You who have no sense of chemistry but love beauty may one day be surprised to find that you actually know many chemical components that are difficult to read.
This is thanks to the cosmetics companies. They always add various "magical ingredients" to their products and preach the efficacy of these ingredients.
Take Nicotinamide , also known as vitamin B3 ( VB3 ) . As a drug, it is mainly used for the prevention and treatment of pella prellagmatitis and stomatitis, glossitis, sick sinus syndrome, atrioventricular block and other problems. However, in the field of beauty, the most emphasized effect of this ingredient is "light spots whitening, inhibiting melanin". As Asian female consumers have long attached great importance to the whitening effects of beauty products, "niacinamide" quickly became an Internet celebrity skin care ingredient.
But what really brought niacinamide into the public eye is the daily chemical giant Procter & Gamble. The company's two major beauty brands, SK-II and Olay, have both added niacinamide to their products. In SK-II's star item " Little Light Bulb " , niacinamide is second only to pitera™ , the brand's core ingredient , yeast extract. The small white bottle series of Olay's ace products is based on niacinamide. It also claims that the brand has studied the skin care efficacy of niacinamide for more than 20 years and has applied for a large number of patents.
With the promotion of the efficacy of niacinamide and effective marketing measures, the small white bottle series not only helped Olaya, who was previously deeply questioned by the aging of the brand, but also led consumers to pay attention to other products under the brand. Olay also seems to be planning to bundle with niacinamide to the end, and most of the new products it launched this year have added niacinamide, and even launched a special niacinamide shower gel. On major publicity platforms, Olay has also been trying to highlight this ingredient and its efficacy.
The sweetness Olay tasted from niacinamide also stimulated other beauty companies to follow suit. In addition to daily chemical giants such as Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and L'Oréal, pharmaceutical companies such as Katazai are also involved. The Canadian skin care brand The Ordinary has relied on a product that sells for less than 100, but has a high content of 10% niacinamide, which has aroused heated discussion among Chinese consumers and greatly increased sales.
According to the Baidu index, which reflects the hot search of words, the popularity of "niacinamide" remained stable until 2016, began to rise significantly in 2017, and reached a historical peak this year, and the heat was 3 times that of 2016.
In addition to the continuous "Amway" of large companies, the popularity of niacinamide is also related to the increasing concern of consumers about product ingredients. According to the "2018 Double Eleven Beauty and Personal Care Category Sales Ranking and Consumer Research" released by Wayne Consulting, with the rise of the "ingredient party", 45% of consumers have an understanding of professional cosmetic ingredients, and 17.2% of products will clearly indicate professional ingredients in the name. Niacinamide ranked second in the "Ranking of Professional Ingredients in Facial Skin Care" with a proportion of 24.9%, second only to hyaluronic acid.
With the increase in people's attention to niacinamide, the over-marketing and publicity of this ingredient is also increasing. Nowadays, products containing niacinamide have extended from daily chemical product categories such as essences, creams, masks, and bath liquids to health care fields such as oral tablets, and even directly sell niacinamide stock solutions. The concentration of niacinamide has also become a selling point, and some Taobao stores directly hit the product with a content of 99%.
However, the concentration of niacinamide is not as high as possible. Studies have found that excessive concentrations or impurities can easily cause skin intolerance problems among consumers, and excessive amounts can be harmful to the human body. A paper by the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tampere in Finland shows that adults who consume more than 3 g of niacinamide per day can be toxic to the liver.
At present, most mature products on the market have a niacinamide content between 2.5% and 5%, if you see that the ingredient content is more than too much, it is better to be careful.