Micellar is a type of water that has been purified, so it has a cleansing effect when applied to the skin. We recently launched the Foaming Micellar Makeup Remover, which contains micellar of course. It is an ingredient that you see more and more nowadays, but practically nobody knows what it is exactly. It is also a bit of a chemistry story, but we explain it here in great detail.
What is micellar?
Micellar feels like water and for the most part it is, except it contains surfactants. By this difficult word is meant the construction of a hydrophile and a lipophile. Okay, so what are these complicated words? You should see hydrophile as the head part and lipophile as the tail part. The hydrophilic particles like to attract water, but the lipophilic particles are more fond of fat.
Why is this so special? Well, we are all familiar with the phenomenon of water and oil in a glass. The oil then floats on the water and the two are impossible to mix properly. Water and oil repel each other.
Our skin has a greasy layer over it, which ensures that it does not flake, for example. But it then becomes a difficult story to properly cleanse your face with water, because the two do not mix well. Fortunately, there is a solution for this. When the right amount of surfactants are added to the water, micelles form. These are a kind of spheres where the fat-retaining tail particles cluster on the inside of this sphere and the water-attracting cups point outwards. Due to this composition, micelles can be dissolved in water, but are still able to clean the skin by attracting dirt and oil.
How does micellar water work on the skin?
Micellar water actually consists of all spheres that contain both water and oil and this also has an interesting effect on purifying the skin. The combination of the heads and tails ensures a magnetic effect of the micelles. They 'pull' all the dirt out of the pores. This allows the skin to be properly cleaned, without having to scrub hard (which is also not nice for your skin). This makes micellar an indispensable ingredient for make-up removers.
Besides that micellar water cleanses the skin well, it does this in a mild way. This makes it a make-up remover that is suitable in the daily skincare routine for every skin. Even a lot of waterproof make-up can be removed with a micellar make-up remover. However, the micelles are sometimes not strong enough and in that case it is wise to use an oil-based remover, for example for your waterproof mascara, and then remove the rest of your make-up with micellar. This way you have a perfect cleaning that your skin will thank you for.
