No. 3 – On Ingredient Benefits.
No. 3 – On Ingredient Benefits.
The ingredients that make up General Salve No. 18 are chosen deliberately for one of three reasons:
The first reason is that they provide some sort of benefit to the skin (make the skin feel better, appear healthier, help remove cracks in dry skin, etc.)
The second reason is the aid in the non-greasy feel of the product on the skin (they help the product absorb, they aid in its spreadability, etc.)
The third reason is they stabilize the product itself over time.
One important guideline that we used in the development of our product is we wanted a product which existed entirely without the use of chemistry. In order to achieve this goal, we needed to utilize product formulation and packaging design for solutions normally achieved through synthetic chemistry.
There are two star ingredients in General Salve No. 18, rosehip seed oil and calendula flower.
The rosehip seed oil we use is sourced from Chile, which gives it certain benefits that are not available in Bulgarian or South African origin material, namely, its higher degree of unsaturation and the presence of trans-retinoic acid (Vitamin A, also known as retinol). There are very few sources of naturally occurring retinol and Chilean origin rosehip seed oil delivers this valuable phytochemical in reliable quantities to the skin.
Rosehip seed oil has been popular in beauty and personal care products for many years now, however its high cost has usually relegates it to a ‘claim ingredient’ (with <<1% inclusion), rather than a ‘functional ingredient’ (where it is used because of its performance at significant quantity). It is true that the rosehip seed oil we source is significantly more expensive than hexane extracted material from non-Andean growing regions; however, cost notwithstanding, we prefer to use the highest quality product on ourselves, and we want to share those benefits with our customers too!
Calendula is loaded with tons of phytochemicals which diffuses into the oil that is used to make our formulation. The largest commercial growing region for calendula flower is Egypt where harsh industrial pesticides are used to maximize yield of plantations. We source ours from an Illinois farm where they are slowly dried as to allow the maximum intact phytochemicals. Our product contains all different types of carotenoids which come from this flower and are beneficial to the skin!