09/03/2026
What’s the difference between a functional ingredient and an active ingredient? 🌿
Mal breaks down an important part of understanding skincare formulations.
Functional ingredients help create and support the product itself. They can affect things like texture, consistency, stability, preservation, or how the product spreads and feels on the skin.
Active ingredients are included for the effect they have on the skin and are the ingredients we look to when we’re trying to address a specific concern or create change.
Mal also shares a helpful rule of thumb when reading an ingredient list: ingredients are generally listed in order of concentration, so take a close look at the first 5–10 ingredients to get a better idea of what makes up the formula and where some of those change-focused ingredients may appear.
There are exceptions! Some ingredients are effective at very low concentrations, so their position lower on the list doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t important.
Learning ingredients isn’t just memorizing names. It’s learning how to understand the formula as a whole. ✨
