ingredient information

THE FACTS ABOUT OUR INGREDIENTS

 

ESSENTIAL OILS

We use pure organic essential oils of the highest quality and we choose them from their naturally life enhancing properties for the body and the mind. We never use any isolated compound of the essential oil, we only ever use active and whole oils. When you see a list of essential oil compounds at the end of the ingredient list (limonene, citral, geraniol, etc), this list is referring to the compounds that exist within the essential oils present in the product, they are not added to the product.

VITAMINS & ANTIOXIDANTS

We use only 100% natural vitamins and antioxidants and whenever available also organic. Our Vegetable oils are already rather rich in many of these but for some of our products we add extra pure vitamins and antioxidants to make them more effective.

VEGETABLE OILS

We have an extensive range of plant based oils that we use in our product range for their high vitamin and antioxidant content. Most of our oils are cold pressed and therefore very high in fatty acids.  However, in order to make our products better absorbed into the skin, and to allow the heavenly scent of the essential oils come through, some of our vegetable oils have been deodorised.  We use an eco-friendly method of a cold steam that removes the big fats and strong odours but preserves the naturally occurring vitamins within the oil.  

EMULSIFIERS 

Whenever there is both water and oil in a product there must also be an emulsifier, these are not yet available in organic form. We use only NON-GMO (from non genetically modified crops) plant based emulsifiers. You can see these in our ingredient list under the names of Cetearly Alcohol, Cetearly Glucoside, and Xanthan Gum.

DETERGENTS

For all our foaming products we use only plant based soft detergents, they are not yet available organic but we are hoping it won’t be long before they are. In order to make them even softer on the skin we blend them with soothing Aloe Vera.

PRESERVATIVES

Being a natural and organic brand we would of course prefer to use only natural preservatives in all our products. We DO use natural preservatives in many of our formulations, and ALL our oils and balms are preservative free.  However we cannot disregard science, and in some of our formulations, natural preservatives do not offer same high assurance on keeping the microbial count to a minimum, to the extent that PE does.  We want to keep our formulations intact so that when the consumer uses our products they remain pure once opened.

The official Material Safety Data on Phenoxyethanol (PE) states that it may cause irritations and long term exposure can be harmful.  This data is based on exposure to undiluted PE, it is widely agreed that exposure to 100% concentrations of PE to be toxic... however the same goes for almost all active substances used in cosmetics.

At 1% concentration within a topical skin product the amount of PE that penetrates the skin into the dermis layer is not significant enough to be considered harmful.  This has been proved on clinical tests published by the US National Library (link bellow).   This is possibly why PE is the chosen preservative for Vaccines and Intravenous Medicines in America and across the world.

At Soveral we are still looking for a natural preservative that is proven to be safe and effective. We use natural preservatives for many of our formulations but choose PE as our preservative system for some of  products that contain water.  This is because PE has a broad spectrum antimicrobial activity against bacteria, yeasts, and moulds - all the things you don’t want in your products.  It is also, in our view, the least toxic.

The National Center for Biotechnology Information

http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/2008/ucm116900.htm