(the maker of Dr. Hauschka), and Primavera are famous for their lavish gardens. If they need to use a
plant that grows in exotic destinations, these companies support fair-trade communities that grow the
plants without the use of chemical additives.
Active Ingredients: No Rocket Science
Until recently, I had to put up with quite a limited selection of antiag-ing organic beauty offerings.
Most of them were gentle and soothing, but they didn’t contain any of the cutting-edge ingredients that
were used in synthetic age-delaying creams and serums. Today, thanks to readily available “skin
actives,” concentrated active ingredients that you can add to your favorite beauty products, I spend
hours blending, revamping, and enriching my organic lotions and potions.
If you take a look at the ingredients list of any cleanser or moisturizing lotions, you will notice a
long list of tongue-twisting chemical ingredients. Most of them do nothing for the health of the skin.
They only serve as a base for the active ingredients, helping them dissolve properly and maintaining
the stability of the formulation so that it doesn’t become too watery, too thick, or split into layers.
The process of creating high-end, high-performance skin care products is now demystified. Dr.
Hannah Sivak, PhD, the scientific mind behind secretive Skin Actives labs, is as blunt as only a
scientist can be: you don’t need to coat your products with a mysterious air to make them effective.
“For example, sea kelp bioferment is a great active, and you do not need to play music or do a light
show during fermentation,” she says, referring to the famous Crème de la Mer, which contains
fermented sea kelp. “The key molecules in this active are the polysaccharides unique to sea kelp, and
the music is not going to affect their structure.”
The newest active ingredients are naturally found in human bodies and plants. Some of them can be
extracted from plants, but others are so rare that it is much more affordable to make them in a lab. To
start with, Dr. Sivak recommends two actives, such as epidermal growth factor (EGF), as the signal
that tells the skin to go ahead and renew itself, and fermented sea kelp, as a provider of building
blocks for the skin to be able to follow the EGF orders. As you become more skillful in mixing, you
can add more antioxidants.
Adding active ingredients is no rocket science. All it requires is a tender touch: add one active at a
time and mix thoroughly, either with a spatula or a small mixer that fits inside the cream jar. With
practice, you will achieve a nice texture that will be pleasant to use. Now, as your skin gets drier, you
can adjust the formulation by adding a few drops of rosehip or pomegranate oil to the mix.
While it’s possible to replicate any cream or lotion at home using basic ingredients available from
most health food stores, the right consistency and even texture can be hard to achieve at home,
especially if you are just flexing your cosmetic chemist’s muscle. It’s more practical to buy simple,
“generic” natural lotions and cleansers in stores and use them as a canvas for your own blends.
At your local health food store or online, you can find a multitude of inexpensive, very basic
lotions that contain few plant ingredients that are unlikely to interact with the active ingredients you
are going to use. You can buy a large bottle of good organic body cream and turn it into several jars
of antiaging, antioxidant-rich facial moisturizers. You should look for formulations that contain no
irritating ingredients, such as peppermint and eucalyptus oils. Other things to avoid are citrus oils and
juices, including those of lemon, orange, grapefruit, lime, and bergamot. Their acidity is not
compatible with many active ingredients. Of course, there should be no propylene glycols, parabens