Ingredient Desk

Tag: vitamin C

  • Olay Vitamin C + Peptide 24 Serum: The Vitamin C Is the 7th Ingredient

    On the label of the Olay Vitamin C +
    Peptide 24 Brightening Serum, the vitamin C — printed as 3-O-Ethyl Ascorbic
    Acid, a derivative that has to convert to active ascorbic acid inside the skin
    — is the seventh ingredient. Niacinamide, the well-studied brightener Olay
    built its Regenerist line on, is the fourth. Niacinamide is not named anywhere in
    the product title.

    “Vitamin C serum” is one of the most-searched things in skincare, and Olay is
    one of the biggest drugstore brands in the United States, so a serum called
    Vitamin C + Peptide 24 is doing a lot of work with its name. The name
    invites exactly one thing: read the label all the way down and see where the two
    named actives on the front — the vitamin C and the peptide — actually
    land.

    Pencil sketch of Nib, a small round creature, holding a magnifying glass up to a slim serum bottle labelled VITAMIN C + PEPTIDE 24.
    Nib picks up the bottle with two actives on the front and starts reading at ingredient one.

    Where does the vitamin C actually sit?

    Here is the full ingredient list, as published on INCI Decoder
    (product entry,
    uploaded 2022-05-27, read 2026-09-15) and matching separate Amazon retail
    listings for the standard 1.3 fl oz serum:

    Water, Glycerin, Dimethicone, Niacinamide, Lactic Acid,
    Polyacrylate Crosspolymer-6, 3-O-Ethyl Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C),
    Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 (Peptide), Panthenol, Trehalose,
    PEG-11 Methyl Ether Dimethicone, Sodium Lactate, Sodium Benzoate, Fragrance.

    Ingredients are listed in descending order of concentration down to the 1%
    threshold, below which a manufacturer may list them in any order (US FDA, 21 CFR
    701.3). Reading from the top, the vitamin C — 3-O-Ethyl Ascorbic Acid
    — is number seven, sitting behind water, two humectant/texture agents,
    niacinamide, an exfoliating acid and a thickener. The peptide is number eight.
    Everything above them, except the niacinamide, is solvent, humectant or structure.

    # Ingredient What it is
    1 Water Solvent — the base of the serum
    2 Glycerin Humectant
    3 Dimethicone Silicone — slip and texture
    4 Niacinamide Well-studied brightening and barrier agent — unnamed on the front
    5 Lactic Acid AHA exfoliant / pH adjuster
    6 Polyacrylate Crosspolymer-6 Synthetic thickener
    7 3-O-Ethyl Ascorbic Acid The “Vitamin C” on the label — a derivative
    8 Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 The “Peptide 24” — also known as Matrixyl
    14 Fragrance Perfuming — a documented contact allergen

    None of this is hidden. It is printed on the side of every bottle. But the
    front and the back tell slightly different stories, and the back is the one that
    governs what your skin meets first.

    Pencil sketch of Nib tapping a pencil on the seventh line of a numbered ingredient list, where the words VITAMIN C are circled.
    Seven lines down, past niacinamide and a thickener, Nib finds the named vitamin C.

    Is 3-O-Ethyl Ascorbic Acid the same as vitamin C?

    Not quite, and this is the part that makes the label genuinely interesting
    rather than just underwhelming. Pure vitamin C is L-ascorbic acid. What is in
    this serum is 3-O-Ethyl Ascorbic Acid, an ether derivative — a more stable
    molecule that the skin has to convert back into ascorbic acid before it does the
    vitamin-C job. A 2024 review in Pharmaceutics
    (Stamford-style derivative review, 2024)
    states plainly that vitamin C derivatives “must be converted to ascorbic acid
    in vivo in order to be effective.”

    The derivative does reach the skin: an in-vitro study on porcine skin
    (Int. J. Cosmet. Sci., 2019)
    confirms 3-O-Ethyl Ascorbic Acid penetrates. So this is not a case of an
    ingredient that does nothing. The honest framing is narrower than that: the
    molecule on the label is a derivative that needs converting, Olay does not
    publish how much of it is in the bottle, and its position at #7 —
    just below a thickener, and behind five other ingredients — suggests it is
    not present at a dominant percentage. How much active ascorbic acid results after
    conversion is not disclosed.

    Pencil sketch of Nib holding two small jars side by side, one labelled DERIVATIVE and one labelled ASCORBIC ACID, with a small arrow drawn between them.
    A derivative up front, active vitamin C only after the skin converts it. Nib keeps the two straight.

    What is doing the brightening work, then?

    If you are buying this serum to fade dark spots, the ingredient with the
    strongest evidence for that job is not the one on the front of the bottle. It is
    niacinamide, at position #4 — above both named actives. Niacinamide’s
    brightening evidence is unusually good for a cosmetic ingredient: a split-face
    randomised trial
    (Hakozaki et al., Br. J. Dermatology, 2002)
    found 5% niacinamide significantly reduced hyperpigmented area versus vehicle
    after 4 and 8 weeks. A later mechanistic review
    (Int. J. Mol. Sci., 2021)
    notes it works at roughly 4–5% but that 2% is not reliably effective.

    We cannot read a percentage off an INCI list, and Olay does not publish one.
    But niacinamide at #4 — ahead of the exfoliant, the thickener and both
    named heroes — is consistent with a meaningful level, and it is the same
    brightener Olay’s Regenerist patents are built around. The peptide,
    Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 (Matrixyl), is a legitimately studied anti-ageing
    peptide, though mostly in small studies; at #8 it is present in a low
    position on the list. The upshot: the serum’s most evidence-backed brightening ingredient is
    the one the name never mentions, and the two ingredients the name is built around
    sit seventh and eighth.

    Pencil sketch of Nib weighing a small vitamin C bottle against a larger jar labelled NIACINAMIDE on an old balance scale, the niacinamide side dipping lower.
    Nib weighs the named actives against the unnamed niacinamide sitting three lines above them.

    So what does the “24” mean?

    Not an ingredient count, not 24% vitamin C, and not a peptide
    variant. Olay’s own product copy says the serum delivers “24-hour hydration,” so
    the number refers to how long the marketing says it moisturizes, not to anything
    about the actives. It is a hydration claim wearing the costume of a
    concentration figure — and the meanings people most reasonably assume —
    a strength, or how many things are in the bottle — are exactly what it does
    not signal.

    Reading a peptide as “#8 on the list” is really a question about formulation
    priority: what did the formulator decide to put the most of? Here the answer is
    water, glycerin, silicone and niacinamide, and then the things on the front of
    the bottle. If you would rather buy a serum whose hero ingredient sits at the top
    of its own list, that is the thing we make: our
    Copper Peptide Blue Honey Serum
    leads with copper peptides, hyaluronic acid and Manuka honey rather than
    silicone and thickener. (Disclosure: Ingredient Desk is published by the team
    behind Evil Goods, and that is our serum.)

    Is there anything on the label worth watching for?

    Two points, stated with their real strength rather than as alarms.

    Fragrance. Fragrance is the last ingredient, #14.
    Fragrance is a category, not a single molecule, and US labels are not required to
    break it into its component allergens. It is also among the most common contact
    allergens in cosmetics; a 2024 patch-test review
    (Lynde & Lindberg, 2024)
    puts fragrance contact-allergy prevalence at roughly 4.5% of the general
    population and higher among people already prone to dermatitis. Most
    people use fragranced serums without any trouble — but if you are shopping
    for a face serum precisely because your skin reacts easily, an added fragrance is
    worth knowing sits in the formula.

    The derivative itself. One case report of allergic contact
    dermatitis to 3-O-Ethyl Ascorbic Acid exists in the literature (Yagami et al.,
    Contact Dermatitis, 2014). A single case is not a pattern and should not
    be read as one; it is worth a sentence only because the ingredient is the named
    hero. If a new active irritates you, patch-testing a small area first is the
    ordinary sensible move with any serum.

    If you want the reasoning rather than the pitch, we have also written up
    how to build a copper peptide serum routine,
    which walks through what “hero ingredient first” actually buys you and where it
    does not matter.

    The short version

    Olay’s Vitamin C + Peptide 24 Serum names two actives on the front and lists
    them seventh and eighth. The vitamin C is a derivative that has to convert in the
    skin, at an undisclosed and probably modest level. The ingredient with the best
    brightening evidence — niacinamide — sits three lines higher and is
    not named at all. The “24” is a hydration-duration claim, not a strength. None of
    that is hidden; it is all on the label, in descending order, waiting to be read.

    Pencil sketch of Nib closing a notebook, the serum bottle set down beside a page reading number 7, satisfied at having read the label to the end.
    Label read to the last line. Nib closes the notebook: the front said two, the list said seventh and eighth.

  • Jergens Ultra Healing: The Vitamins Are Ingredients 19, 23 and 24

    Jergens Ultra Healing is sold on “Vitamins C,
    E & B5,” but on the current US label those vitamins are the 19th, 23rd
    and 24th names on the list — and Fragrance is the 17th, ahead of every one
    of them. The workhorses actually doing the moisturizing, glycerin (#2) and
    petrolatum (#4), are near the top of the list but not on the front of the bottle.
    Jergens does not disclose the vitamin concentrations.

    Jergens Ultra Healing Extra Dry Skin Moisturizer is one of the best-selling
    body lotions in America, and its pitch is right there on the bottle: Vitamins C,
    E and B5, plus a trademarked “HYDRALUCENCE blend.” That is the front.
    The back — the actual ingredient list, ordered roughly by weight down to
    about the 1% mark — tells a quieter story, and you can check it yourself in
    about a minute.

    We read the whole label. Here is where everything actually sits.

    Where do the vitamins actually land on the label?

    Here is the full current list, quoted verbatim. This is the paraben-free US
    formula, published in an independent ingredient review at
    DermApproved.com
    (dated 26 March 2026) and corroborated against the product’s listing at a
    major US retailer (TCIN 12174322, 21 fl oz, UPC 019100109995;
    identically on the 33.8 fl oz size, TCIN 94591000), read on 9 September
    2026. The two independent sources agree:

    Water, Glycerin, Cetearyl Alcohol, Petrolatum, Stearic Acid, C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate, Dimethicone, Laureth-3, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Hydroxyacetophenone, Ceteareth-20, Allantoin, Arginine, Sodium Hydroxide, Carbomer, Fragrance, Tetrasodium Glutamate Diacetate, Panthenol, Lecithin, Pentylene Glycol, Alcohol, Ascorbyl Palmitate, Tocopherol, Phenoxyethanol, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Benzyl Benzoate, Citronellol, Hexyl Cinnamal, Linalool

    Reading down that list: Panthenol — Vitamin B5 — is the 19th name.
    Ascorbyl Palmitate — the Vitamin C — is the 23rd. Tocopherol —
    Vitamin E — is the 24th. All three sit below Fragrance, which is the 17th
    name on the list. On a label ordered by weight, the three vitamins the product is
    named for are present in smaller amounts than the scent.

    We can’t read an exact percentage off a label — no brand is
    required to disclose one, and Jergens does not. What the position tells you is
    relative: everything listed above Fragrance is, together, most of what is in the
    bottle. The vitamins are in there. They are just not the bulk of the formula the
    front of the bottle advertises.

    Marketed heroes
    Vitamins C, E & B5
    Vitamin B5 (Panthenol) position
    19th on the list
    Vitamin C (Ascorbyl Palmitate) position
    23rd on the list
    Vitamin E (Tocopherol) position
    24th on the list
    Fragrance position
    17th — above all three vitamins
    Source of list
    DermApproved.com, corroborated at a major US retailer, read 9 Sep 2026
    Nib the small round pencil-sketch creature holds a magnifying glass up to a bottle of body lotion, its front printed with the words Vitamins C, E and B5, while Nib squints at the tiny numbered ingredient list on the back.
    The front says Vitamins C, E and B5. Nib turns the bottle over to see where they land.

    What is actually doing the moisturizing?

    Look past the vitamins and the real work is near the top. Glycerin is the 2nd
    ingredient — a humectant that pulls water into the skin, and one of the
    most reliable moisturizing ingredients there is. Petrolatum is the 4th. That one
    has a regulatory pedigree the vitamins don’t: petrolatum is a recognized
    skin protectant under the US FDA’s
    OTC
    monograph for skin protectant drug products (21 CFR 347.10)    , effective at
    30–100%. It is the ingredient that slows water loss from the skin’s
    surface — the actual barrier layer in this bottle.

    So the formula genuinely moisturizes. It just moisturizes through a
    well-understood humectant-plus-occlusive base, not through the vitamins on the
    label. Glycerin at #2 and petrolatum at #4 are the workhorses; the vitamins,
    down in the 19th-to-24th range, are the garnish. That is not a knock on the
    product — it’s a good, cheap, effective moisturizing base. It is
    just not the story the marketing tells.

    Position Ingredient What it does
    1 Water Solvent base; the bulk of the bottle
    2 Glycerin Humectant; draws water into the skin
    4 Petrolatum FDA-recognized skin protectant; slows water loss
    17 Fragrance The scent; sits above all three vitamins
    19 Panthenol (B5) Humectant; below the 1% barrier-repair threshold
    23 Ascorbyl Palmitate (C) Weakest vitamin C form; the marketed antioxidant
    24 Tocopherol (E) Antioxidant; trace position

    If you’d like to see what a completely different approach to the base
    looks like — skipping the water-and-humectant architecture entirely for a
    single animal fat — the Evil Goods team wrote about it in
    Tallow vs. Lotion:
    What’s Actually in the Bottle    . Full disclosure: Ingredient Desk is
    published by the team behind Evil Goods, so read it knowing that. It is the
    honest next question after “what is this base actually made of?”

    Nib runs a pencil down a numbered ingredient list and stops with a small start at a little perfume bottle marked Fragrance at position seventeen, drawn higher up the column than three vitamin symbols much further down.
    Fragrance sits at seventeen. All three marketed vitamins land below it.

    Does the Vitamin C at position 23 do anything?

    This is where the form matters as much as the position. The Vitamin C here
    isn’t L-ascorbic acid — the researched, active form — it is
    ascorbyl palmitate, a fat-soluble derivative. And the literature on that
    specific derivative is not encouraging. A review in the Indian Dermatology
    Online Journal     notes that “for a product to be of biological
    significance, it needs to have a vitamin C concentration higher than eight
    percent,” and, more pointedly, that “one study showed that daily
    application of MAP, ascorbyl-6-palmitate, and other ascorbic acid derivatives
    did not increase the levels of L-ascorbic acid in the skin”
    (Vitamin C in
    Dermatology, 2013    ).

    Put the two facts together: the Vitamin C in Jergens Ultra Healing is the
    form that a peer-reviewed study found did not raise skin vitamin C levels, and it
    sits at the 23rd position — far below the 8% mark the same review describes
    as the threshold for biological significance. We can’t say it does nothing;
    we can say that the published evidence for this form, at this position, is thin.
    That’s not a Jergens-specific problem, either — ascorbyl palmitate is
    a common, inexpensive way to print “Vitamin C” on a label.

    Nib peers through the magnifying glass at a big friendly water drop labelled Glycerin number two and a shiny jar labelled Petrolatum number four sitting near the top of the list, nodding approvingly at them.
    The real workhorses are glycerin at two and petrolatum at four — the parts not on the front.

    What about the B5 and Vitamin E?

    Panthenol (Vitamin B5) is a legitimately useful humectant with some barrier
    support — but the dose is what makes it work. Controlled studies of
    panthenol found that “formulations containing 1.0 and 5.0% panthenol
    produced significant decreases in TEWL” (transepidermal water loss) after
    30 days of use, with 5% treated as the threshold for measurable barrier repair
    (Camargo et al.,
    Journal of Cosmetic Science, 2011    ). At the 19th position, the
    panthenol in this lotion is almost certainly well under 1% — below the
    level those studies used to show a measurable effect. It’s present; it’s just
    present as a supporting humectant, not at a barrier-repair dose.

    Vitamin E (Tocopherol) is the 24th name on the list. It’s a fine
    antioxidant, and it works synergistically with Vitamin C — but that synergy
    assumes both are present in meaningful amounts. At the 23rd and 24th positions,
    both are near the bottom. This is a trace-antioxidant pairing, not an
    active-serum one. Again: not a criticism of the ingredients, just an honest read
    of where they sit.

    Nib taps the pencil against a tiny vitamin C symbol stamped with the number twenty-three and the words ascorbyl palmitate, holding an open notebook that reads does not raise skin L-ascorbic acid.
    Vitamin C here is ascorbyl palmitate at twenty-three — the form studies say doesn’t reach the skin’s vitamin C.

    What is the fragrance doing above the vitamins?

    Fragrance is the 17th ingredient, above Panthenol, Vitamin C and Vitamin E.
    And the tail of the label spells out five of its components individually:
    Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Benzyl Benzoate, Citronellol, Hexyl Cinnamal and
    Linalool. Those aren’t bonus botanicals — they are individual
    fragrance materials the EU requires to be listed separately once they exceed a
    set threshold in a leave-on product, because each is a recognized contact
    allergen.

    How much should you care? For most people, not much. A review from the
    American Contact Dermatitis Society puts fragrance allergy at “up to
    4.5%” of the general adult population at the upper estimate, with citronellol
    and linalool — both in this formula — named among the common
    individual sensitizers
    (Fragrances:
    Contact Allergy and Other Adverse Effects, 2020    ). That’s an upper-bound
    figure; clinically relevant fragrance allergy in the general population is lower.
    The risk is real but weak, and concentrated in people already sensitized. If your
    skin is reactive, the fragrance at #17 and those five names at the end are the
    part of this label to read.

    One note on the “HYDRALUCENCE blend” on the front: it’s a
    trademarked name, and Jergens doesn’t publicly disclose its composition
    beyond what’s in the INCI list. From the label, it appears to describe the
    combination of the glycerin, petrolatum and vitamins — which is to say, the
    base does the work and the branded blend is a name wrapped around it. And note
    there are two versions on shelves: an older paraben-containing travel size still
    sells with slightly different positions, but the pattern holds — fragrance
    sits above all three vitamins in both.

    FAQ

    Where are the vitamins in Jergens Ultra Healing?
    On the current US label, Vitamin B5 (Panthenol) is 19th, Vitamin C (Ascorbyl
    Palmitate) is 23rd, and Vitamin E (Tocopherol) is 24th on the list. On a list
    ordered by weight, that places all three well down the formula.

    Why is fragrance listed before the vitamins?
    Fragrance is the 17th ingredient, above all three marketed vitamins. On a
    weight-ordered list that means the scent is present in a larger amount than the
    Vitamin C, E or B5 on the front of the bottle.

    Does the Vitamin C in Jergens do anything?
    The form used is ascorbyl palmitate, and a peer-reviewed review cites a study
    finding that this and similar derivatives did not raise L-ascorbic acid levels in
    the skin. At position 23, it is also far below the roughly 8% concentration that
    review describes as needed for biological significance.

    What actually moisturizes in Jergens Ultra Healing?
    Glycerin at position 2 (a humectant) and petrolatum at position 4 (an
    FDA-recognized skin protectant). Those two, not the vitamins, are the functional
    moisturizing base.

    Are the chemical names at the end of the list something to worry
    about?
    They are individual fragrance allergens the EU requires to be listed above a
    threshold. Reaction rates in the general population are low; the risk is mainly
    for people already sensitized to fragrance. If your skin is reactive, read that
    part of the label.

    Nib sets the magnifying glass down, closes a little notebook titled Ingredient Desk and gives a small satisfied nod beside the fully-read Jergens bottle.
    Label read, front claim checked against the back. The vitamins are in there. They are just ingredients nineteen, twenty-three and twenty-four.