Amino Bright Cleanser
Formulated For
This product is suitable for skin presenting with:
Melasma and hyperpigmentation. As the first step of a pigment protocol, where the objective is to cleanse thoroughly without provoking the inflammation that drives further pigment production.
Post inflammatory hyperpigmentation. The marks left after acne, injury or irritation. Commonly called post acne marks.
Congestion and blemish prone skin. Where follicular blockage and bacterial activity sit alongside marking.
Barrier compromise from over cleansing. Skin that feels tight, stripped or reactive after washing, which is a surfactant problem rather than a moisturiser problem.
Sensitive and reactive skin. The formula carries no sulfate surfactants, no essential oil and no added fragrance.
Formulated for use across all Fitzpatrick phototypes, the classification scale from I to VI describing how skin responds to UV exposure.
Placement in the routine. First step, morning and evening, before the Luminous Renewal Cell Turnover Toner.
Daily photoprotection is not optional with this product. Use the Advanced Protective Sun Lotion and the Luminous Glass Skin Tinted SPF from the range diligently, every day, including indoors and in winter. The tint is not cosmetic. The iron oxides that give it colour are what block visible light, and visible light drives pigment production in deeper phototypes through a pathway that a clear sunscreen leaves entirely open.
Formulation Architecture
Cleansing is where most pigment protocols are quietly undone. A harsh surfactant strips the intercellular lipids that hold the barrier together, the barrier responds with inflammation, and inflammation is one of the direct upstream triggers of melanin production. Skin can be washed into the exact problem it is being treated for.
This formula is built to solve two things that usually pull against each other: cleanse properly, and leave the surface intact. The active load is then delivered against a second constraint, which is that a rinse off product has seconds of contact rather than hours.
The Surfactant System
There is no sulfate in this formula. The cleansing comes from four milder classes working together, because a single mild surfactant does not clean well and a blend does.
Potassium Cocoyl Glycinate
An amino acid derived surfactant built on glycine, the simplest amino acid. Amino acid surfactants of this class clean at a mildly alkaline to near neutral pH and are documented for low protein denaturation, meaning they disrupt the structural proteins of the skin surface far less than sulfates do.
Sodium Methyl Cocoyl Taurate
Built on taurine. It produces dense foam and, unusually for an anionic surfactant, tolerates hard water without leaving the residue that causes the tight, filmy feeling after rinsing.
Disodium Lauryl Sulfosuccinate
A sulfosuccinate, not a sulfate, despite the similarity in the name. The molecule is larger and less able to penetrate into the stratum corneum, which is the property that determines irritation potential.
Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Sodium Cocoamphoacetate
Amphoteric surfactants, meaning they carry both a positive and a negative charge depending on pH. Their function in a blend is to associate with the anionic surfactants and form larger mixed structures. A larger structure is less able to enter the skin, so the blend is measurably milder than any of its parts used alone.
Capryloyl Glycine
An amino acid derivative combining glycine with a fatty chain. Documented for antimicrobial activity against the organisms implicated in follicular congestion, and used to support the mildness of the surfactant system.
Delivering Actives From a Rinse Off
VP/DMAPA Acrylates Copolymer
The answer to the central problem of an active cleanser. This is a deposition polymer: it carries a positive charge, and skin at cleansing pH carries a negative one. As the product is diluted with water during rinsing, the polymer is driven out of solution and deposits onto the surface, taking a portion of the active load with it. Without a deposition system, actives in a cleanser leave down the drain.
Pigment Pathway Actives
Azelaic Acid
A dicarboxylic acid, meaning it carries an acid group at both ends of the molecule. It acts as a competitive and reversible inhibitor of tyrosinase, the rate limiting copper dependent enzyme of melanin synthesis, and shows selectivity for hyperactive melanocytes rather than acting uniformly across the skin. That selectivity is unusual and it is the reason it is used in pigmented skin. It is also documented for antibacterial activity and for effects on keratinisation within the follicle, which is why it sits at the intersection of pigmentation and congestion.
Tranexamic Acid
Acts upstream of the melanocyte. A lysine analogue that occupies the lysine binding sites on plasminogen, limiting its conversion to plasmin. Plasmin activity in keratinocytes drives arachidonic acid release and downstream prostaglandin signalling, one of the routes by which UV and inflammation stimulate pigment producing cells. The same pathway is implicated in the vascular component that characterises melasma.
Acetyl Glucosamine
An amino sugar acting on the maturation of tyrosinase itself. The enzyme requires correct glycosylation, meaning the attachment of sugar chains during assembly, in order to become fully functional, and acetyl glucosamine interferes with that step. It also serves as a substrate in hyaluronic acid synthesis.
Three actives, three separate points of the same cascade: enzyme inhibition, upstream signalling, and enzyme assembly.
Fermentation and Barrier Support
Galactomyces Ferment Filtrate
The filtered liquid from a Galactomyces yeast culture. What is applied is not the organism but what the organism produced during fermentation: amino acids, organic acids, vitamins and peptides generated by the culture’s own metabolism. This is a different category of ingredient to a plant extract. The constituents do not exist in a raw material waiting to be pulled out, they are made by a living system under controlled conditions.
Yeast Extract
A second fermentation derived fraction, supplying beta glucans and amino acids.
Tremella Fuciformis (Mushroom) Extract
The snow mushroom, a source of a highly branched polysaccharide. Its interest is molecular size. The Tremella polysaccharide is smaller than most cosmetic grade hyaluronic acid while binding a comparable weight of water, and a smaller humectant sits differently on the surface after rinsing.
Glycerin
A humectant included to counter the water loss that any cleansing step produces.
Formulation Integrity
Citric Acid
Adjusts the finished product to a pH close to that of skin. This is not a detail in a cleanser. Surfactant irritation and barrier disruption both rise sharply as pH climbs, and azelaic acid requires a controlled pH to remain in its active form.
Phenoxyethanol, Hydroxyacetophenone
The preservative system. A water rich product used with wet hands in a bathroom is a demanding microbiological environment, and preservation in this category is a safety requirement.
Disodium EDTA
A chelator, binding trace metal ions from hard water that would otherwise leave deposits on the skin and destabilise the formula.
PEG-120 Methyl Glucose Trioleate
A thickener, controlling flow so the product dispenses at a consistent dose.
Glow Within Wellness Duo | Inner Beauty & Wellness Supplement Duo
£87.99
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