Beauty of Joseon Daily Relief Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 40 ingredients (Explained) (2024)

Homosalate (9.00%)

What-it-does: sunscreen

An oil-soluble chemical sunscreen agent that protects the skin from UVB (295-315 nm) with a peak protection at 306 nm. Homosalate isnot a strong UV filter in and of itself (gives only SPF 4.3 protection at max. allowed 10% concentration) and it isnot photostable (looses 10% of its SPF protection in 45 mins) so it alwayshas to be combined with other sunscreens for properprotection.Its big advantage, though, is that it is a liquid and is excellent for dissolving other hard to solubilizepowder sunscreen agents, like the famous Avobenzone.

Regarding Homosalate's safety profile, we do not have the best news. In-vitro (made in the labs) studies have shown that it might have some estrogenic activity. Do not panic, these studies were not conducted on real humans under real world conditions. Still, if you are a 'better safe than sorry' type, be careful when using Homosalate containing sunscreens long-term and full-body.

As of 2020, Homosalate is permitted to be used up to 10% in the EU and 15% in the US, but the EU is currently considering restricting it toonly 1.4% (probably taking effect from 2022).

Octocrylene (5.00%)

What-it-does: sunscreen

An oil-soluble chemical sunscreen agent that protects skin in the UVB and somewhat in the UVA II range with a peak absorption of 304 nm. Its protection is not strong enough on its own but it is quite photostable (loses 10% of SPF protection in 95 mins) and is often used to stabilize other photo-unstable UV-filters, for example, Avobenzone. It is also often used to improve the water resistance of the products.

Octocrylene's safety profile is generally quite good, though a review study in Contact Dermatitis reports an "increasing number of patients with photo contact allergy to octocrylene." Mainly adults withketoprofen-sensitivity and children with sensitive skin are affected, so if you have a small kid, it is probably better to use octocrylene-free sunscreens.

Ethylhexyl Salicylate (4.50%)

Also-called: Octyl Salicylate, Octisalate | What-it-does: sunscreen | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

A colorless to light yellowish oily liquid that works as a UVB (280-320nm) sunscreen filter with a peak absorbance at 306 nm. It's not a strong filter in itself, it's always used in combination with other sunscreen agents to further enhance the SPFand to solubilize other solid UV filters.

It has a good safety profile and is allowed to be used at a max concentration of 5% both in the US and in Europe (10% is allowed in Japan).

Butyl Methoxydibenzoylmethane (2.70%) - goodie

Also-called: Avobenzone | What-it-does: sunscreen

The famous Avobenzone. It is a special snowflake as it isthe only globally available chemical sunscreen agent that provides proper UVA protection (in the US,new generation sunscreen agents are not approved because of impossible FDA regulations). It is the global gold standard of UVA protection and is the most used UVA sunscreen in the world.

It gives very good protection acrossthe whole UVA range (310-400 nmthat is both UVA1 and UVA2) with a peak protection at 360 nm. The problem with it, though, is that it isnot photostable and degrades in the sunlight.Wikipedia saysthat avobenzone loses 36% of its UV-absorptioncapacity after just one hour of sunlight (yep, this is one of the reasons why sunscreens have to be reapplied after a few hours).

The cosmetic's industry is trying to solve the problem by combining avobenzone with other UV filters that enhance its stability (like octocrylene,Tinosorb S or Ensulizole) or by encapsulating it and while both solutions help, neither is perfect. Interestingly, the combination of avobenzone with mineral sunscreens (that is titanium dioxide and zinc oxide) is not a good idea. In the US, it is flat out prohibited as avobenzone becomes unstable when combined with mineral sunscreens.

As for safety, avobenzone has a pretty good safety profile. It counts as non-irritating, and unlike some other chemical sunscreens, it shows no estrogenic effect. The maximum concentration of avobenzone permitted is 5% in the EU and 3% in the US.

Water

Also-called: Aqua | What-it-does: solvent

Good old water, aka H2O. The most common skincare ingredient of all. You can usually find it right in the very first spot of the ingredient list, meaning it’s the biggest thing out of all the stuff that makes up the product.

It’s mainly a solvent for ingredients that do not like to dissolve in oils but rather in water.

Once inside the skin, it hydrates, but not from the outside - putting pure water on the skin (hello long baths!) is drying.

One more thing: the water used in cosmetics is purified and deionized (it means that almost all of the mineral ions inside it is removed). Like this, the products can stay more stable over time.

Butyloctyl Salicylate

What-it-does: solvent

A nice, multi-functional helper ingredient that's especially useful in sunscreens. It cansolubilize somecommonly used UV-filterslike Oxybenzone or Avobenzone and it can also help to increase the SPF rating of sunscreens. It's also cosmetically elegant, has excellent spreadability and apleasant, moisturizing skin feel. Oh, and according to Wikipedia, it even helps to stabilize famously unstable UVA-filter, Avobenzone.

Dipropylene Glycol

What-it-does: solvent

A clear, colorless liquid that works as a solvent and viscositydecreasing ingredient. It also has great skin-moisturizing abilities.

Diethylhexyl 2,6-Naphthalate

What-it-does: emollient, solvent

An oily, emollient liquidthat works as a photostabilizer and solvent in sunscreen formulas. More specifically, it helps to stabilize famous UVA filter, Avobenzone and it is also an excellent solvent for oil-soluble, solid sunscreen agents.

Polymethylsilsesquioxane

Aspherical texturizing powder that's used as a texture enhancerand soft focus agent. It's claimed to give silicone type softness to the formula and also works as a (temporary) wrinkle filler.

Glycerin - superstar

Also-called: Glycerol | What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

  • A natural moisturizer that’s also in our skin
  • A super common, safe, effective and cheap molecule used for more than 50 years
  • Not only a simple moisturizer but knows much more: keeps the skin lipids between our skin cells in a healthy (liquid crystal) state, protects against irritation, helps to restore barrier
  • Effective from as low as 3% with even more benefits for dry skin at higher concentrations up to 20-40%
  • High-glycerin moisturizers are awesome for treating severely dry skin

Read all the geeky details about Glycerin here >>

Caprylyl Methicone

What-it-does: emollient

A clear, colorless, low viscosity, volatile (does not absorb into the skin but rather evaporates from it) silicone fluid that has excellent spreadability and leaves a light, silky and smooth feel on the skin.

According to manufacturer info, its big advantage is that it's compatible both with other silicones and with natural plant oils, so it's a great ingredient to formulate products with good-sounding, consumer-pleasing vegetable oils but still maintain a cosmetically elegant, non-greasy and non-tacky feel.

1,2-Hexanediol

What-it-does: solvent

A really multi-functional helper ingredient that can do several things in a skincare product: it can bring a soft and pleasant feel to the formula, it can act as a humectant and emollient, it can be a solvent for some other ingredients (for example it can help to stabilize perfumesin watery products) and it can also help to disperse pigments more evenly in makeup products. And that is still not all: it can also boost the antimicrobial activity of preservatives.

Silica

What-it-does: viscosity controlling, absorbent/mattifier

A white powdery thing that's the major component of glass and sand. In cosmetics, it’s often in products that are supposed to keep your skin matte as it has great oil-absorbing abilities. It’s also used as a helper ingredient to thicken up productsorsuspendinsoluble particles.

Vp/​Eicosene Copolymer

What-it-does: viscosity controlling

Beauty of Joseon Daily Relief Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 40 ingredients (Explained) (1) We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Pentylene Glycol

What-it-does: solvent, moisturizer/humectant

A multi-functional, silky feeling helper ingredient that can do quite many things. It's used as anemulsion stabilizer, solvent and a broad spectrum antimicrobial. According to manufacturer info, it's also amoisturizer and helps to make the product feel great on the skin. It works synergistically with preservatives and helps to improvewater-resistance of sunscreens.

Behenyl Alcohol

What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling, emulsion stabilising

A fatty alcohol (the non-drying type with a long oil loving chain of 22 carbon atoms) that is used to increase the viscosity of the formula and it also helps the oily and the watery parts to stay nicely mixed together (called emulsion stabilizing).

Poly C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate

What-it-does: emulsion stabilising, viscosity controlling

Beauty of Joseon Daily Relief Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 40 ingredients (Explained) (2) We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Polyglyceryl-3 Methylglucose Distearate

What-it-does: emulsifying

A vegetable-based emulsifier that helps the oily and watery parts of the formula to mix nicely together. It is compatible with a bunch of cosmetic oils as well as active ingredients and its specialty is creating emulsions with super high heat and freeze stability (from -25 °C and +50 °C).

Cetearyl Alcohol

What-it-does: emollient, viscosity controlling, emulsifying, emulsion stabilising, surfactant/cleansing | Irritancy: 1 | Comedogenicity: 2

An extremely common multitasker ingredient that gives your skin a nice soft feel (emollient) and gives body to creams and lotions. It also helps to stabilize oil-water mixes (emulsions), though it does not function as an emulsifier in itself. Its typical use level in most cream type formulas is 2-3%.

It’s a so-called fatty alcohol, a mix of cetyl and stearyl alcohol, other two emollient fatty alcohols. Though chemically speaking, it is alcohol (as in, it has an -OH group in its molecule), its properties are totally different from the properties of low molecular weight or drying alcohols such as denat. alcohol. Fatty alcohols have a long oil-soluble (and thus emollient) tailpart that makes them absolutelynon-drying and non-irritating and are totally ok for the skin.

Glyceryl Stearate

What-it-does: emollient, emulsifying | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 1-2

A super common, waxy, white, solid stuff that helps water and oil to mix together, gives body to creams and leaves the skin feeling soft and smooth.

Chemically speaking, it is the attachment of a glycerin molecule to the fatty acid calledstearic acid. It can be produced from most vegetable oils (in oils three fattyacidmolecules are attached to glycerin instead of just one like here) in a pretty simple, "green" process that is similar to soap making. It's readily biodegradable.

It also occurs naturally in our body and is used as a food additive. As cosmetic chemistColins writes it, "its safety really is beyond any doubt".

Inulin Lauryl Carbamate

What-it-does: surfactant/cleansing, emulsifying, emulsion stabilising

Apolymeric(big molecule from repeated subunits) emulsifierthat comes from Inulin, a naturally occurring polysaccharide found in the roots and rhizomes of several plants. The emulsifier is obtained by adding oil-loving chains ontoinulin. The resulting copolymercan emulsify high amounts of oil and can stabilizeoil droplets or non-water soluble particles so that they do not clump together in the formula.

Tromethamine

What-it-does: buffering

It's a little helper ingredient that helps to set the pH of the products to be right. It has an alkaline pH and can neutralizeacidic ingredients.

Carbomer

What-it-does: viscosity controlling, emulsion stabilising | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 1

A big molecule created from repeated subunits (a polymer of acrylic acid) that magically converts a liquidinto a nice gel formula. It usually has to be neutralized with a base (such as sodium hydroxide) for the thickening to occur and it creates viscous, clear gels that also feel nice and non-tacky on the skin. No wonder, it is a very popular and common ingredient. Typically used at 1% or less in most formulations.

Acrylates/​C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer

What-it-does: viscosity controlling, emulsion stabilising

Though its long name does not reveal it, this polymer molecule (big molecule from repeated subunits or monomers) is a relative to the super common, water-loving thickener, Carbomer. Both of them are big molecules that contain acrylic acid units, butAcrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer also contains some other monomers that are hydrophobic, i.e. water-hating.

This means that our molecule is part water- and part oil-loving, so it not only works as a thickener but also as an emulsion stabilizer. It is very common in gel-type formulas that also contain an oil-phase as well as in cleansers as it also works with most cleansing agents (unlike a lot of other thickeners).

Sodium Stearoyl Glutamate

What-it-does: emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing

An amino acid-based emulsifier that helps water and oil to mix and stay that way. It is considered as natural, environmentally friendly, and hypoallergenic.

Ethylhexylglycerin

What-it-does: preservative, deodorant

If you have spottedethylhexylglycerinon the ingredient list, most probably you will see there also the current IT-preservative,phenoxyethanol. They are good friends becauseethylhexylglycerincan boost the effectiveness of phenoxyethanol (and other preservatives) and as an added bonus it feels nice on the skin too.

Also,it's an effective deodorant and a medium spreadingemollient.

Polyacrylate Crosspolymer-6

What-it-does: viscosity controlling, emulsion stabilising

It's a helper ingredient that helps to thicken up formulas and form a nice gel texture. It leaves a rich, elegantfeel with a velvety finish on the skin and works over a wide pH range.

Oryza Sativa (Rice) Extract (Rice)

What-it-does: absorbent/mattifier, abrasive/scrub

Beauty of Joseon Daily Relief Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 40 ingredients (Explained) (3) We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

T-Butyl Alcohol

What-it-does: perfuming, solvent

A clear liquid with a camphor-like odor that is used as a solvent.

Tocopherol - goodie

Also-called: Vitamin E | What-it-does: antioxidant | Irritancy: 0-3 | Comedogenicity: 0-3

  • Primary fat-soluble antioxidant in our skin
  • Significant photoprotection against UVB rays
  • Vit C + Vit E work in synergy and provide great photoprotection
  • Has emollient properties
  • Easy to formulate, stable and relatively inexpensive

Read all the geeky details about Tocopherol here >>

Beauty of Joseon Daily Relief Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 40 ingredients (Explained) (2024)
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