How Scientist test Ingredients...

There are tons of ingredients out there with big claims and benefits that they offer to your skin. But really, there are only a few that are actually backed by science as being effective.

There are a bunch of different ways scientist can test for the efficiency of ingredients. The most common tests are;

• In vitro (tube/cell culture)

• Ex vivo (animal or human skin)

• In vivo animal

• In vivo human

In Vitro - is a test that is usually done in a test tube or a cell-culture petri dish. This method does not mimic how an ingredient actually acts when applied to skin, but it's a good way to see if an ingredient should proceed with testing as other testing can be more costly. So an in vitro test is a good way to test an ingredient to see if it’s worth looking more into.

Ex Vivo - This is when an active ingredient or a formula is tested on a patch of human or pig skin. Pig skin is used because it closely resembles human skin and if human skin is used it’s usually leftover skin from plastic surgeries. Why these tests aren’t ideal, is because this skin is only good for about 2 weeks. So we can’t study the long term effects of these ingredients.

In Vivo Animal - An ingredient is tested on an animal. There has been a long fight to end animal testing and luckily animal testing is not done as often anymore. This still isn’t the most accurate way of testing ingredients since, human skin reacts completely differently than animal skin.

In Vivo Human - This is when an ingredient is tested on human skin. This is the most expensive form of testing so a lot of ingredients don’t actually get to go through a good In Vivo human test. An In Vivo test can include as little as 5 subjects, but a study with up to 30 or more people, is ideal. Also, when the In Vivo Human test includes a placebo controlled group, it’s also ideal. A Placebo controlled group is a group not testing the ingredient, so they can compare the two groups.

Info from the book I'm reading “Skincare Decoded” by Victoria Fu & Gloria Lu

Affiliate link for book - https://amzn.to/3JUbcet