3 Secrets Big Skincare Brands Don’t Want You To Know
By Dr. Zuleika Alvarado
1. Skincare products are packed with unnecessary and harmful ingredients.
Flip over your favorite serum, lip gloss or makeup remover; it doesn’t really matter what you choose, chances are you’re going to be faced with a never-ending list of ingredients that you can’t pronounce.
But here’s the thing: They don’t all bring an added benefit to the party.
So, why are they all included, you might ask?
Get ready to have your mind blown as we reveal the first thing the big boys don’t want you to know:
The only reason to create a complicated formula is so that it can be patented. We could probably, maybe, possibly (?) accept this if it weren’t for the very real fact that:
- The more unnecessary ingredients you shove into a skincare product, the greater the chance for an allergic reaction (which kinda defeats the purpose of a skincare product, don’t you think?).
- Even if the product alone doesn’t cause you an allergic reaction, it may well set off an ingredient in another product that does. #fail
- If you do find yourself with an allergic reaction or irritation, it will be far easier to determine which ingredient is not a good fit for you if the product isn’t packed with an excessive number of them.
- As you increase the number of ingredients in a product, the higher the chance that the active ingredient becomes less, er, active, meaning you don’t reap any of the benefits at all! You may think that the more packed into a product, the better, but the opposite is, in fact, true. And - let’s be honest - who needs filler when you could just have more of the star ingredient instead? #justsaying
- More ingredients than you think are actually carcinogens, so why take the risk if you don’t need to?
Like most things in life, therefore, (other than the absence of the Duke of Hastings in season 2 of Bridgerton, which we’re still not over), less is more.
Every Kiss formulation uses the least amount of ingredients possible to achieve healthy skin. All of our products use 10 ingredients or less.
Do you want more Skincare Secrets and $10 Off?
We promise to only send you emails when they’re simple, hilarious and save you money.
You can kiss us later.
2. The ingredients in your skincare products are probably older than you think
Oh, the irony; Nine times out of ten, we’ll buy a skincare product to either prevent or target aging and yet - yet! - the ingredients we’re spending our hard-earned dollars on are probably far older than they should be.
Gulp.
Unlike a fine wine that gets better with age (or, for that matter, mature actresses à la Meryl Streep, Julie Andrews and Judi Dench - Hollywood, take note!), skincare ingredients will lose potency the longer they sit in a warehouse or on a shelf.
And this happens all the time in the big brands you know and love simply because they are just so goddam big and, therefore, must mass-produce to distribute globally and take over the world (muahahaha).
Ahem.
To preserve their formulas, therefore, the big companies must add - yup, you’ve guessed it - preservatives, which are often in the form of parabens (a carcinogen).
This - of course - also brings us back to the issue of too many ingredients.
It’s a lose-lose situation unless you decide to ditch the bigger brands and focus, instead, on the smaller, more personal ones - like us, in fact!
That’s because here at Kiss, we do things differently - formulating our products weekly and shipping directly to our customers for each order to eliminate the need for unnecessary storage and preservatives.
2. The ingredients in your skincare products are probably older than you think
Oh, the irony; Nine times out of ten, we’ll buy a skincare product to either prevent or target aging and yet - yet! - the ingredients we’re spending our hard-earned dollars on are probably far older than they should be.
Gulp.
Unlike a fine wine that gets better with age (or, for that matter, mature actresses à la Meryl Streep, Julie Andrews and Judi Dench - Hollywood, take note!), skincare ingredients will lose potency the longer they sit in a warehouse or on a shelf.
And this happens all the time in the big brands you know and love simply because they are just so goddam big and, therefore, must mass-produce to distribute globally and take over the world (muahahaha).
Ahem.
To preserve their formulas, therefore, the big companies must add - yup, you’ve guessed it - preservatives, which are often in the form of parabens (a carcinogen). This - of course - also brings us back to the issue of too many ingredients.
It’s a lose-lose situation unless you decide to ditch the bigger brands and focus, instead, on the smaller, more personal ones - like us, in fact!
That’s because here at Kiss, we do things differently - formulating our products weekly and shipping directly to our customers for each order to eliminate the need for unnecessary storage and preservatives.
Do you want more Skincare Secrets and $10 Off?
We promise to only send you emails when they’re simple, hilarious and save you money.
You can kiss us later.
3. You won’t believe how much rust and mold is present in the equipment making your skincare products
This is a big one to process, we get it, so we’ll let this just sink in a moment.
There’s nothing speculative about this, unfortunately (remember, insider information, and all that?).
Here are the key takeaways you need from this:
- While inspections of these machines do, of course, happen, they are not as frequent as you’d like to think - nor are any required replacements as speedy as they should be, either (we’re talking months, if not years.).
- At big companies, thousands of products are made at once and only a select number of samples are checked. These are supposed to represent the batch, but do they really? Personally, we wouldn’t like to take the, er, Gamble.
- This means that … yes, some of your favorite skincare products may contain rust or mold. Eeek.
- When real people make small, personalized batches, each product is checked for quality and performance. Nothing is left to chance. Which is why …
You should really give Kiss products a try!
Simple, plant-based, transparent and sustainable, Kiss is the small-batch, handmade skincare you never knew you needed - until now.
Sign up for our newsletter to get only the ingredients you need, thank us later.
Do you want more Skincare Secrets and $10 Off?
We promise to only send you emails when they’re simple, hilarious and save you money.
You can kiss us later.