moss Skincare’s Potentci Intensive Dermal Repair Hydrating Emulsion, featured in our June Clean Beauty Box, is a sophisticated skin care masterpiece.
Due to the complexity of ingredients we’re breaking this into a 3 part series to completely cover what makes this formula so special and unique. In today’s post we’re highlighting the powerful combination of natural and synthetic ingredients that work together to protect, nourish and visibly improve skin tone.
“Synthetic is in no way mutually exclusive to safe or sustainable or effective. Many natural antioxidants are in fact quite unstable and can become powerful free radicals.”
When it comes to clean skincare we often come across a general rule to avoid synthetic ingredients. However, as the science of clean skincare advances we’re seeing more and more ultra-effective and stable synthetic replacements that exceed our high standards for non-toxic ingredients.
“Synthetic is in no way mutually exclusive to safe or sustainable or effective. Many natural antioxidants are in fact quite unstable and can become powerful free radicals.” notes moss Skincare and AMBAR founder, Celestyna Brozek.
This means that in some cases they can actually doing more damage than they claim to reverse.
The thoughtful combination of natural and clean synthetic ingredients in Potentci results in a seriously effective and universal product that is worth every penny.
Natural Ingredient Superstars
N-Acetyl Glucosamine (or NAG for short)
Derived from shells, this amino sugar is similar to alpha and beta hydroxy acids, but without the possible irritation that can affect sensitive skin types.
It stimulates hyaluronic acid production and helps to erase hyper-pigmentation, especially when combined with niacinamide.
This is a great acid-based alternative to manual exfoliators, due to its gentle nature. It helps normalize the stratum corneum (the outermost layer of the skin) which is really beneficial to acneic skin. In vivo studies have shown that NAG contributed to increased skin moisturization and decreased flakiness (source).
Niacinamide (aka vitamin B3)
A water-soluble multi-tasking vitamin that helps strengthen skin surface, visibly improves the appearance of enlarged pores while brightening and soothing.
If you suffer from redness, blotchiness, uneven skin tone and dullness you’ll want to incorporate a product with this powerful ingredient to combat it all.
Dipalmitoyl Hydroxyproline (aka collagen amino acids)
A plant-derived ingredient that stimulates collagen synthesis
as well as helping to preserve elastin fibers through something called anti-elastase activity.
Ok…what does that mean?
Simply explained, elastase breaks down elastin. Elastin (along with collagen) is what keeps our skin structural integrity and elasticity intact (fewer lines and wrinkles). Dipalmitoyl hydroxyproline protects against elastin depletion. It also acts as an antioxidant fighting off free radicals which are a main contributor to visible skin aging.
Squeaky Clean Synthetics
Palmitoyl Dipeptide-5 Diaminobutyloyl Hydroxythreonine & Palmitoyl Dipeptide-6 Diaminohydroxybutyrate
These two might sound scary, but they’re not when you break it down. These are simply two peptides combined to improve firmness, epidermal nourishment, skin structural integrity and tonicity.
Together these work to stimulate certain proteins in our skin that are vital in maintaining structure of the dermal-epidermal junction (aka DEJ). DEJ provides functional and structural integrity to the skin which starts to decline when we hit our 30’s.
Dimethylmethoxy Chromanol
Most antioxidants capture free radical oxygen molecules which only make up a part of the atmosphere and oxidative stress in our bodies. Dimethylmethoxy chromanol is able to capture a much wider range of free radicals and has even shown to significantly improve skin pigmentation and elasticity (source).
Safe and stable, this clean synthetic antioxidant adds a serious punch to Potentci’s sophisticated formula.
