As a vigilant reader of product labels, I pay close attention to the stories that skin care brands are telling about their products.

It’s usually easy to tell what’s inside, but I also make note of what’s not mentioned. And as I inventory the ingredients I’m promised are inside, I operate with one simple truth in mind:

Whatever the ingredients you’re looking for, it’s how they’re formulated that really matters.

Recently, I had an experience that reinforced this truth. While traveling, I bought a glucosamine supplement from a brand that closely resembled the brand I usually use. But to my dismay, I found it didn’t work as well as my favorite brand — even though the label claims read the same.

Upon further comparison, I realized that my preferred brand was formulated with a higher potency of key ingredients and with a single ingredient that I can only now surmise made the difference between the two products.

It’s just as true for skin care as it is for nutritional supplements.

But you wouldn’t know it by listening to how the beauty industry talks about skin care ingredients:

It’s as if formulating is as easy as whipping together a few natural ingredients with no more thought than is necessary for a vegetable stir-fry.

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Don’t get me wrong: the integrity of ingredients is important. Eu2Be’s formulas bring rare blends of up to 15 enriching, luxurious oils to help clean, nourish and protect your skin.

But making a skin care formula is a much more complicated endeavor than it seems, more akin to baking a cake at high altitude while dancing the rumba (something I haven’t quite yet mastered). 🍰💃🏾

That’s why Eu2Be’s formulations are never superficial and steeped in deep knowledge:

• About blending chemistry
• About reactions and interactions between ingredients
• About the safety and longevity of those ingredients
• And about the art of preservative technology

Inspired by what we know our ancestors themselves would create, we bring it all together with our attention directed to the experience, the feel and function of a finished formula.

It’s no surprise to me, then, that the science and art of skin care formulation is what separates the amateurs from the artists.

Perhaps it’s fitting that the beauty industry is merely a mirror of what we consumers say we want.

In post-war 1950s, consumers were fascinated by technology – what things scientists could make a molecule do! Products that were convenient and cheap drove demand for more things convenient and cheap. And, oh the thrills technology made possible: big, lush bubbles and sensual, lasting scents.

Thanks to science and decades of experience, we also now see the flipside, the harm that manipulated molecules can do. Natural products suddenly seem new and novel, a saving grace to us all.

But if we are obedient students of history, we can see that the pendulum arc from home-spun to lab-spun has swung wildly — and that the future cannot negate one in favor of the other. It must embrace both. Science is not evil. Natural is not the whole answer.

A label can tell any kind of story about ingredients, but without the formulation as a part of the plot, it’s not going to be a satisfying end product. 

Consider this: who hasn’t tried a natural deodorant despite studies that say aluminum as an antiperspirant or deodorant isn’t the evil-doer we feared?

Likewise, we all know the health benefits of consuming avocado and probiotics, but that doesn’t mean we can get those same health benefits when we apply a body lotion with avocado oil or probiotics as key ingredients. It’s just not the same.

Stories can be powerful — especially those on labels — but as discerning consumers, we must be mindful of the balance between fact and fable because when it comes to skin care, formulation matters.

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