Ingredient Library
Scroll through our library of ingredients to learn about their benefits to skin and health. They are listed alphabetically with an anchor menu on the right for easier access. If there is a particular ingredient that you would like us to write about, let us know by sending us an email!
Beets
Beets contain a special type of super antioxidant called Betalins. Betalins are water‐soluble nitrogen‐containing pigments composed of two groups: red/purple blue foods, called betacyanins and the yellow‐orange foods, called betaxanthins. In clinical studies, they have demonstrated potent antioxidant abilities associated with protection against several diseases. They are excellent free-radical scavengers and protect against oxidative stress and cell damage. Beets are Mother Nature's Superheros & a great addition to your skincare routine as well as your diet!
Which products contain this ingredient? Currently none of them, but we love beets and we'll be coming up with something in the near future with beets at the top of the list of ingredients. In the meantime, enjoy a nice refreshing beet salad with roasted beets, candied walnuts, gorgonzola & Belgian endive, drizzled with a refreshing raspberry vinaigrette made with an emulsion of fresh raspberry jam (cook down 1 part sugar to two parts raspberries, then squeeze in a half lemon) & aged balsamic!
Calendula Officinalis - Wildcrafted
More to come - WE PROMISE!
Catnip - Wildcrafted
Catnip Benefits For Skin include protection against premature aging, speeding up wound healing time, and its efficacy in treating sprains, muscle aches, arthritis, gout and joint pain.
Coupled with the fact that it is also an incredible pest repellent which was proven in studies to be 10 times more effective than DEET, we decided to use it as the cornerstone of Pebbles' Flea Flee.
Cocoa Butter - Unrefined
Cocoa butter is the fat source used to make chocolate, and due to a significant amount of polyphenol and flavanoid antioxidants contained in cocoa butter, chocolate is actually good for you!
Like unrefined coconut oil, unrefined cocoa butter is a good source of Vitamin E, whose primary role is as an antioxidant, which helps to stabilize cell membranes and protect the skin tissue - among other organs - against oxidative stress.
Used topically, its antioxidant & emollient properties make it an ideal moisturizer, helping the skin to retain moisture, and stay soft. For these reasons, it also has been used with great success by those with psoriasis, eczema and other skin ailments. We love it for all the reasons above, plus, it's hard to resist its warm, chocolatey aroma.
Which products contain this ingredient? ALL OF THEM! Including our famous body polish (sugar scrub)!
Coconut Oil - Unrefined
Coconut oil in its unrefined state, is very useful in transdermal applications. It's small molecules make it absorb into the skin much easier than olive oil. Its antimicrobial & antibacterial properties have been shown to help with skin problems such as Tinea Versicolor, and Athlete's foot. Anecdotal evidence has demonstrated that unrefined coconut oil also has the ability to ameliorate the severity of Psoriasis, eczema and other forms of dermatitis. It also contains Vitamin E, which is an antioxidant that helps to block free radicals, along with Vitamin K -which has an anti-inflammatory effect on skin.
Which products contain this ingredient? ALL OF THEM! We love everything about Unrefined Coconut Oil!
Dark Chocolate (Theobroma Cacao)
Pound for pound, dark chocolate contains more antioxidants than any other food on the planet...problem is, it'll get you FAT if you try to source all your dietary antioxidants from it, but who doesn't love it, right? Well, there is a way to have it guilt-free, because it also lends itself nicely to skincare, so INDULGE!
Which products contain this ingredient? Our Dark Chocolate-Coconut & Dark Chocolate-Peppermint body polish (sugar scrub)
Hibiscus Flower
Hibiscus flower is another one of nature's best kept secrets & has earned the moniker, "The Botox Plant" through it's overachieving antioxidant content, plus its ability to act as a natural AHA (alpha hydroxy acid) by gently exfoliating and tightening skin. Its such a powerhouse that the antioxidant content is no joke, and it has been shown in laboratory studies to be so efficient at killing gram negative and gram positive bacteria, that its performance in this arena has been compared to some antibiotics Some say it even helps minimize the appearance of cellulite. It is packed with Vitamin C and has been used in beauty treatments since the days of Cleopatra.
Which products contain this ingredient? ALL OF THEM!
Honey - Wild
On a road trip to Oregon, we discovered Wild Forest Honey 🍯 - amazing stuff! Not only is it a natural humectant – which helps your skin to retain moisture, but it also contains bee propolis, royal jelly, wild beeswax – which is an excellent skin barrier/humectant – higher antioxidant levels than regular honey, higher mineral content, higher antibacterial level and greater skin benefits. Bottom line: It's the cat's pajamas!
Which products contain this ingredient? None currently, but we love wild honey & we love sharing our knowledge, so squeeze some in your tea, or on a buttermilk biscuit & enjoy!
Horsetail
Horsetail grows wild in certain areas and is considered by some to be a weed, though it has been used for centuries as a healing herb by indigenous cultures throughout the world. One of its important benefits is its ability to help strengthen and add shine and body to hair because of its natural silica content. Horsetail is rich in vitamins and minerals - just take a look at the list:
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Vitamin C
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Thiamine (vitamin B1)
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Riboflavin (vitamin B2)
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Pantothenic acid (vitamin B5)
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Pyridoxine (vitamin B6)
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Folate
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Vitamin E
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Potassium
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Sodium
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Calcium
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Magnesium
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Iron
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Zinc
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Phenolic compounds
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Silica
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Kynurenic acid
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Styrylpyrones
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Chlorophyll
With this impressive list of nutrients, it's no wonder horsetail has been said to be anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial as well as relieving joint pain and possibly being an important link in collagen production. ...But read on, because there's also a dark side to this botanical.
One thing for sure, we know it helps produce healthy hair with lots of body and shine, as we have had occasion to test it for this specific purpose. Our reticence with it however, has to do with some of its potential side-effects. It has a thiamine stripping property (Vitamin B1) when overused, and is actually quite toxic to herbivorous animals for this reason. It has been proven to cause horses to lose coordination when they have been grazing in an area with horsetail.
Another concern is from a medical journal entry which showed a person with undiagnosed hepatitis B, whose symptoms were inflamed to an alarming level after ingesting a tea made with horsetail, for ten days. There is apparently a corollary relationship between horsetail and liver function in people with Hepatitis B, as well as alcoholics with thiamine deficiency. So at this time, we're content to use it for our own personal use on occasion, but not so gung-ho about sharing it with the public who may have underlying illnesses such as low thiamine levels due to alcoholism, or Hepatitis B, and we do not wish to compromise anyone's health and well-being.
This is intended to be more of an informative article, so that you, the consumer, can be educated in the pros and cons of different botanicals you may find in natural products.
We absolutely love what it did for our hair – the body & shine was noticeable after one use, but because we're not willing to risk the public's safety, horsetail is not an option for Bianca-Blake's line of natural products. Not only is our mission to find the most effective natural solutions for skin and hair, we also insist on researching, testing and relying on scientific data to underscore the safety of an ingredient before we will introduce it to you.
This is why we don't use pennyroyal in our pet products. Even though pennyroyal is prized for it's ability to rid pets of fleas, it's also toxic and potentially fatal to the wrong dog.
Macrocystis Pyrifera (Giant Brown Sea Kelp)
Macrocystis Pyrifera is a powerhouse of antioxidants, vitamins and trace minerals. Prominent among them is iodine. Iodine rejuvenates skin, hair & nails AND inhibits cancer cell growth. Another major thing we love about it is its ability to retain moisture even better than hyaluronic acid! This is one of the reasons people love our Rejuvenating Body Scrub so much, and never fail to boast about how it makes their skin SO SOFT.
Which products contain this ingredient? All of our sugar scrubs & our fab serum, Molecular Geometry!
Melissa Officinalis (Lemon Balm) - Wildcrafted
More to come - WE PROMISE!
Milk - Raw
Ever hear of the ancient royalty bathing in milk & honey? It wasn't just because they didn't have fancy skincare lines back then – they actually knew a thing or two about skincare! We've briefly covered honey above, so let's talk about raw milk.
Besides being packed with vitamins and minerals to help your bones and teeth, it also helps skin & hair One of the reasons for this has to do with a very coveted chain of amino acids called peptides. Peptides are very important in skin health because their appearance sends a message to your skin to produce collagen. Collagen itself cannot be put in a bottle and expected to repair skin – your body has to produce it, in order for it to do any good. Peptides do just that. Raw milk – NOT pasteurized, processed milk from overworked cows being pumped full of hormones and antibiotics & doing the job of ten or twenty cows, but PURE, raw milk from happy, pasture cows who are fed grass. Click here for a great source of info on raw milk.
Which products contain this ingredient? None currently, but if you want a fabulous, uber-moisturizing DIY facial mask, try mixing some raw milk & chia seeds. Stir in a little wild honey, let it gel, then spread it all over your face, toss a couple cucumber slices or green tea bags on your eyes, while you relax, and finish off with a cup of hibiscus tea and a shortbread cookie!
Peptides
Peptides are found in every cell in our bodies, and in foods we eat. Peptides are chains of amino acids that are smaller than proteins. There are several different kinds of peptides, but the ones we are interested in, are Glutathione, which stimulate tissue growth. They perform the role of healing wounds and calming inflammation, while promoting collagen & elastin synthesis. When peptides form a long chain of amino acids, they become proteins. When they are in a short chain of amino acids, they are able to penetrate the top layer of our skin and send signals to our cells to let them know how to function. One important protein in our skin is collagen.
To make it a little more confusing, there are neuro peptides, and signal peptides.
Neuro peptides tricks the brain into preventing elastin breakdown (wrinkles)
Signal Peptides tricks the brain to start producing amino acids like collagen, to lift the sagging skin.
Peptides are being explored in the pharmaceutical industry, to help develop drugs that are more effective with less side-effects...which is a different subject altogether, but nonetheless, interesting.
What we're interested in is, How do peptides from plants penetrate the skin and signal it to repair itself? Short answer: Proteins (the longer chain amino acids) are too large to penetrate the skin, but peptides are just right. So they go in there through trans-dermal delivery (topical application that penetrates the epidermis) signalling the skin to repair itself by producing more collagen. While peptides are not a quick fix, such as Botox, fillers or plastic surgery, they are in my opinion, the best fix, because over time, they restore elasticity, radiance and firmness, which is what we all want anyways, and they do this in a natural way, restoring one's youthful appearance, rather than chemically or surgically altering it, (which usually doesn't have great results over the long haul, and can be frustrating, addictive,present an unnatural appearance, expensive and worst of all, bad for your self-esteem).
We believe everyone has natural beauty, and rather than alter it, we say, bring it out & let it shine! This is the philosophy behind our serum, Molecular Geometry, which is chock-full of naturally occurring peptides derived from antioxidant-rich botanicals such as the Wild Strawberry & Wild Rose we use in our products, which both contain an enormous amount of Vitamin C to name but just one benefit.
https://www2.chemistry.msu.edu/faculty/reusch/VirtTxtJml/protein2.htm
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/health-disease/skin-health/peptides
Rose & Rosehips - Wild
Roses are among the most delightful antioxidant carriers because of their beauty as well as their lovely scent. One particular sub-genus – Rosa, or, the wild rose – boasts an even more abundant cellular composition of phytonutrients.
Incredibly, wild roses have been used as medicine probably since their discovery, and for good reason. Some of their benefits include organic acids, pectins, flavonoids, tannins, carotenoids, fatty acids, vitamins (particularly vitamin C and also vitamins B1, B2, K, PP, E), macro- and microelements, along with their resultant antioxidant, antimutagenic and anticarcinogenic effects. The Vitamin C content in Wild Roses is significantly more than is found in citrus fruit – the food that everyone associates with high levels of Vitamin C.
Because of this, we have braved the thickets and thorns that surround these beautiful but painful shrubs, and harvest them in the early morning hours during their short growing season. They are truly a treasure to be prized. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3668991/
Strawberry Leaf - Wild
Packed with an abundance of Vitamin C, and an ORAC value of 4,302 (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) puts them just slightly below blueberries and raspberries. 30% of their total antioxidant capacity comes from Vitamin C, with 1 cup providing a whopping 113% of the total RDA of Vitamin C. This makes strawberry leaf an excellent addition to your skincare...but wait, it gets even better – Now let's talk about WILD strawberries, because that's what we're using! In addition to their high bioactive content, the leaves are one of the richest sources of chlorogenic acid, which has anti-aging, skin tightening effects and promotes a radiant complexion. And while strawberries are generally high in Elligic Acid – plant phenolics associated with human health – wild strawberries and their leaves have EA in spades! In fact, scientific studies have demonstrated significantly higher EA levels in the leaves than in the fruit. So basically, wild strawberries are a SUPER Super Food!
https://pubag.nal.usda.gov/download/9139/PDF
Which products contain this ingredient? It is the second ingredient in our Elixir Vitae, which is our antioxidant-rich, handcrafted sea kelp/botanical extract found in all of our body polish/sugar scrubs as well as Molecular Geometry, our amazing serum.
Sugar
Being a natural humectant, sugar helps our skin to retain moisture. Also, many sugars - such as the cane sugar found in our product - are a natural source of glycolic acid.
Glycolic acid is used in many skincare applications for its ability to improve the skin's texture, reducing wrinkles, improving scarring and age spots. It works by weakening the binding properties of the epidermis, thereby exfoliating the dead cells and exposing live skin cells. For more information, click here.
Which products contain this ingredient? All of our body polish/sugar scrubs!