Plant Extracts in Cosmetics

Humans have used plants as raw materials for cosmetics for a long time. The current addition and efficacy of plant extracts are also popular gimmicks of major skin care brands. Words such as "pure natural" and "plant extraction" seem to have natural magic to many women who love skin care, and they often become synonymous with safer, more effective and high-end.

Does cosmetics with main plant ingredients really represent safe and effective? What are plant extracts and their uses? This ariticle takes everyone to understand the plant extracts in cosmetics.

1. What are plant extracts?

Plant extracts refer to certain specific functional components in plants obtained through extraction and separation using plants as raw materials. Chengdu Kindarco Company, as a plant extract manufacturer, owns advanced technology of extracting and offers various kinds of plant extracts for cutomers. However, it should be noted that plant extracts are not equivalent to natural plants themselves. Take aloe as an example. Natural aloe vera directly on the face can easily cause allergies, but the sensitization rate of purified aloe skin care products will be greatly reduced.

2. Factors affecting the efficacy of plant extracts

Although the functional ingredients are obtained through specific means, but cosmetics with plant extracts may not be able to exert the effects of the ingredients themselves. There are usually many factors that affect its effectiveness. For example, the growth state, quality, extraction parts, and extraction process of plants have strict requirements on the product development process and personnel in each aspect. Errors in each link may cause the plant extract itself to not have the proper efficacy.

Because plant extracts are complex in technology, difficult to purify, and high quality is usually accompanied by factors such as high costs, unstable batches, and limited growth conditions for purified plants, the effective concentration of plant extracts added by brands may be too low to achieve their effects. The meaning of skin care is only psychological comfort.

Even if enough plant extracts are added, whether plant extracts for skin care can play a role in skin care depends on whether the effective substance can penetrate the skin. As healthy skin itself has a barrier function, many ingredients in cosmetics cannot penetrate the skin. For example, the relationship between the penetration of ingredients and molecular weight. Common ingredients such as hyaluronic acid and collagen in cosmetic ingredients are difficult to penetrate the skin due to their large molecules. Some brands add a variety of plant extracts to their products to highlight their "naturalness". But this "cocktail" formula is actually risky. The more ingredients are added, the greater the possibility of conflicts between the ingredients, which is a great test for the formulator. At the same time, because the mechanism of action of certain plants in the skin is not completely clear, there is a risk of skin allergies and damage. After adding a variety of plant extracts, if allergies occur, it is difficult to confirm which ingredients are causing them.

Therefore, to choose cosmetics with plant extracts, it is best to first understand the skin care knowledge related to plant extracts.