SK-II Facial Treatment Essence
Expert Review
In this review we will look at the SK-II’s bestseller, its SK-II Facial Treatment Essence. We will have a closer look at its ingredients, performance claims, and evidence supporting these claims.
Cosmetic Claims
SK-II makes eight claims about their Facial Treatment Essence. Their website does not mention any studies done on humans to support these claims. We approached SK-II about any evidence that would support these claims, there was no response.
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Transform skin to crystal clear skin
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Moisturise
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Soften and smoothen texture
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Reduce appearance of dark spots
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Reduce appearance of fine lines due dryness
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Enhance radiance
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Even the look of skin tone
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Makes skin less oily looking
Legend
Ingredient review and safety:
As there was no clinical or consumer testing evidence to review, we had a closer look at the ingredient list. Some statements were a bit challenging. For example, we could not find ingredients that would support the claim of crystal clear skin. What actually “crystal clear” means would need its own definition. We awarded some points based on ingredients that have recognized humectant and skin conditioning properties (Galactomyces Ferment Filtrate, Butylene Glycol, and Pentylene Glycol). These ingredients can partially support claims on moisturization, softening and smoothing the skin texture, and reducing the appearance of fine lines due to dryness.
Galactomyces Ferment Filtrate, Butylene Glycol, Pentylene Glycol, Water, Sodium Benzoate, Methylparaben, Sorbic Acid.
Allergen free?
Preservative free?
Sodium Benzoate
Methylparaben
Sorbic Acid
Maximum concentrations do not exceed use guidelines?
EU restricted ingredient free?
SK-II Facial Treatment Essence has only seven ingredients. It is free of any known fragrance allergens or other restricted ingredients. However, it contains some preservatives. Sodium Benzoate is mainly used as a preservative in cosmetics, but it also has a fragrance function. CIR recognizes Sodium Benzoate as safe in concentrations of up to 5%. EU limits its use to 0.5%. Methylparaben is a preservative that is considered safe by the CIR if the combined concentration of all parabens is up to 0.8%. The EU limits its use to 0.4% as a single ester to 0.8% for a mixture of esters. Sorbic Acid is a preservative which is generally recognized as safe by CIR, when used in concentrations up to 5%. In the EU, if used as a preservative, it needs to be limited to 0.6% and higher for “other uses”. We approached SK-II to confirm whether these ingredients follow the CIR/EU safety guidelines, but they declined to comment.
Conclusions
SK-II Facial Treatment Essence (Pitera Essence) is a brand bestseller. For all the eight claims SK-II makes, we only found evidence to partially support three of them. Evidence of a well-designed study, with good results, would have given it a score of around 100.
In conclusion, there is limited scientific evidence available to support the claims SK-II makes, giving it an overall Cosmetics Evidence score of 8.6.
Pros
- Ingredients suggest that it is potentially able to moisturise the skin, soften and smoothen texture and reduce the appearance of fine lines due dryness.
- No fragrance allergens or restricted ingredients.
Cons
- SK-II’s team rejected to share with the consumer evidence of studies that would be able to support any beneficial claims they make about their Facial Treatment Essence.
- Listed ingredients contain preservatives, which are often limited to maximum concentrations. We could not confirm if the preservatives listed here follow the common safety guidelines and to what extent.