The Exhaustive Guide to Skincare Ingredients and In-Office Procedures

A glossary and index for your continued beauty shopping reference.

Shopping for skincare can feel like you need a chemistry degree and an aesthetician’s license. And everyone’s skin is so different, how can you be sure that what works for your best friend, Mom, the beauty counter lady, or some influencer online will also work for you?

The big unlock for me was learning the basics of common skincare ingredients: it’s the quickest way to decode what brands promise and what they have no business promising. So I set out to build a glossary — one that we can all easily pull up and reference when shopping for skincare online, squinting at a bottle in Sephora, or even just earnestly listening to our dermatologists.

But then I thought, explaining ingredients only scratches the surface! Just because a product contains an ingredient doesn’t mean it’s at an effective dose. Some ingredients require specific packaging and storage conditions. And still others are vilified for years or go viral based solely on good PR and a few TikToks. So I also incorporated those notes into the definitions.

Then I thought more. What about in-office stuff? A few years ago, fillers were de rigueur, and now everyone’s having them dissolved. What’s the difference between a deep-plane and SMAS facelift? Is everybody having a bleph without me? So, I added an additional glossary for that information as well.

I’m not a doctor, but I do have the privilege of access to some truly great ones. And after years spent around some of the beauty industry’s most accomplished titans, I’ve got knowledge to share and AI to help me organize information faster than ever. This is not medical advice, but hopefully these glossaries serve as a good explainer when trying to remember the difference between an AHA or BHA, Moxi from Morpheus, or Sculptra from Volux.

I’ll continue to update these regularly to keep them current. Bookmark this page and feel free to reference it whenever you need to. I’ll also link it in the menu header of the website.

This is a completely free resource! But if you recognize the effort, you can support this work by subscribing to The Love List. We work hard to be your primary shopping resource by cutting through the noise and offering up a high-quality edit of what’s worthy of your closet, drawers, and vanity.

My advice: use Ctrl+F to search for a specific term quickly.