Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating General Off Topic A little fun….What is the craziest claim ingredients you have ever seen…

  • A little fun….What is the craziest claim ingredients you have ever seen…

    Posted by Graillotion on November 25, 2020 at 3:20 am

    So I am looking to create some marketing verbiage regarding a cream that uses primarily functional proven ingredients vs things like ground unicorn horn, orchid gonads, of hydrolyzed rainbow essence.

    With tongue in cheek here….what are some of the crazy things that some of the well known brands are using….that just make your eyes roll?

    Love to hear everyone’s most laughable ingredient they have come across.

    Thanx!  Let’s make some smiles.

    Pattsi replied 3 years, 11 months ago 13 Members · 24 Replies
  • 24 Replies
  • luiscuevasii

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 3:57 am

    “LOVE” is the often found on the ingredient list, and It seams that It work well with anionic and catiónic products.

  • emma1985

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 4:14 am

    Herbivore sells products that contain amethyst. Tacha puts silver and gold in every product. Pixi Beauty used to sell a product containing caviar, a product containing pink quartz and currently sells a product containing Himalayan salt. First Aid Beauty sells a product that lists oxygen as an ingredient.

    ????????????????

    They really think consumers are actual idiots. Some of them are. 

    Formulator Sample Shop sells meteorite powder, amber extract and foaming extract. 

    I could go on..

  • emma1985

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 4:30 am

    The meteorite powder is $185 for 10 g. I feel like you have to be an absolute idiot to buy that. It’s also insoluble.

  • Graillotion

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 4:59 am

    emma1985 said:

    The meteorite powder is $185 for 10 g. I feel like you have to be an absolute idiot to buy that. It’s also insoluble.

    I am sure some “Out of this World’ cream can be created with that….maybe something that exfoliates?   ;) 

  • emma1985

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 5:00 am

    My Korean toner contains extract from salmon sperm. Not joking. INCI is Sodium DNA.

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/salmon-sperm-anti-aging-skin-care_l_5c6591cbe4b0233af972b341

    Obviously not why I use it, in addition to the salmon sperm, it contains panthenol, 17 amino acids, 4 peptides and a bunch of other humectants. 

    Sorry for the triple response.

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 7:43 am

    La Prairie: gold, caviar, white caviar, malachite powder and of course the £1,200 generic moisturizer (made of basic ingredients such as coco caprylate, sepinov emt10, butylene glycol etc) with platinum.

  • jemolian

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 7:46 am

    Probably diamonds? or other gem stones, also sold on FSS.

    Ingredients extracted from humans then treated for use, such as Human Fibroblast Conditioned Media (seen this in a Japanese product) or Adipose Derived Adult Stem Cell Conditioned Media (ingredient in the MLM brand, Jeunesse’s serum which is extracted from Human Fat)

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 7:50 am

    Oh wait I forgot about Goop! They have anti vampire spray with: black tourmaline, lapis lazuli, ruby, labradorite, bloodstone, aqua aura, black onyx, garnet, pyrite and nuummite; reiki, sound waves, moonlight, love, reiki charged crystals. Everyone knows you need garlic to scare vampires away. I don’t know what they were thinking!

  • Benz3ne

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 12:46 pm

    Another for Gem Stones - Bad Lab Co.’s “Baby Faced Assassin” face wash has Lapis Lazuli listed in the ingredients.

  • EVchem

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 6:02 pm

    @ngarayeva001 mentioning Goop is cheating here XD

  • Pharma

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 7:41 pm

    jemolian said:

    …Human Fibroblast Conditioned Media…or Adipose Derived Adult Stem Cell Conditioned Media…

    That’s actually just the media used to cultivate those cells in, they don’t actually contain any cells ;) . DMEM and the like are frequently found in cosmetics. In my honest opinion as someone who actually worked with human cell lines in such media (but not for cosmetics or at least not to make cosmetics from them -> see end of post), it’s a quite ridiculous idea to use culture media for topical applications. Hopefully, they don’t add fetal calf serum to it as we did.

    Can’t remember which brand it was but I once saw placenta extract on a product an INCI also lists hydrolysed placenta proteins (derived from animals not humans, I suppose else I’d have to buy that vampire spray LoL).
    And again, another PLUS for gem stones because they the non-toxic ones aren’t soluble and hence can not be extracted by common means.
    Depending on your believes, homoeopathy uses weird stuff too and is in turn added to different cosmetics.
    Reminds me of which: I once worked a bit with Toxinomics Foundation and Atheris who do research on animal toxins from poisonous snakes, spiders, cone snails, and the like to be used in cosmeceuticals for example as ‘topical botox’. Their ‘actives’ may not be regarded as pixie dust but it’s still weird if you think about putting paralysing toxins on your skin.
  • suswang8

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 8:26 pm

    Replenix/Topix, which is a well-known company, used to have this as as part of their product description for their Replenix CF Cream:  “One bottle of Replenix CF cream provides your skin with the equivalent to approximately 500 cups of green tea.”  This text is actually still visible on certain resellers’ Web sites.  As the product is only 1oz in size, I emailed the company to ask how this claim was possible.  No reply.

  • OldPerry

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 10:05 pm

    I always found “placental protein” to be a strange ingredient. https://cosmetics.specialchem.com/inci/placental-protein

    And how about snail secretion?  I wonder do they have workers following the snails and scooping up their slime?

  • Graillotion

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 10:23 pm

    Oh wait I forgot about Goop! They have anti vampire spray with: black tourmaline, lapis lazuli, ruby, labradorite, bloodstone, aqua aura, black onyx, garnet, pyrite and nuummite; reiki, sound waves, moonlight, love, reiki charged crystals. Everyone knows you need garlic to scare vampires away. I don’t know what they were thinking!

    Why is it that something so healthy as garlic….rarely makes the INCI on skincare?  ;)

    Thank you all for your comments.  I am loving it.  This verbiage ought to be rich! 

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    November 25, 2020 at 10:29 pm

    @EVchem I admit, it was cheating indeed  ????

    @Perry, I read about the process as I’ve got curious too. The snails are allowed to crawl on a mesh like fabric and slime dripping down to a collector. For some reasons many people I know love korean products with slime..

  • Sylarana

    Member
    November 26, 2020 at 2:07 am

    I’ve seen many local brands using Lanablue (sorbitol, water, algae extract) and calling it blue retinol. Usually they promise that their blue retinol works the same way as retinoids but without side-effects. Some brands even sell it in glass ampoules like it’s medicine. 

  • Graillotion

    Member
    November 26, 2020 at 2:18 am

    “LOVE” is the often found on the ingredient list, and It seams that It work well with anionic and catiónic products.

    Well….that would be fun to go after….But somehow saying ‘made without LOVE’ just doesn’t come out right.  :p 

  • emma1985

    Member
    November 26, 2020 at 3:23 am

    As a lover of Korean skincare I have used snail extensively (before I started the process of giving up all animal derived ingredients.) It’s … nothing special. It doesn’t hydrate the skin any better than Glycerin or Hyaluronic Acid (if even that much,) and products containing snail secretion in high concentrations, as you might imagine, have (imo) an absolutely disgusting consistency and skinfeel. If you like the idea of applying goopy, sticky snot on your skin, then get yourself a snail serum. Worst offender is CosRx Advanced Snail Essence. It’s disgusting. It also doesn’t absorb and just sits on the skin in a disgusting sticky tacky layer. 

    I have also used products containing placenta. Again, nothing special. 

    I did like honey and propolis, but not enough to continue using them. ????‍♀️

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    November 26, 2020 at 7:31 am

    @emma1985, I am with you. Tried all of it (mizon’s serums with placenta and snail secretion filtrate was a gift but since I already had it, I tried). Not a vegan, but there’s something about animal products that gross me out. I absolutely recognize that tallow and lard make good soap and lanolin is a good old ingredient with great barrier properties but I can’t put it on my face ????. Beeswax is as far as I go because there’s no good replacement. Btw, if anyone interested this is a great replacement for lard: https://www.ulprospector.com/en/eu/PersonalCare/Detail/25251/557991/SOFTISAN-378
    Sold by MakingCosmetics and formulator sample shop.
    and this is a proper replacement for lanolin 
    https://www.ulprospector.com/en/eu/PersonalCare/Detail/25251/558032/SOFTISAN-649

    sold by https://www.alexmo-cosmetics.de/Softlanae-649-veganer-Lanolin-Ersatz

  • Pattsi

    Member
    November 26, 2020 at 7:32 am

    Oh wait I forgot about Goop! They have anti vampire spray with: black tourmaline, lapis lazuli, ruby, labradorite, bloodstone, aqua aura, black onyx, garnet, pyrite and nuummite; reiki, sound waves, moonlight, love, reiki charged crystals. Everyone knows you need garlic to scare vampires away. I don’t know what they were thinking!

    Goop’s skin cares are pretty normal tho. But their accessories and lifestyles and so on was the real gimmick and they successfully created their own cult.

    At this point, nothing really surprises me anymore.

    Last year( I think ), there’s a Korean hospital’s brand came up with this product
    https://commonlabsmalaysia.com/products/commonlabs-vitamin-e-micro-needle-spot-cream-10ml
    It had me puzzled how they passed registration because Hydrolyzed Sponge and its claim clearly render it out of cosmetics boundary.

    LOVE is pretty normal to me, if someone declare SEX or ORGASM that would be more exciting.

  • Herbnerd

    Member
    November 27, 2020 at 1:12 am

    Sheep placenta is a common ingredient used in cosmetic products from New Zealand. The Chinese love that stuff.

    Though I did hear it was a popular product amongst African Americans, until the residual hormones present in placenta started interrupting their cycles.

    Sheep placenta is a by-product of the slaughterhouse - along with stabilised amniotic fluid (Yes, this is real too) and sometimes the whole uterus along with placenta and lamb is used to produce the “extract”.

    One job I had, and sadly this is true, was to develop a range of placenta beverages for the Asian market. You cannot begin to imagine how disgusting the smell was. People who worked with me at the time certainly have never forgotten.

  • Herbnerd

    Member
    November 27, 2020 at 1:20 am

    Pattsi said:

    LOVE is pretty normal to me, if someone declare SEX or ORGASM that would be more exciting.

    @Pa@Pattsi Does Salmon sperm count? (well, maybe not for LOVE!)

  • emma1985

    Member
    November 27, 2020 at 4:03 am

    Herbnerd said:

    Pattsi said:

    LOVE is pretty normal to me, if someone declare SEX or ORGASM that would be more exciting.

    @Pa@Pattsi Does Salmon sperm count? (well, maybe not for LOVE!)

    ????????

  • Pattsi

    Member
    November 27, 2020 at 7:38 am

    Herbnerd said:

    Pattsi said:

    LOVE is pretty normal to me, if someone declare SEX or ORGASM that would be more exciting.

    @Pa@Pattsi Does Salmon sperm count? (well, maybe not for LOVE!)

    Good point! :D :D

    Herbnerd said:

    Sheep placenta is a common ingredient used in cosmetic products from New Zealand. The Chinese love that stuff.

    Though I did hear it was a popular product amongst African Americans, until the residual hormones present in placenta started interrupting their cycles.

    Sheep placenta is a by-product of the slaughterhouse - along with stabilised amniotic fluid (Yes, this is real too) and sometimes the whole uterus along with placenta and lamb is used to produce the “extract”.

    One job I had, and sadly this is true, was to develop a range of placenta beverages for the Asian market. You cannot begin to imagine how disgusting the smell was. People who worked with me at the time certainly have never forgotten.

    Actually I have horse placenta sunscreen from Australia and sheep placenta moisturizer from New Zealand on my table right now. 

    I’m thinking, for our next serum I have to go bigger maybe Dinosaur placenta I guess.

Log in to reply.

Chemists Corner