What are actives?

And why won’t people shut up about them?

You know that feeling when you’ve seen a word so often that it just starts to look off and you think there’s no way that word is spelled that way? I’m having that with ‘actives’ right now, as I type this.

There’s a lot of online discourse about active ingredients (or ‘actives’) in skincare. Lucky for literally of all of us, this isn’t a new topic – she’s just having her cyclical viral moment.

When we’re talking about actives, we’re referencing specific ingredients working and changing the skin at a cellular level. This usually leads us to products for concerns like acne, hyperpigmentation, moisture loss, texture, signs of aging, etc.

As we’re watching the course correction from maximalist 10+-step routines, a realization is that a lot of us were likely overdoing it with the actives. Too many good things in skincare can sometimes be an easy way to find yourself with irritated, inflamed, over-exfoliated skin.

So what’s the play here? Pick 1, maybe 2, concerns you want to address the most, and work from there to build your arsenal.

What’s a newsletter without a list, right? These are some of the most common (and very effective) actives we see in products, and we’ve also talked about most of these before.

Niacinamide - a common ingredient for addressing texture in the skin, and certain concentrations can help even tone over time.

Vitamin A - the G.O.A.T. of all actives when it comes to slowing the signs of aging. We gossiped all about her in this post a few weeks ago.

Vitamin C - one of the best ingredients for protecting your skin from free radicals and environmental stressors. If paired with the right things, it can also help even tone and brighten the skin over time.

Hyaluronic acid - a naturally-occurring substance in the skin that sneaks her way into so. many. products. Hyaluronic acid is a humectant that helps attract and retain moisture to the skin – a must-have for dry skin warriors.

AHAs & BHAs - another that we’ve previously covered in a little bit more length! That breakdown is linked below but here’s a fast refresh of what each of the main 4 address:

• Glycolic = cell turnover and texture

• Lactic = lack of moisture and discoloration

• Mandelic = treating acne and texture

• Salicylic (BHA) = acne

Ceramides - these are a key piece of our skin’s outer layer and do a lot of work to help our skin stay healthy. Ceramides are lipids (fatty compounds that we like) and help prevent moisture loss, repair the skin, and also protect it from gross things like bacteria.

Peptides - it’s going to get science-y for a second. Proteins are crucial to skin health … have you heard of a little thing called collagen, or elastin? Both proteins. To get those proteins, we need amino acids, which is where peptides come in. Peptides (short chains of amino acids) help the production of collagen and elastin, which we want for reducing wrinkles, maintaining elasticity and firmness, and generally maintaining a strong barrier.

Maybe this felt like more info than you wanted but information is power, and now you have the power to not overdo it with the actives. But questions like “can I use this and this together?” or “when do I use these products?” are the sort of inquiries estheticians love answering. Permission to flood our DMs granted!