Aaron's skincare rules (and why most of our skincare has no added fragrance)
Ask a cosmetic chemist for their skincare rules and you might expect a 12-step routine and a shopping list. Ask Aaron, and you get three. You'll find every one of them in our skincare formulas (well, mostly).
Aaron’s our co-founder and cosmetic chemist, and he formulates everything we make here in Newcastle at Woohoo HQ. This week while we were on a school holidays family drive I asked him what he'd tell a friend about skincare (no, we rarely stop thinking about “work”), and it all boiled down to 3 rules.
Rule 1: Choose skincare without added fragrance, especially anything you leave on
"Choose unfragranced products before fragranced products," Aaron says. "It's better for your skin barrier."
Your skin barrier is the outermost layer of your skin, the bit that keeps moisture in and the outside world out. For Aaron, leaving fragrance out is kinder to your skin barrier, and that is especially important for the products that stay on your skin.
That's why most of our skincare has no added fragrance at all. Our 'Sweet Dreams' Night Cream, 'Make My Day' Bio-Retinol Gel Cream and 'FG' Serum 01 - Glow are all fragrance-free. 'Over the Moon' Rich Repair Cream is unscented, with just a touch of rose water to soften the natural aroma of its ingredients, and no essential oils.
Truthfully if it were up to Aaron, every essential oil would be gone from our skincare. But so many of you have told us you love a few scented favourites, so we've kept them in the range. Most of them are cleansers, and since they’re wash-off products rather than sitting on your skin all day, Aaron has let us have our way. 😜
A couple of our leave-on products are scented too, including 'Perfectly Happy' Light Vitamin C Cream. It's had its gorgeous grapefruit scent since long before we moved away from fragrance, and so many of you love it just the way it is that we couldn’t bring ourselves to take it out (even though if we were making it from scratch today, we'd drop the fragrance).
Rule 2: Clean your skin without stripping it
Aaron keeps this one short and simple: use a gentle cleanser that doesn't strip your skin.
If your face feels tight the moment you step out of the shower, your cleanser has taken more than the grime. A good cleanser lifts away makeup, sunscreen and the day without leaving your skin dry.
As Aaron puts it, oils dissolve oils. It's the same reason a dab of cooking oil lifts sticky label glue off a jar better than water does. Most of what you're washing off is oily, so an oil cleanser is good at shifting it.
- Most face washes rely on foaming surfactants, the detergent-style ingredients that whip up a lather. 'Cloud 9' Deep Cleansing Balm leaves them out altogether and lets its oils do the dissolving, helped along by emulsifiers (ingredients that let oil and water mix).
- '3 Cheers' Cleansing Oil works on a similar idea. Its oils dissolve the grime, and its emulsifiers turn it milky when you add water, so it wipes away with a warm cloth instead of leaving a greasy film.
- 'You've Got This' Charcoal Cleansing Gel does use foaming surfactants, but mild ones, including one made from glucose. Activated charcoal and zeolite, a mineral, are in there too, to help soak up oil and grime.
"...I have combination skin but it leaves my skin clean without that dry feeling, and I'm not left greasy either." - Kim J., verified buyer, '3 Cheers' Cleansing Oil
Rule 3: Look for a moisturiser with a good humectant and good oils
"Always look for a moisturiser that has a good humectant and good oils," says Aaron.
A humectant is an ingredient that draws in water and helps your skin hold on to moisture. Aaron's go-to humectants are glycerin, propanediol, sorbitol and pentylene glycol, so they're worth looking out for on any ingredient list.
Good oils are the other half and they help seal the moisture in. Aaron looks for plant oils with a good level of omega-3, omega-6 and omega-9 fatty acids to help your skin feel soft and comfortable.
Here's how that plays out in our moisturisers:
- In 'Over the Moon' Rich Repair Cream, the humectant is sorbitol, paired with hemp seed oil, which is naturally rich in omega-3 and omega-6. It's the one for dry skin.
- 'Sweet Dreams' Night Cream leans on propanediol, alongside glycerin and betaine. Aaron chose propanediol for the cushiony feel you want in a night cream.
- For something lighter, 'Make My Day' Bio-Retinol Gel Cream pairs glycerin with hyaluronic acid, a humectant that holds on to water at the skin's surface. Its oil is grape seed, which is rich in linoleic acid (an omega-6), and the gel cream is light enough for oily and combination skin that’s prone to breakouts, even in the middle of sweaty summers.
Ultra light, hydrating, renewing
Three rules, no fuss
That's it. Skip the added fragrance where you can (particularly on leave-on products), cleanse without stripping, and look for a good humectant and good oils in your moisturiser.
None of it needs a cupboard full of products, just a few basics.
Got a skincare question you'd love Aaron to answer? Contact Us and we just might turn it into a blog. 😁
