Choosing the right clean ingredients for skin care products is vital to the success of any beauty brand. 

As a skin care entrepreneur, you’re expected to juggle multiple tough jobs at once - an expert marketer, a pro at sales, a finance maestro, and a creative director all rolled into one. 

Exhausting!

It’s a tad unrealistic to expect you to match the level of experience and knowledge of expert cosmetic scientists, too. 

At Genie Supply, we’re here to make your job(s) easier! Below we break down the top five most common categories of clean ingredients for skin care products. 

Plus, we reveal each ingredient’s EWG Skin Deep score (where 1 is the most clean and 10 is the least clean). 

Look for these key ingredients to maximize skin care results for your customers and keep them coming back for more! 

1. Carrier Oils and Butters (Shea Butter) 

Carrier oils and butters are some of the best moisturizing additions to clean skin care products. Especially if your brand targets dry skin!

Derived from trees and plants, these natural occlusive ingredients help the skin hold onto moisture. Some of the most common examples include shea butter, coconut oil, cocoa butter, and sunflower seed oil.

Shea and cocoa butter are typically associated with body lotion and butter formulas. But don’t restrict oils and butters to the body care realm! These emollient ingredients also work great in facial skin care products for softening and hydrating dry skin. 

Skin care studies link shea butter to a number of skin-enhancing benefits - boasting both anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. There’s some evidence that shea butter helps to repair the skin’s barrier, too. 

At Genie Supply, our wholesale Gentle Daily Moisturizer combines butyrospermum parkii shea butter with glycerin and hyaluronic acid - a triple threat of effective moisturizing and hydrating powers to treat severely dry skin.

Shea butter has a ‘1’ rating on the EWG Skin Deep scale. 

2. Botanical Extracts (Aloe Vera)

Healing parts of plants are extracted for use in supplements or as ingredients for skin care products - these are called botanical extracts. Some of the most common examples include aloe vera, chamomile, and green tea extract.

We love aloe vera at Genie Supply. Just some of its amazing benefits include healing burns and wounds, easing skin inflammation, and tackling redness. 

Our Water Pack Sleeping Mask is formulated with aloe barbadensis. It promotes skin cell turnover, improves the skin’s moisture retention, and heals the skin’s moisture barrier. 

Aloe barbadensis (aloe vera) oil extract has a 1-2 rating on EWG’s scale. 

3. Essential Oils (Lavender Oil) 

Looking to add scent to your clean skin care line? Essential oils are a great plant-based alternative to synthetic fragrance oils. While essential oils tend to be more expensive than fragrance oils, they boast aromatherapy benefits and have a longer shelf life, too. 

At Genie Supply, we have 15 different essential oil options to choose from. Enhance the relaxing skin care experience with floral scents like ylang-ylang or lavender, choose fruity options ranging from orange to lemon, or try out a nutty aroma like bitter almond. 

Naturally, many clean skin care brands prefer to keep their products unscented. We offer unscented versions of all of our wholesale skin care, too!

Essential oils vary in terms of their clean credentials. Always ask your manufacturer about their cleanest essential oils before you formulate any products with scent. 

One of our favorites, lavandula angustifolia (lavender) oil, has a ‘2’ rating on EWG’s Skin Deep scale. 

4. Humectants (Hyaluronic Acid) 

Humectants are hydrating ingredients that treat dryness and repair the skin’s barrier by fixing issues with moisture loss. They work to tackle dryness by drawing water into the skin. 

For optimal hydrating results, always apply a humectant straight after cleansing and before any moisturizing products. Some of the most common humectant ingredients in clean skin care products include hyaluronic acid, glycerin, and lactic acid. 

At Genie Supply, we love combining humectant skin care ingredients to create a super-hydrating formula for dramatic results. Our Hyaluronic Acid Drops contain a mixture of three hydrating humectants -  hyaluronic acid (sodium hyaluronate), glycerin, and vitamin B5 (panthenol).

All three of these humectants have an EWG rating of ‘1’. (1) (2) (3)

5. Vitamins (Vitamin B3)

A vitamin-rich diet is essential for giving us glowing-from-within skin and the topical versions make a huge difference to the appearance of our skin, too. 

Adding vitamins to skin care products helps undo and prevent the type of damage caused by free radicals. That’s not all - vitamins can help stimulate collagen, provide anti-inflammatory benefits, and even ease hyperpigmentation issues. 

Common vitamin ingredients for skin care products include vitamin A (retinoid), vitamin B3 (niacinamide), vitamin B5, and vitamin C. 

At Genie Supply, we take advantage of these amazing vitamin benefits when developing our formulas. Our Cotton Candy Serum contains 5% niacinamide for a moisturizing boost and an overall healthier skin appearance. 

The benefits of niacinamide include reducing pore size and texture, minimizing fine lines and wrinkles, and tackling hyperpigmentation.

EWG rates both niacinamide and tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate (vitamin C) ‘1’ on the Skin Deep scale. (1) (2)

Whether they’re found in nature, or developed in a lab specifically for kind-to-skin effective results, these five ingredient categories are the secret to developing winning clean skin care formulas.

Ready to get started on your clean skin care brand’s journey? Whether you’re interested in private labeling or custom formulating, we have a manufacturing process that can work for you. 

Don’t hesitate to email us at customerservice@geniesupply.com or call us at 812-329-1105.