Saltair Sunscreen Body Oil SPF 50 ingredients (Explained) (2024)

Avobenzone (3.0%) - goodie

Also-called: Butyl Methoxydibenzoylmethane | 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.

Homosalate (10.0%)

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).

Octisalate (5.0%)

Also-called: Octyl Salicylate, Octisalate;Ethylhexyl Salicylate | 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).

Octocrylene (10%)

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.

Helianthus Annuus Seed Oil - goodie

Also-called: Sunflower Oil | What-it-does: emollient | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

Sunflower does not need a big intro as you probably use it in the kitchen as cooking oil, or you munch on the seeds as a healthy snack or you adore its big, beautifulyellow flower during the summer - or you do all of these and probably even more. And by even more we mean putting it all overyour face as sunflower oil is one of the most commonly used plant oils in skincare.

It’s a real oldie: expressed directly from the seeds, the oil is used not for hundreds but thousands of years. According to The National Sunflower Association, there is evidencethat both the plant and its oil were used by American Indians in the area of Arizona and New Mexico about 3000 BC. Do the math: it's more than 5000 years – definitely an oldie.

Our intro did get pretty big after all (sorry for that), so let's get to the point finally: sunflower oil - similar to other plant oils - is a great emollient that makes the skin smooth and nice and helps to keep it hydrated. It also protects the surface of the skin and enhances the damaged or irritated skin barrier. Leslie Bauman notes in Cosmetic Dermatology that one application of sunflower oil significantly speeds up the recovery of the skin barrier within an hour and sustains the results 5 hours after using it.

It's also loaded withfatty acids(mostly linoleic (50-74%) and oleic (14-35%)). The unrefined version(be sure to use that on your skin!) is especially high in linoleic acid that is great even for acne-prone skin. Its comedogen index is 0, meaning that it's pretty much an all skin-type oil.

Truth be told, there are many great plant oils and sunflower oil is definitely one of them.

Octyldodecanol

What-it-does: emollient, perfuming

A clear, slightly yellow, odorless oil that's a very common, medium-spreadingemollient. It makes the skin feel nice and smooth and works in a wide range of formulas.

C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate

What-it-does: emollient, antimicrobial/antibacterial

An often used emollient with a light and silky feel. It's very mild to both skin and eyes and spreads nicely and easily. It's often used in sunscreens as it's also an excellent solvent for sunscreen agents.

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.

Polyamide-3

Saltair Sunscreen Body Oil SPF 50 ingredients (Explained) (1) We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Diisopropyl Adipate

What-it-does: emollient, solvent | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

A water light oily liquid (aka ester) that has a light skin feeling and is often used toreduce tackiness and lighten the feel of heavier emollients. It's popular in sunscreens to "lighten up" oil soluble chemical UV filters.

Bis-Octyldodecyl Dimer Dilinoleate/​Propanediol Copolymer

What-it-does: emollient

Saltair Sunscreen Body Oil SPF 50 ingredients (Explained) (2) We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Fragrance (Parfum) - icky

Also-called: Fragrance, Parfum;Parfum/Fragrance | What-it-does: perfuming

Exactly what it sounds: nice smelling stuff put into cosmetic products so that the end product also smells nice. Fragrance in the US and parfum in the EU is a generic term on the ingredient list that is made up of 30 to 50 chemicals on average (but it can have as much as 200 components!).

If you are someone who likes to know what you put on your face then fragrance is not your best friend - there's no way to know what’s really in it.

Also, if your skin is sensitive, fragrance is again not your best friend. It’s the number one cause of contact allergy to cosmetics. It’s definitely a smart thing to avoid with sensitive skin (and fragrance of any type - natural is just as allergic as synthetic, if not worse!).

Aleurites Moluccanus Seed Oil - goodie

Also-called: Kukui Nut Oil;Aleurites Moluccana Seed Oil | What-it-does: soothing, emollient

Having such a cool name and coming from Hawaii how could this oil be not good? Well, it is good. It's absorbedexcellently by the skin and is used traditionally by the Hawaiians to soothe sunburn and other inflammations.

Research confirms this: it's shown to have anti-inflammatory, pain reducing, and wound healing properties. It's also a particularlyrich source of moisturizing essential fatty acidslinoleic and linolenic(about 42 and 32%) and it's not so rich in oleic acid - around 15% - that can be good even for acne prone skin.

Schinziophyton Rautanenii Kernel Oil

What-it-does: emollient

Saltair Sunscreen Body Oil SPF 50 ingredients (Explained) (3) We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

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.

Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate - goodie

Also-called: Form of Vitamin C, THDA | What-it-does: antioxidant, skin brightening

Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate is a stable, oil-soluble form of skincare big shot Vitamin C. If you do not know, why Vitamin C is such a big deal in skincare, click here and read all about it. We are massive vitamin C fans and have written about it inexcruciating detail.

So now, you know that Vitamin C is great and all, but it's really unstable and gives cosmetics companies many headaches. To solve this problem they came up with vitamin C derivatives, and one of them is Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate (let's call it THDA in short).

It's a really promising candidate (see below), but while reading all the goodness about it in a minute, do not forget that derivatives not only haveto be absorbed into the skin but also have to beconverted to pure vitamin C (ascorbic acid or AA) and the efficacy of the conversion is often unknown. In addition,vitamin C's three magic properties (antioxidant, collagen booster, skin brightener) are all properly proven in-vivo (on real people), but for the derivatives, it's mostly in-vitro studies or in thecase of THDA, it's in-vitro and done by an ingredient supplier.

With thiscontext in mind let's see what THDA might be able to do. First, it is stable (if pH < 5), easy to formulate, and a joy to work with for a cosmetic chemist.

Second, because it's oil-soluble, its skin penetration abilities seem to be great. So great in fact, that it surpasses the penetration of pure vitamin Cthreefold at the same concentration and it penetrates successfully into the deeper layers of the skin (that is usually important to do some anti-aging work). There is also in-vitro data showing that it converts to AA in the skin.

Third, THDA seems to have all three magic abilitiesof pure vitamin C: it gives antioxidant protection from both UVB and UVA rays, it increases collagen synthesis (even more than AA) and it has askin brightening effect by reducing melanogenesis by more than 80% in human melanoma cell cultures.

So this all sounds really great, but these are only in-vitro results at this point. We could find Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate mentioned only in one publishedin-vivo study that examined the anti-aging properties of a silicone formula containing 10% AA and 7% THDA. The authors theorized that the 10% AA is released slowly from the silicon delivery system and probably stays in the upper layer of the skin to give antioxidant benefits, while THDA penetrates more rapidly and deeply and gives some wrinkle-reducing benefits. The study was a small (10 patients), double-blind experiment,and the formula did show some measurable anti-aging results. However, it is hard to know how much pure vitamin C or THDA can be thanked.

Bottom line: a really promising, but not well-proven vitamin C derivative that can be worth a try especially if you like experimenting (but if you likethe tried and true, pure vitamin Cwill be your best bet).

Tocopheryl Acetate

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

It’s the most commonly used version of pure vitamin E in cosmetics. You can read all about the pure form here. This one is the so-called esterified version.

According to famous dermatologist, Leslie Baumann while tocopheryl acetate is more stable and has a longer shelf life, it’s also more poorly absorbed by the skin and may not have the same awesome photoprotective effects as pure Vit E.

Calcium Sodium Borosilicate

Saltair Sunscreen Body Oil SPF 50 ingredients (Explained) (4) We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Pentaerythrityl Tetra-Di-T-Butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate

Also-called: Tinogard TT | What-it-does: antioxidant, preservative

Pentaerythrityl Tetra-Di-T-Butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate is an antioxidant molecule used in small amounts (less than 0.8%) to help products stay nice longer. More specifically, it is great at preventing discoloration or other types of oxidative degradation. It is a trendy alternative to often bad-mouthed synthetic antioxidant and stabilizer,BHT.

Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone - icky

What-it-does: perfuming

It’s a common fragrance ingredient that is one of the “EU 26 fragrances” that has to be labelled separately (and cannot be simply included in the term “fragrance/perfume” on the label) because of allergen potential. Best to avoid if your skin is sensitive.

Benzyl Salicylate - icky

What-it-does: perfuming

It’s a common fragrance ingredient that has a light floral smell. It’s one of the “EU 26 fragrances” that has to be labelled separately (and cannot be simply included in the term “fragrance/perfume” on the label) because of allergen potential. Best to avoid if your skin is sensitive.

Hexyl Cinnamal - icky

What-it-does: perfuming

A common fragrance ingredient that smells like jasmine. It is one of the “EU 26 fragrances” that has to be labelled separately because of allergen potential. Best to avoid if your skin is sensitive.

Limonene - icky

What-it-does: perfuming, solvent, deodorant

A supercommon and cheap fragrance ingredient. It's in many plants, e.g. rosemary, eucalyptus, lavender, lemongrass, peppermint and it's the main component (about 50-90%) of the peel oil of citrus fruits.

It does smellnice but the problemis that it oxidizes on air exposure and the resulting stuff is not good for the skin. Oxidizedlimonene cancause allergic contact dermatitis and counts asa frequent skin sensitizer.

Limonene's nr1 function is definitely being a fragrance component, but there are several studies showing that it's also a penetration enhancer, mainly for oil-loving components.

All in all, limonene has some pros and cons, but - especially if your skin is sensitive -the cons probably outweigh the pros.

Linalool - icky

What-it-does: perfuming, deodorant

Linalool is a super common fragrance ingredient. It’s kind of everywhere - both in plants and in cosmetic products. It’s part of 200 natural oils including lavender, ylang-ylang, bergamot, jasmine, geranium and it can be found in 90-95% of prestige perfumes on the market.

The problem with linalool is, that just like limoneneit oxidises on air exposure and becomes allergenic. That’s why a product containing linalool that has been opened for several months is more likely to be allergenic than a fresh one.

A study made in the UK with 483 people tested the allergic reaction to 3% oxidised linalool and 2.3% had positive test results.

Iron Oxides (Ci 77491, Ci 77499)

Also-called: Ci 77491/77492/77499 | What-it-does: colorant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

A bit of a sloppy ingredient name as it covers not one butthree pigments: red, yellow and black iron oxide.

The triois invaluable for "skin-colored" makeup products (think your foundation and pressed powder) as blendingthese three shades carefully can produce almost any shade of natural-looking flesh tones.

Mica (Ci 77019)

Also-called: CI 77019 | What-it-does: colorant

A super versatile and common mineral powder that comes in different particle sizes. It is a multi-tasker used to improve skin feel, increase product slip, give the product light-reflecting properties, enhance skin adhesion or serve as an anti-caking agent.

It is also the most commonly used "base" material for layered composite pigments such as pearl-effect pigments. In this case, mica is coated with one or moremetal oxides (most commonly titanium dioxide) to achieve pearl effect via the physical phenomenon known as interference.

Titanium Dioxide (Ci 77891)

Also-called: Titanium Dioxide/Ci 77891;Ci 77891 | What-it-does: colorant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

Ci 77891 is the color code of titaniumdioxide.It's a white pigment with great color consistency and dispersibility.

Saltair Sunscreen Body Oil SPF 50 ingredients (Explained) (2024)

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