Have you ever wondered how Vichy decides which active ingredients to use? How our formulation experts assess which are most effective and safe for skin?
Here’s the inside track on our ingredient selection, driven by actives backed by strong clinical evidence and used in dermatology. When our experts formulate new products, they look first for ingredients that meet the following criteria:
#1 Vichy looks for molecules recognized in the medical or pharmaceutical realms.
What does that mean exactly? Antioxidants sugars (polysaccharides, glycans), ceramides, pre-and post-biotic, peptides, phytosterols, minerals: magnesium, calcium, sodium. Polyphenols & flavanoids, Carotenoids, Omegas, Vitamins (C, E, Folic Acid, B3, B5), Amino Acids.. ) What all these molecules have in common is a scientifically-proven impact on health. Vichy Laboratories challenge is to identify and source those molecules with proven properties on skin. And then to prove their impact in a Vichy product. To that end, our researchers conduct a series of tests.
#2 Vichy only uses actives with proven positive effects on skin
Vichy screens thousands of actives to select the most-performing, using a global predictive approach to test how these actives interact with skin.
Each of our actives is scientifically-analyzed for both its safe use on skin and its proven properties against Exposome aggressions. In other words, those ingredients that are capable of actively counteracting the accumulation of aggressions, internal and external, that skin faces in a lifetime.
To assess that impact, we conduct different kinds of test :
- In vitro tests: evaluate an active’s biological properties on skin cellular culture. For example, to test an ingredient’s action on collagen synthesis, or on epidermal thickness.
- Tests on reconstructed skin: for more than 30 years our Reseach has used reconstructed skin models to imitate skin structure and recreate the conditions to "predict" certain human physiological reactions. Learn about Reconstructed skin, on which hundreds of ingredients are tested every year: www.episkin.com These reconstructed skin models (or other tissues, such as corneal) are now integrated into the global predictive approach. Thanks to these tests and to research knowledge accumulated over half a century, it’s now possible to predict the safety and effectiveness of both an ingredient - and the product that contains it.
# 3 Once Vichy identifies a potential molecule, we prioritize its extraction from nature.
Observation of nature has always been an inexhaustible source of inspiration for science, medicine and of course, skincare. Observing the plant world reveals a similitude of defense strategies - like those of the skin, hair and scalp against aggressions: the capacity for renewal, antioxidant defenses, resistance to climate change. Through these studies of the botanical world, Vichy identifies and extracts new molecules from nature when possible.
When actives cannot be directly extracted from nature, green chemistry can reproduce and recreate a molecule’s natural action and power.
#4 And ALWAYS hypoallergenic
At Vichy, each ingredient is certified hypoallergenic. Vichy safety experts identify the potential danger of every ingredient, examining scientific and toxicology reports to assess any risks of intended use in final products.
Vichy skincare: natural-origin, dermatologist-grade actives your skin recognizes.