Stop chasing ingredients!

We have started looking at skincare as if a cream is nothing more than a sum of fashionable ingredients. The higher the percentage of niacinamide, the better. The more peptides, the more advanced. But cosmetics do not work like a shopping list. Skin responds to the whole picture: texture, stability, absorption, comfort, scent, layering, skin feel and biology together. Somewhere along the way, we seem to have forgotten what a good formula actually does.

Fast read

• A cosmetic product is not a collection of separate ingredients, but a complete formula
• Skin feel often determines within seconds whether a product is experienced as “good”
• Even the same active ingredients can perform very differently depending on the formula
• Today’s focus on ingredient lists and ingredient apps can oversimplify cosmetics
• Good skincare supports the skin as a whole: more comfortable, calmer, smoother and fresher

I had to smile when I recently saw an Instagram post by a cosmetics manufacturer I did not know. They made a strong point: good ingredients do not automatically sell a product. The experience does. Let’s think that through for a moment. I’ll help you. I’ll explain.

Collecting ingredients like Pokémon cards

This is exactly where things have increasingly gone wrong in skincare over the past few years. We have all started collecting ingredients as if they were Pokémon cards. Vitamin C. Niacinamide. Ceramides. Exosomes. PDRN. Ectoin. Peptides. The longer the list, the more impressive the product appears to be. On social media, INCI-list analyses are everywhere, and consumers now talk almost like trained cosmetic chemists.

We don’t like it sticky

But skin does not think in separate ingredients. Skin experiences a formula. It is that moment when you apply a cream and immediately feel: yes, this works. Or the opposite: it feels too greasy, too sticky, it does not absorb, or, the worst one of all, it starts pilling. Also annoying: when it feels as if your skin is being sealed off.

The key: routine loyalty

Sometimes a product has a beautiful ingredient list, but after three days you already do not want to use it anymore. And that matters more than many people realise. Because cosmetics only work if you actually enjoy using them. Routine loyalty, in other words.

A good formula is a small ecosystem

In reality, a cosmetic product is quite a complex system, and one that has been studied for decades in search of the best recipe and the best skin feel. It is not just the active ingredients that matter, but everything around them.

How stable does vitamin C remain in water, or in oil? Which emulsifier is used? How do silicones, oils and humectants behave together? How quickly does water evaporate from the formula? How does a film-former feel on the skin? What happens under make-up? How does the formula behave on a damaged skin barrier?

That total picture ultimately determines the experience, and often the result too.

One peptide, five different skin experiences

You can put exactly the same peptide into five different serums and still end up with five completely different products. One product gives immediate comfort and glow. Another stings, pills or leaves the skin feeling dry. Not because the peptide is “bad”, but because the formula around it functions differently.

The quick game of instant effect

As consumers, we often confuse immediate skin change with real efficacy. A cream can make the skin look smoother, fuller or softer within minutes through water-binding ingredients, film-formers, silicones, emollients or light reflection. The stratum corneum swells ever so slightly, the surface looks optically more even, and light falls more beautifully on the skin. That feels like: this works.

Cosmetics are chemistry, skin biology and psychology at once

The biological effect over time may be much more subtle. Conversely, a formula that truly supports the skin barrier or gradually helps regulate pigmentation may not feel spectacular at all in the first few minutes. Cosmetics always live in two time zones at once: the immediate skin sensation and the slower biology of the skin.

Why simple can sometimes feel better than high-tech

Perhaps this also explains why some consumers remain loyal to relatively simple products. Not because those products are necessarily more spectacular from a technological point of view, but because they keep the skin feeling calm, comfortable and healthy. And in the end, that may be the most important thing.

A formula does not always need to be explosively active to be good

In fact, modern skincare culture has sometimes become so fixated on high percentages and fast results that we have forgotten the skin is a living organ that needs balance. When skin is exposed too often, or too intensely, to exfoliating acids, retinoids or other powerful actives, especially without enough recovery and barrier-friendly care, the skin barrier can become unbalanced.

Neurocosmetics

This is where cosmetics also touches on neurocosmetics, although we should not use that word too casually. A product does something to the skin, but also to the brain. Scent, texture, cooling, spreadability and absorption speed are interpreted at lightning speed as comfort, luxury, efficacy or irritation.

Before you have even looked rationally at the ingredient list, your nervous system has already decided whether a product feels pleasant. That is not a side issue. The skin is full of nerve endings, and the brain continuously reads skin sensation. A good formula therefore calms not only the skin, but also the experience of the skin.

Those clever textures from Korea

This is also part of the success of Korean skincare. Of course, interesting ingredients came from there, but the real secret is just as often found in the culture of texture. Light layers, quick absorption, lots of hydration, glow without greasiness, serums and essences that almost naturally fit into a routine. Korean skincare shows that user experience is not a luxurious extra, but a strategy. A product should not only promise something. It should feel good enough to use again, every single day.

Is skincare becoming medicalised?

Perhaps this also explains why the cosmetics world sometimes seems to be moving more towards pharmacy, or at least suggesting that it is. Skincare is presented as if it is almost medication: percentages, actives, pathways, targets, claims.

That has value, especially when brands want to better substantiate what they do. But cosmetics are not medicine. Cosmetics also have an aesthetic, sensory and emotional function. A cream is allowed to feel delicious. A serum is allowed to be elegant. A product is allowed to make your skin look more beautiful without immediately pretending to be a medical correction. Wellbeing. Self-care.

And then you see something interesting happening: people are no longer searching only for “anti-aging”. They are searching for comfort. Calm. Glow. Resilience. Skin that looks fresh and feels good. That is something very different from chasing an ingredient.

Skin wants cooperation, not conflict

What I personally like about this development is that it can make skincare more human again. If we are open to that. But the temptation to embrace the next technological step is strong. So tempting. The belief, the hope, that everything can still become better. And I am not saying that it cannot. With the arrival of artificial intelligence, many interesting things may still happen.

Everyone is a cosmetic chemist now

The paradox is that TikTok has made consumers smarter, while at the same time encouraging them to look more superficially. More people know what niacinamide is, what retinol does and why ceramides matter. That is a good thing. But the same platform has also fed a kind of ingredient thinking in which one substance, one percentage or one viral claim is expected to explain the entire product.

While a formula is precisely about interaction. About balance. About dosage, carrier systems, pH, stability, tolerability and skin feel. TikTok can teach you to recognise an ingredient, but not always to understand a good formula.

We should stop being so dismissive about luxury creams

And then we arrive at more expensive, luxurious skincare. People can be so dismissive about it, and honestly, that is not always justified. Luxury is not automatically found in a rare extract or an extremely expensive active ingredient. Luxury is often found in the way a formula is finished. In how a cream glides over the skin. How quickly a serum disappears without becoming tacky. How an SPF is combined with skin-nourishing and protective ingredients in an ultra-fine texture. How a night cream feels rich without being suffocating. That is craftsmanship. Sometimes you can feel it in a product before you even know what is inside.

A good formula works with your skin

Hydration, suppleness, light reflection, less tightness, a more even surface, less irritation: these are often subtle effects that together make a face look healthier and fresher. Not because one miracle ingredient solves every problem, but because the complete formula supports the condition of the skin.

That is why routine loyalty matters so much. A product that feels good is a product you use. A product that sticks, stings, pills or creates too much hassle disappears to the back of the bathroom cabinet. In cosmetics, consistent use often matters more than an extremely impressive percentage on the packaging. The best formula is therefore not only the formula that is technically the most ambitious, but also the one your skin and your daily life can actually live with.

Suppleness…

And perhaps this is ultimately what cosmetics were originally meant to do. Not to “repair” the skin as if it were a defective object, but to temporarily give it better conditions in which to function comfortably, supplely and vibrantly.

That, for me, is also where the philosophical layer lies. Modern beauty has become strongly focused on control: correcting, optimising, measuring, improving. But skin is not a project you can force into shape with loose building blocks. Skin lives, reacts, changes, sometimes protests, sometimes recovers. A good formula recognises that. It does not try to dominate the skin, but helps it feel better in itself. Literally. As far as I am concerned, the formula always wins.

So yes, live as healthily as you can. Try to minimise metabolic disruptions between the organs in your body, because together with UV radiation, these play a much bigger role in accelerated skin ageing than many people realise. The biggest culprit? Stress.

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PS: Beauty today needs vision, not just product knowledge. With more than 30 years of experience in beauty journalism, and as founder and publisher of BeautyJournaal, I help teams strategically understand trends, ingredients, regulation and consumer behaviour. Looking for an inspiring workshop for your team? I offer exactly that. Email me at info@beautyjournaal.nl.