First Aid Beauty’s Ultra Repair Cream is marketed on ceramides for the skin barrier, but on the label Ceramide NP is the 21st of 22 inactive ingredients — the second-to-last thing in the tub, nine positions below phenoxyethanol, a preservative used at up to 1%. The single amount we can read on the label is the colloidal oatmeal, disclosed as 0.5% only because US law classifies this cream as an over-the-counter drug. None of that makes it a bad moisturizer; it is a competent one. It just means the ceramide the marketing leans on is a trace-level ingredient, and the shea butter nobody puts on the front of the jar is present at a far higher level than the ceramide is.
Ultra Repair Cream is one of the best-selling “eczema” moisturizers in the US — thousands of reviews at each major beauty retailer, a National Eczema Association seal, and a pitch built on a familiar trio: colloidal oatmeal, ceramides and shea butter. So it is worth doing the one thing the front of the jar never invites you to do: turn it around and read the whole list, in order. When you do, two of those three heroes sit in very different places than the marketing suggests.
Where does the ceramide actually sit on the label?
Here is the ingredient list, quoted verbatim. The active ingredient is listed separately from the inactives because this product is a registered OTC drug — more on why in a moment. This ordering is from First Aid Beauty’s own product page, read 25 September 2026, and the identical order appears on a major beauty retailer’s listing for the same jar, read the same day. The FDA’s own drug database (DailyMed, NDC 69423-556) lists all the same ingredients, which is how we can say the list below is complete rather than truncated.
Active ingredient: Colloidal Oatmeal 0.5%.
Inactive ingredients: Water, Stearic Acid, Glycerin, C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Glyceryl Stearate, Glyceryl Stearate SE, Cetearyl Alcohol, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Dimethicone, Squalane, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, Xanthan Gum, Allantoin, Sodium Hydroxide, Disodium EDTA, Chrysanthemum Parthenium (Feverfew) Extract, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Glycyrrhiza Glabra (Licorice) Root Extract, Ceramide NP, Eucalyptus Globulus Leaf Oil.
Read down the inactives and the shape of the formula is clear. Water is #1. Stearic acid (#2) is the main structural lipid, a fatty-acid emulsifier. Glycerin (#3) is the primary humectant. Then a synthetic ester and a medium-chain triglyceride (#4–5), a run of emulsifiers, and at #9 shea butter. Ceramide NP does not appear until #21 — twenty inactives in, second from the bottom, with only eucalyptus oil beneath it.
- Product name / pitch
- Ultra Repair Cream — ceramides and colloidal oatmeal are the front-of-jar story
- Ceramide NP position
- #21 of 22 inactive ingredients
- Phenoxyethanol position
- #12 — a preservative capped at ~1%
- Shea butter position
- #9 — well above the ceramide
- Colloidal oatmeal
- 0.5%, disclosed by law as the OTC-drug active
- Source of list
- First Aid Beauty’s own page and a major retailer’s listing, both read 25 Sep 2026; cross-checked against FDA DailyMed
What does position #21 tell you about how much ceramide is in there?
Honesty first: a position on an INCI list is not a precise concentration readout. US cosmetic labelling law lets a manufacturer list everything present at 1% or less in any order it likes — the descending-by-weight rule only applies down to the 1% line. The FDA explains this in plain terms in its Cosmetics Labeling Guide.
But there is a useful anchor in this particular list, and it is the preservative. Phenoxyethanol sits at #12. It is used at a maximum of about 1% — that is the standard cosmetic cap, and at that level it is well tolerated (a large patch-test review found a sensitization rate under 0.3%: van Zuuren et al., J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol, 2019). So everything from position #12 downward is at roughly 1% or less. Ceramide NP is nine positions below the preservative. That puts it well under 1% — almost certainly a trace. We are not going to invent a percentage First Aid Beauty does not publish, but the label itself brackets the answer.
How much does that matter? A clinical review of moisturizers versus barrier repair in atopic dermatitis put it bluntly: Elias & Schmuth (Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol, 2018) note that “some popular moisturizers also include a ceramide, but when provided, its content is usually too low to impart measurable benefits, but is often included for marketing purposes.” The same authors argue that for a genuine barrier-repair effect in atopic dermatitis the three physiologic lipids together should reach roughly 5% or more — and that is the combined ceramide-plus-cholesterol-plus-fatty-acid mixture, not a lone ceramide at position #21. This is not proof the cream does nothing; plenty of people find it a pleasant, effective moisturizer. It is a reason to be sceptical that the ceramide specifically is doing the heavy lifting the name implies.
Why do we know the oatmeal is 0.5% but not the ceramide?
This is the quietly interesting part. The colloidal oatmeal concentration is on the label — 0.5% — not because First Aid Beauty volunteered it in a spirit of transparency, but because it is legally required to. Colloidal oatmeal is the ingredient that carries the product’s eczema claim — the “relieves / soothes dry, distressed skin, even eczema” language on the packaging — and in the US that kind of claim makes the product a non-prescription (OTC) drug regulated under the FDA’s skin-protectant monograph. An OTC drug must declare its active ingredient and that ingredient’s strength on the label; a cosmetic ingredient carries no such duty. DailyMed lists the product as a HUMAN OTC DRUG with oatmeal as the single active at 0.5% and everything else — ceramide included — as inactive.
So the asymmetry on the label is really a regulatory artefact. We can read the oatmeal number because a drug law forces it into the open; we cannot read the ceramide number because cosmetic law does not. It is a neat illustration of how much of what a jar tells you is decided by which rulebook applies, not by which ingredient the brand is proudest of.
Is the shea butter the real workhorse here?
Look at position #9. Shea butter sits above dimethicone, above squalane, and eleven places above the ceramide — comfortably in the part of the list where ingredients are still above 1%. Squalane (#11) is in there too, also above the ceramide, and First Aid Beauty does not put squalane on the front of the jar at all. In other words, the ingredients doing the most emollient work in this tub — the base of stearic acid, glycerin, shea butter, triglycerides and silicone — are largely not the ones the marketing leads with. That is not a scandal. It is a well-built, fairly standard emollient cream. The gap worth noticing is between that honest formula and a name that invites you to picture a jar built around ceramides.
One caveat on the shea, because we would rather flag it than hide it: First Aid Beauty’s own page currently shows “Hydrogenated Shea Butter” slightly lower in the list than the “Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter” that the retailer listings show at #9. That looks like a reformulation caught mid-update, and it does not move the ceramide, which sits at #21 across every source we checked. If it matters to you, read the list on the physical tube you actually buy — packaging is the definitive source, and it changes.
So what should a shopper actually take from this?
Read the list, in order, on whatever you are about to buy, and find your hero ingredient in it. If a cream is sold to you on ceramides and the ceramide is second-from-last, that is not a reason to panic — it may still be a fine moisturizer — but it is a reason not to pay a ceramide premium for it. The same trick works on any jar: the front sells you a hero; the back tells you where that hero really ranks.
If what you want is a moisturizer whose named ingredients are actually near the top of the list, that is a legitimate thing to shop for. Reading this knowing Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, one alternative built on that principle is a tallow-based moisturizer, where the fats doing the work are the fats on the front of the jar rather than a water-and-emulsifier base — if you want to understand that kind of formula before deciding, our explainer on what a beef tallow moisturizer actually is (ours) walks through it. Whether a tallow cream suits your skin is a separate question with its own trade-offs, and we are not going to compare percentages neither company fully publishes. The only comparison worth making is the one this whole piece is about.
FAQ
Where does the ceramide rank in First Aid Beauty Ultra Repair Cream?
On the current US label (First Aid Beauty’s own page and a major retailer’s listing, both read 25 September 2026), Ceramide NP is the 21st of 22 inactive ingredients — second from the bottom, with only eucalyptus oil below it.
How much ceramide is actually in it?
First Aid Beauty does not publish its formula percentages, so no exact figure can be stated. Ceramide NP sits nine positions below phenoxyethanol, a preservative capped at about 1%, which places it well under 1% — consistent with a trace level, though the precise amount is not knowable from the label.
Why is the colloidal oatmeal concentration (0.5%) on the label but not the ceramide’s?
Because the product is classified as an over-the-counter drug in the US: colloidal oatmeal is its active ingredient and OTC drug law requires the active and its strength to be declared. Ceramide NP is an inactive cosmetic ingredient, which carries no such disclosure requirement. FDA DailyMed lists the product as a HUMAN OTC DRUG with oatmeal at 0.5% as the only active.
Does Ultra Repair Cream still “work” for dry skin if the ceramide is that low?
Quite possibly — it is a competent emollient cream and carries a National Eczema Association seal. The point here is narrower: the ceramide the marketing leads with is a trace-level ingredient, while the shea butter, glycerin and other emollients further up the list are doing most of the moisturizing.
Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods. Prices, formulas and labels change; we date what we read and link the source so you can check it.
