Your Moisturizer Should Never Be White
White, glossy swirls of creams and lotions inundate social media. Scoops of refined shea butter and splashes of milky white toners all promise perfect skin. Ironically, many products have names that associate their vegan whiteness with animal-based dairy products, but idiosyncrasies aside, clever advertisers have trained us to believe good skincare should be white.
There are many reasons why skincare products are white, and here at Mil Usos, we would argue that none of them are great. Keep reading to find out why!
1. White-colored creams signaled cleanliness and class. When skincare products were first being mass-produced, the color white was associated with cleanliness. Refined creams and lotions were exciting new products of the industrial era and were symbols of class, wealth, and elegance. But the classic whiteness of cold creams was much like the preferred whiteness of eggshells - an appeal to aesthetics that didn't necessarily translate to better quality.
2. Oils diluted with a lot of water turn white. Have you ever looked at the color of pure virgin olive oil? It's green. Sunflower oil is yellow. Plant-based oils have color. When small amounts of oils are emulsified with water, the mixture turns white. In most cases, there isn't enough oil present in the emulsion to maintain its natural color, which means you're mostly paying for water with a splash of oil.
3. Petrochemicals are colorless. Petrolatum and mineral oil are two of the most widely used skincare ingredients in the history of skincare; their use dates back to the mid 1800's! Some of the most iconic skincare brands ever created, such as Vaseline, Chapstick, Pond's, and Johnson's Baby Oil, are based primarily (or even exclusively) on petrochemicals. Petrochemicals are byproducts of the petroleum industry, which means they are cheap and easy to obtain. Unlike plant oils, however, petrochemicals have no nutrients to give them color, which also means they lack the antioxidants that make plant oils deeply nourishing to skin.
4. Moisturizers contain too many cheap emollients. Quality plant oils are expensive, but white fatty alcohol pellets are cheap. Over 85% of a typical skincare formula is composed of water and waxy fatty alcohols, which create a creamy texture. To this base, other oils and ingredients are added in small amounts. Most companies want to include a pricey miracle oil, such as sea buckthorn berry oil, without spending a lot of money to do so. The color of undiluted sea buckthorn berry oil, however, is a dark, rich orange that stains the skin. I have seen many white creams and lotions advertise this ingredient on their label, but any white product that claims to use this ingredient does not have enough of it to make a difference for your skin (but they still charge you as if it did!). The product will still feel moisturizing, but it won't do much else for you.
5. The oils and butters have been refined. The refined versions of all plant oils are white, clear, or significantly lightened. Oils are refined mostly to rid them of their natural odors so that they do not interfere with the perfumes added to the final product. Refining the oils, however, also rids them of the polyphenols, which are the healing antioxidants that give plants color and rescue irritated skin. The oils will still work as emollients, but the refining process eliminates all their magical nutrition.
Mil Usos' Total Cranarchy Multi-Use Balm is bright, golden magic. At Mil Usos, we use completely unrefined plant oils in our Total Cranarchy Multi-Use Balm. Since we do not dilute the product with water or cheap emollients, Total Cranarchy is a bright, beautiful golden color due to the wealth of beta-carotenes and other polyphenols present in the unprocessed plant oils. Beta-carotenes are a form of Vitamin A that do wonders for the skin, and we have paired these beta-carotenes with bakuchiol extract for an extremely skin-nourishing kick unlike anything else on the market.
Total Cranarchy is fragrance-free and unscented, but it still retains all of the plant oils' natural odors, which have a light, fresh aroma that is non-irritating and dissipates almost instantly. This is the way any truly nourishing moisturizer should look and smell, and we are proud to offer such a unique moisturizing product that truly stands out in the skincare market.
So, if you're ready to upgrade cheap, diluted white creams to the real deal, we applaud you and encourage you to check out our Total Cranarchy Multi-Use Balm on our website!