc Ricinoleate at position 5. I could not confirm against a current physical label whether zinc is present, so I am not asserting it was removed — a current back panel would settle it.

    Does hops actually fight odor?
    Hops extract has shown antibacterial activity against odor-related gram-positive bacteria in vitro. The best-known human odor study, Dumas et al. 2009, tested hops combined with zinc ricinoleate rather than hops alone, which is worth knowing given the zinc question above. Whether any particular stick works is not something a label can tell you.

    Nib the round desk creature holding up the Tom's of Maine ingredient panel like a document of record and tapping it with a pencil, as if to say the back of the pack tells the real story.
    Nib’s parting note: the front of the pack sells the hops, but the back puts it sixth and leads with propylene glycol — and the back is the document worth reading.

  • Dr. Teal’s Sleep Lotion: the magnesium brand, with magnesium at #15

    Dr. Teal’s is, more than any other drugstore brand, “the magnesium brand” — Epsom salt is its whole identity. So it is worth turning its Sleep Body Lotion over and reading the back. On the label, Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom salt) is the 15th entry, and Melatonin, the other hero named on the front, is the 16th. Both sit in the bottom half of the list, below water, glycerin, the emulsifiers, shea butter, cocoa butter and vitamin E. Fragrance appears at position 8 — higher than either active. By INCI convention the list runs heaviest-first, so the two actives the product is sold on are among the least of it by weight.

    This desk runs the same exercise on everything: quote the real ingredient list, then point at where the thing on the front of the bottle actually lands. Dr. Teal’s Sleep Body Lotion is an unusually clean case to run it on, because the brand-promise and the label are so easy to line up. The brand is named for Epsom salt. The lotion is marketed on magnesium and melatonin for a better night’s sleep. And both of those named ingredients turn up in the back third of the list, after the product is, in effect, already a finished moisturizer.

    Nib, a small round desk creature, holding a magnifying glass over the back of a Dr. Teal's sleep lotion bottle, reading the long ingredient panel while the front of the bottle shows lavender and a moon.
    Nib turns the sleep lotion around and starts counting down the panel: water, glycerin, the emulsifiers — and a long way to go before the magnesium the brand is named for.

    What is actually in Dr. Teal’s Sleep Body Lotion?

    Here is the full ingredient list, quoted verbatim. I read it on a major retailer’s listing (TCIN 1011645107) on 17 October 2026, and cross-checked the identical list on Wegmans’ first-party listing the same day, because the first listing was a marketplace seller and I wanted a second source that was not:

    Water (Aqua, Eau), Glycerin, Isopropyl Palmitate, Glyceryl Stearate, PEG-100 Stearate, Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate, Cetyl Alcohol, Fragrance (Parfum), Ormenis Multicaulis Extract (Chamomile), Lavandula Hybrida Oil, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Oil, Pogostemon Cablin Oil (Patchouli), Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter, Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salt), Melatonin, Stearic Acid, Phenoxyethanol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Zea Mays (Corn) Starch, Magnesium Aluminum Silicate, Xanthan Gum, Dimethicone, Disodium EDTA, Chlorphenesin, Sodium Hydroxide, Benzyl Alcohol.

    Source: the retailer listing, TCIN 1011645107, and Wegmans.com, both read 17 October 2026. I’ll number the entries from the top, with the two lavender oils sharing slots 10 and 11. One standing note on this product: formulas get revised, and ingredient lists on retailer pages lag the bottle. If you are checking your own jar, read the panel printed on it. This is the formula those two listings showed on the date above.

    Nib pointing a pencil at the word Fragrance near the top of the ingredient list, with a small question mark, having expected to find the magnesium there first.
    Nib finds fragrance at number eight — higher up the list than either active the bottle is actually sold on.

    Where does the magnesium actually sit?

    At position 15 of 26. That puts Magnesium Sulfate — the Epsom salt this entire brand is built on — below water, glycerin, isopropyl palmitate, two emulsifiers, an absorbent, cetyl alcohol, the fragrance, chamomile, both lavender oils, patchouli, shea butter, cocoa butter and vitamin E. In other words, by the time you reach the magnesium on this label, the product is already a complete moisturizer with a scent. The magnesium is added after all of that.

    Under US labeling rules (21 CFR 701.3), ingredients above 1% must be listed in descending order of weight; anything at 1% or less can be listed in any order after them. You cannot read exact percentages off a label. But preservatives are a useful landmark, because they are used at a fraction of a percent. Here Phenoxyethanol sits at position 18 — only three slots below the magnesium. That places magnesium sulfate close to the sub-1% tail of the formula. The position cannot give you a precise number, but it tells you plainly the magnesium is a small part of the bottle by weight, not the bulk of it. This is the same pattern other magnesium lotions show — this desk found magnesium at position 16 in a Hempz lotion and dead last in a Schmidt’s bar — but it lands differently here, because no other brand has staked its name on the mineral the way Dr. Teal’s has.

    There is a second “magnesium” further down the list, and it is worth separating out so nobody double-counts. Magnesium Aluminum Silicate at position 21 is a clay-mineral thickener (sold under names like Veegum). It is not Epsom salt, it is not there for any sleep or relaxation reason, and it does not add to the “magnesium” story on the front of the bottle. It is in the formula to help control texture. If you scan the list and clock “two magnesiums,” only one of them is the one being marketed.

    Nib holding up the ingredient list and pointing the pencil at position fifteen, where Magnesium Sulfate Epsom Salt sits, well down in the bottom half of the panel.
    Nib marks the spot: the Epsom salt that gives Dr. Teal’s its whole identity turns up at number fifteen, in the bottom half of its own label.

    And the melatonin — where is that?

    One slot below the magnesium, at position 16 of 26. By the descending-order convention that means it sits even lower in the formula by weight than the Epsom salt does — which is already down at 15. Melatonin is the second ingredient Dr. Teal’s names on the front of this bottle; on the back it is the 16th thing in it, below the fragrance, below both butters, below vitamin E.

    I want to be careful about what that does and does not mean. A position on a label tells you about relative weight; it does not tell you a dose is “too low to work,” and I am not going to claim it does — that would be a statement about a therapeutic effect, which is exactly the kind of claim this desk doesn’t make. What the label shows is where melatonin sits in the order: 16th of 26, in the lower half. There is also a small internal mismatch worth noting for a label-reader. The front of the bottle bills this as a blend of “Melatonin, Lavender & Chamomile.” On the back, chamomile (position 9) and both lavender oils (10 and 11) appear well above the melatonin at 16 — so of the three named botanicals-and-actives, the one in the product’s own name arguably lands lowest.

    Fragrance / Parfum (#8)
    Higher up the list than either marketed active — there is more fragrance by weight than magnesium or melatonin.
    Shea butter (#13), Cocoa butter (#14)
    The emollients doing much of the moisturizing, both above the magnesium.
    Magnesium Sulfate / Epsom salt (#15)
    The brand’s signature ingredient, sitting in the bottom half, three slots above the preservative line.
    Melatonin (#16)
    The second named hero, one slot lower again.
    Magnesium Aluminum Silicate (#21)
    A clay thickener — a different “magnesium,” not the Epsom salt, and not part of the sleep story.
    Nib pointing the pencil at two adjacent entries near the bottom of the list, Magnesium Sulfate and Melatonin, at positions fifteen and sixteen, the two named actives from the front of the bottle.
    Nib lines up the two heroes side by side at fifteen and sixteen — the two names on the front of the bottle, sitting next to each other near the back of the list.

    Does magnesium even cross intact skin?

    This is the open question behind every magnesium lotion, and the honest answer is that the evidence is thin — not zero, but thin, and mostly pointing one way. Magnesium is an ionized, water-loving ion with a large hydrated radius, and the skin’s outer layer is built to keep exactly that kind of molecule out. A 2017 systematic review in Nutrients concluded that the case for meaningful transdermal magnesium is “scientifically unsupported,” noting that passive diffusion through intact skin is limited and that the follicle-and-sweat-gland route covers only a tiny fraction of skin surface. A 2026 European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics study using Franz diffusion cells on skin found minimal permeation across intact skin, with no significant difference from the control — though it did see more getting through when the skin barrier was deliberately disrupted, which is a real nuance.

    To be fair to the other side: a 2017 PLoS ONE pilot study (n=25, not blinded) reported a rise in serum magnesium after two weeks of topical use, but the group-level change was not statistically significant and only held up in a subgroup. The authors themselves called it a pilot and asked for larger trials. And in September 2025, NPR interviewed a dermatologist and a Harvard sleep physician who both landed in the same place: there is little proof magnesium absorbs through skin in a way that matters, and whatever people feel from a bedtime lotion may owe more to the massage and the moisturizing base than to the mineral. NPR also cited a market-research figure putting topical magnesium north of $400M a year — so a lot of money is riding on an effect the published science has not yet pinned down. None of that says the lotion harms anyone or fails to moisturize. It says the specific promise — magnesium, through the skin, for sleep — rests on weak ground, and the label puts that magnesium at position 15 regardless.

    So is Dr. Teal’s Sleep Lotion a bad product?

    No — and that isn’t the point of reading the label. As a body lotion it is perfectly reasonable: glycerin at position 2 is doing real humectant work, shea and cocoa butter and vitamin E sit comfortably in the top half, and it will leave most people’s skin feeling soft and smelling of lavender. The narrower, checkable point is this: the two actives Dr. Teal’s puts on the front of the bottle, from the brand that is synonymous with Epsom salt, are the 15th and 16th entries on the back of the label — behind the fragrance. If you are buying it for the magnesium, you are mostly buying a scented moisturizer with a little Epsom salt added near the end.

    If what you actually want is a magnesium product where the magnesium is near the front of the list rather than the back, that is a different kind of formula — and it is the thing we make. Our own magnesium balm guide at Evil Goods walks through a tallow-and-magnesium-sulfate balm that leads with those rather than water and fragrance (Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, and I point to it here because this whole piece is about which ingredient sits where). To be straight with you, the transdermal-magnesium science above applies to our balm too — a higher position on the list means more magnesium by weight, not a proven route through the skin. What a short, magnesium-forward formula changes is what you are paying for and where the hero ingredient sits, not the open question of absorption. Whatever you choose, the back of the bottle is the honest document, and the front is the advertisement.

    FAQ

    Where does magnesium sit in Dr. Teal’s Sleep Body Lotion?
    Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom salt) is the 15th ingredient of 26 on the label read in October 2026. It sits below water, glycerin, the emulsifiers, fragrance, shea butter, cocoa butter and vitamin E, and three slots above the preservative — placing it in the lower, sub-1% region of the formula.

    Where is the melatonin in the list?
    Melatonin is at position 16, one slot below the magnesium sulfate. By the descending-weight convention of INCI lists, that means it is present at an even smaller amount by weight than the Epsom salt. A label position describes relative weight, not whether a dose does anything.

    Why is there fragrance above the magnesium?
    Fragrance (Parfum) appears at position 8, higher than both marketed actives. By INCI ordering that means the product contains more fragrance by weight than it does magnesium sulfate or melatonin.

    There are two magnesiums in the list — are they the same?
    No. Magnesium Sulfate (position 15) is Epsom salt, the marketed ingredient. Magnesium Aluminum Silicate (position 21) is a clay-mineral thickener used for texture; it is unrelated to the sleep claim and should not be counted as part of the “magnesium” story.

    Does magnesium absorb through the skin?
    The published evidence is weak. A 2017 systematic review called transdermal magnesium “scientifically unsupported,” a 2026 diffusion-cell study found minimal permeation across intact skin, and NPR in 2025 quoted a dermatologist and a sleep physician saying much the same. A small 2017 pilot was more hopeful but was not statistically significant at the group level. The science is thin, not settled.

    Nib the round desk creature holding up the Dr. Teal's ingredient panel like a document of record and tapping it with a pencil, as if to say the back of the bottle tells the real story.
    Nib’s parting note: the front of the bottle sells the magnesium, but the back puts it at number fifteen — and the back is the document worth reading.