Ingredient Desk

Tag: ceramides

  • First Aid Beauty Ultra Repair Cream: Ceramide Is the 21st Ingredient

    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
    Nib, a small round pencil-sketch creature, holds a magnifying glass up to a jar of Ultra Repair Cream whose front reads ceramides and colloidal oatmeal, then peers past the marketing to a long ingredient list running down the back of the jar.
    The jar sells ceramides. Nib turns it around to find where the ceramide actually is.

    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.

    Nib runs a pencil down a numbered column of ingredients and rests the tip on entry number twenty-one, which reads Ceramide NP, with entry number twelve, phenoxyethanol, circled higher up the list.
    Phenoxyethanol, the preservative, is #12. Nine lines further down, at #21, Nib finally reaches the ceramide.

    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.

    Nib holds a pair of ingredient lists side by side, one labelled brand site and one labelled retailer, comparing where shea butter appears on each while the entry for Ceramide NP stays pinned at number twenty-one on both.
    Two versions disagree on the shea butter. Nib checks: the ceramide is #21 on both.

    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.

    Nib sets down the Ultra Repair Cream jar and taps a short handwritten note that reads read the back, not the front, next to the fully-decoded ingredient column.
    Nib’s takeaway, in pencil: read the back of the jar, not the front.

    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.

    Nib closes a small notebook titled Ingredient Desk, sets the magnifying glass down beside the fully-read Ultra Repair Cream jar, and gives a satisfied nod.
    Label read, top to bottom. The ceramide is real – it just sits at number twenty-one.

  • CeraVe Moisturizing Cream: The Ceramide Formula Built on Petrolatum

    One tub of CeraVe Moisturizing Cream carries a list of 24 things. The three ceramides the brand markets as its defining feature sit at positions 9, 10 and 11. Petrolatum — one of the best-evidenced skin-barrier ingredients in dermatology — is at position 7, ahead of every ceramide. Reading that order does not make CeraVe a bad cream. It changes what you are actually paying for.

    CeraVe is named for ceramides. The word comes from cera, and the brand’s whole story is “3 essential ceramides.” That story is real: the ceramides are on the label, above the preservative, and there is published evidence behind the delivery system. But the label also tells you something the front of the tub does not — which ingredients are doing the heavy lifting, and where the marketed heroes actually fall in line.

    A quick disclosure before we go further: Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, a tallow skincare brand. We read labels for a living and we sell an alternative. We will point at ours once, clearly labelled, near the end. Everything about CeraVe below comes from CeraVe’s own page and the peer-reviewed literature, dated and linked so you can check us.

    Nib, a small round pencil-sketch creature, holds a magnifying glass up to an oversized CeraVe-style tub, squinting at the tiny ingredient list printed on the side.
    Nib does what most of us never do at the shelf: reads the whole list, in order.

    What does the CeraVe Moisturizing Cream label actually say?

    Here is the full ingredient list, quoted verbatim from CeraVe’s own US product page (cerave.com, read 2 September 2026):

    Aqua / Water / Eau, Glycerin, Cetearyl Alcohol, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Cetyl Alcohol, Ceteareth-20, Petrolatum, Potassium Phosphate, Ceramide NP, Ceramide AP, Ceramide EOP, Carbomer, Dimethicone, Behentrimonium Methosulfate, Sodium Lauroyl Lactylate, Sodium Hyaluronate, Cholesterol, Phenoxyethanol, Disodium EDTA, Dipotassium Phosphate, Tocopherol, Phytosphingosine, Xanthan Gum, Ethylhexylglycerin

    That is the standard white-tub formula — not the Intensive version, not the Baby version. CeraVe’s page carries its own caveat that formulas are “updated regularly” and asks you to check the physical package, so treat this as the list on the brand’s site on the date above rather than an eternal truth. Ingredient lists are ordered by descending concentration down to roughly 1%, after which the order stops meaning much.

    One honest note on sourcing: a UK ingredient database, SkinSort, lists a CeraVe “Moisturising Cream” with the ceramides much further down — positions 16, 17 and 24. That is almost certainly the EU formulation, which CeraVe has reformulated regionally over the years. We used the brand’s own US page as the primary source and are flagging the discrepancy rather than picking the more dramatic version. If you want to be certain, the number on your own tub is the only source that settles it.

    Nib stands beside a tall bar chart drawn in pencil; the tallest bars near the front are labelled water, glycerin and petrolatum, while three small bars labelled ceramide sit further back.
    The first seven entries build the cream. The ceramides arrive after that.

    Where does petrolatum sit, and why does that matter?

    Petrolatum is ingredient number seven — ahead of all three ceramides. It is worth being precise about what that ingredient is, because “petroleum byproduct” scares people more than the evidence justifies.

    Petrolatum is an FDA-recognized OTC skin protectant (21 CFR § 347.10). The Society of Cosmetic Chemists, in a 2022 review, calls it “the gold standard topical agent for reducing transepidermal water loss.” And it is not merely an inert seal: a 2016 study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (Czarnowicki et al., PMID 26431582) found petrolatum upregulated filaggrin, loricrin and antimicrobial peptides in skin — barrier proteins, not just a greasy film.

    So the ingredient at position 7 has decades of evidence behind it for exactly the job a moisturizer is bought to do. The ceramide narrative is stacked on top of a backbone — water, glycerin, three fatty-alcohol emollients, an emulsifier and petrolatum — that is already a competent moisturizer before a single ceramide is counted. That backbone also costs, per gram, a fraction of what the ceramides do.

    Nib peers through the magnifying glass at three tiny jars in a row, each labelled Ceramide NP, AP and EOP, lined up behind a much larger jar marked petrolatum.
    The three marketed ceramides are genuinely here — sitting just behind the workhorse.

    Are the ceramides just for show, then?

    No — and this is where a lazy takedown would overreach. The ceramides are at positions 9, 10 and 11, which puts them above the preservative phenoxyethanol at position 18. That matters: it means they are almost certainly present at more than a trace, unlike a hero ingredient that shows up after the preservative. CeraVe does not publish the exact percentage, and neither will we invent one.

    The evidence for ceramide moisturizers is real but specific. A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis (PMC10162745) found ceramide-containing moisturizers improved atopic-dermatitis severity scores significantly better than other moisturizers — but the difference in water-loss reduction was not statistically significant. In plain terms: for managing eczema-prone skin, the ceramide formula showed a real edge; for the raw job of holding water in, it was not measurably ahead of other good moisturizers. Petrolatum, meanwhile, is the standout at that one job.

    CeraVe also funds its own supporting research, which the brand is entitled to do as long as it is disclosed. A 2020 study (Draelos, J Drugs Dermatol) — funded by CeraVe’s parent, L’Oréal — reported that four weeks of the ceramide cream raised the skin’s own ceramide content by about 10%. That is a genuine finding worth knowing, and it is industry-funded; both things are true at once.

    Nib sits at a small desk stamped Ingredient Desk, holding a pencil over an open notebook, looking thoughtfully at the tub rather than crossing it out.
    The desk’s verdict isn’t ‘avoid.’ It’s ‘know what you’re paying the premium for.’

    So what are you actually buying?

    You are buying a well-made moisturizer whose moment-to-moment moisturizing comes mostly from glycerin at position 2 and petrolatum at position 7 — a pair with sixty-plus years of evidence between them and a production cost measured in cents per gram — plus a real, above-the-preservative dose of three ceramides and a patented delivery system that the brand has published data on. None of that is a con. The gap worth noticing is only this: the front of the tub sells the ceramides, and the label shows they are the supporting cast to a petrolatum-and-glycerin base you could get, in barrier terms, from a far plainer product.

    If you have eczema-prone skin, that ceramide edge may be worth the premium; the meta-analysis supports that use specifically. If you just want to stop water leaving dry skin, a simpler petrolatum-forward cream does most of the same work.

    There is a third road, which is where we come in. Some people would rather their occlusive be a skin-identical fat than a petroleum distillate — not because petrolatum is unsafe (the evidence above says it is not), but as a preference for a fatty-acid profile closer to skin’s own. That is the case for tallow, and we walk through the honest version of it — including where the evidence is thin — on our own tallow-for-dry-skin page (this one is ours, Evil Goods). We are not going to pretend a head-to-head clinical trial exists; it largely does not. Read it as one option, not a verdict.

    How do CeraVe’s marketed heroes line up on the label?

    Here is the marketing language against the label, position by position:

    Marketed as a hero Position on the label What that implies
    Ceramide NP 9 of 24 Above the preservative; more than trace, exact % undisclosed
    Ceramide AP 10 of 24 Second of the three
    Ceramide EOP 11 of 24 Third of the three
    Hyaluronic acid (Sodium Hyaluronate) 16 of 24 Lower third, near the preservative zone — low concentration
    Dimethicone 13 of 24 Silicone; adds slip and a moisture-retaining film
    Petrolatum (also brand-listed) 7 of 24 Ahead of every ceramide; does most of the barrier work

    To CeraVe’s credit, the brand names petrolatum as a key ingredient itself — it is not hiding it. The label and the marketing are not in conflict so much as differently weighted. The label just tells you the weighting.

    Frequently asked questions

    Where do the ceramides fall in CeraVe Moisturizing Cream?
    On CeraVe’s US product page (read 2 September 2026), Ceramide NP, AP and EOP are ingredients 9, 10 and 11 of 24, ahead of the preservative at position 18.
    Is petrolatum bad for your skin?
    The evidence says the opposite for barrier support: it is an FDA-recognized OTC skin protectant and the Society of Cosmetic Chemists calls it the gold standard for reducing water loss. A 2016 study found it upregulates skin-barrier proteins.
    Are the ceramides present at only trace levels?
    No. They appear above the preservative, which suggests more than a trace. CeraVe does not publish the exact percentage, so we do not either.
    Why do different databases list the ceramides in different spots?
    A UK database shows them much lower, which is likely the EU formula; CeraVe reformulates by region. We used the brand’s US page and flagged the difference rather than choosing the more dramatic order.

    Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods. We read labels, cite our sources, and link out at least as often as we link to ourselves. Check anything here against the list on your own tub — that is the point of the exercise.

    Nib, pencil tucked behind, gives a small satisfied nod beside the closed notebook and the tub, the magnifying glass set down — work done for the day.
    Nib’s rule of the desk: read the whole list, in order, and let the label do the talking.