Cosmetic and Skincare Safety — What You Need to Know about Our Ingredients
Skincare and cosmetics are applied directly to your skin. It only makes sense that we use the safest ingredients and products, constantly submitting them to rigorous safety checks and painstakingly scrupulous evaluations.
The best way to understand whether a product is safe for your skin is to find out two things: what the ingredients are and how they affect your skin.
At Chifure, customer safety is our top priority. We’ve put together this page to address some important customer questions that have come up in the past. Peace of mind about ingredients and their safety makes for the best beauty lifestyle.
What’s in my skincare and cosmetics?
Believe it or not, there are more than 10,000 kinds of potential ingredients commonly found in skincare and cosmetics products, meaning there’s an endless number of ways these products can be formulated.
For example, a moisturizing cream generally contains ingredients such as:
- Glycerin and hyaluronic acid to provide moisture to the skin
- Vegetable or minerals oil to hold moisture
- Glyceryl stearate to blend water and oil (known as emulsification)
- Methylparaben to maintain the product’s stability
In makeup products, these ingredients may include coloring agents which help products retain their unique tones and hues. They may also be found in face washing products, helping rid the face of impurities.
Are “additive-free” cosmetic and skincare products actually safer?
It’s often thought that "additive-free” = “chemical compound-free", but it doesn’t quite work like that with skincare products.
Since 2001 in Japan, fully disclosing all the ingredients used in cosmetics and skincare products on the product label has been mandatory. Prior to that, there was a regulation that 103 specific ingredients identified by the government in 1980 — also known as “additives” which, in some rare cases, caused allergic reactions — were required to be listed on the cosmetics and skin care labels when applicable. However, this regulation has since been abolished. Those ingredients are no longer clearly defined, meaning users are no longer able to identify whether an ingredient is potentially harmful. In short, the term "additive-free" is now an ambiguous phrase that shouldn’t be used to determine whether a product is safe for purchase or not
We’re often asked whether cosmetics and skincare products that are totally free from those ingredients are perfectly safe for your skin. While it isn’t 100% black and white, ultimately the answer is no, not necessarily. Since user’s skin types and physical constitutions are all very different, some people have allergic reactions to specific ingredients that are completely fine for others to use. This can be said for all ingredients — not just so-called “additives.”
In order to maintain the stability and specific qualities of a skin lotion, it’s necessary to add a stabilizer in necessary amounts. If a skin lotion not containing a stabilizer is stored at room temperature for a long time, the quality of the lotion may deteriorate before it runs out, and this may cause a negative effect on your skin without you even realizing it.
Chifure's policy about cosmetic and skincare ingredients and their safety
At Chifure, most of the products in our cosmetics and skincare lines are formulated to be free of any artificial coloring and fragrances. We do this because those ingredients aren’t necessary when we consider the true purpose of the products.
Very rarely we may receive feedback from a customer indicating that 'Chifure products are supposed to be 'fragrance-free, but some products give off a scent.' The reason for this is that the raw materials in the formula may contain their own natural scent and the smell occurs because we don’t use any fragrance to cover up the smell of the ingredients. That said, we do use stabilizers, surfactants, mineral oils and tar-based pigment in our cosmetics and skincare when necessary so that the quality and functions of the products are achieved and maintained.
When selecting these ingredients, we only choose those that are commonly used and widely acknowledged by the skincare industry as being safe. As well as selecting the ingredients carefully, we repeatedly test our products from the development stage, ensuring those ingredients are included at the minimum possible level so that the impact on the user’s skin is minimized.
Most importantly, at Chifure, it’s our policy to disclose the ingredients contained in our products, and we have been doing so since long before the national regulation was enforced. We truly believe that you, our customers, should be aware of what ingredients are contained in our products and how safe they are so you can make an educated decision for your purchase.
We recommend you personally check the ingredients in our products to properly identify if any ingredients are disagreeable with your skin. We also suggest performing a patch test on your skin when you use cosmetics or skincare products for the first time. Lastly, it's very important to keep cosmetic and skincare products in the appropriate environment to ensure their ongoing quality and safety.
Stay informed about your skin and the cosmetics and skincare products you use as this is an essential step in keeping you and your skin safe. We at Chifure always have and always will remain committed to supporting you make the best possible choices for beauty and skincare regimen.
