The Secret Ingredient Was Already in Your Makeup

You've seen hyaluronic acid on the front of a lot of bottles by now. The bit that doesn't make the label, is that it's already in you.

It's in your eyes. It's in your knees, your body has been making it your whole life, so it isn't a new ingredient being introduced to your skin. It's one your skin already has.

It's called an acid, which is the worst naming decision in beauty. It doesn't exfoliate and it doesn't sting. It holds water.

Skincare goes on and sinks in. That's what it's for. Your base doesn't go anywhere. It's still sitting there on the part of your skin everyone can see, hours after you've stopped thinking about it.

An ingredient that's only job is holding water gets more done up there, than in the step that's already sunk in. So we put it in the makeup.

Your skin holds less water than it used to, and your base shows it

In your skin, hyaluronic acid's job is holding water. Water is what keeps skin flexible and comfortable rather than tight and papery. Not glowing, not youthful. Just skin with enough water in it to behave.

You make less of it as you get older, along with less collagen and elastin. That's a big part of why makeup that used to sit fine can suddenly cling to dry patches or crease somewhere it never used to. Same foundation, different skin underneath it. It's just skin doing what skin does.

Hyaluronic acid in a tube works at the surface

Hyaluronic acid applied to skin draws water into the top layers and holds it there, so those layers feel softer and your base has something to sit on instead of catching wherever the skin is driest.

That "holds 1000 times its weight in water" line is on everything.

That number describes how much water the molecule can bind, full stop. Not a claim about overnight miracles.

(On the ingredients list it's written as sodium hyaluronate. Same ingredient, in the form that stays stable in a formula. Worth knowing if you're one for reading the back of the tube.)

Water in the skin can only do so much

Hyaluronic acid isn't a filler. It plumps the surface, it doesn't rebuild what's underneath, and deep lines stay where they are.

It's a hydration ingredient, not a treatment. No undoing sun damage, no fading pigmentation, no sorting out breakouts.

Five BOOIE products already have hyaluronic acid in them

Nothing new to learn, and no extra steps. It's the same routine you'd do anyway, the products are just doing more while you've got them on.

• Squeaky Clean goes first. Melts off yesterday's makeup and leaves skin feeling hydrated rather than stripped. Preps a hydrated base before you put anything new on. (The name's a joke. The balm isn't.)
• Excellent BB Cream is your everyday base, with the hydration in the formula rather than promised on the front of the box.
• Bloody Delicious is glow, not coverage. Mix a little through your BB cream, or press it over your cheekbones once you're done.
• Cool Your Jets is the midday one. A quick mist to keep the hydration going without redoing your whole face.
• Smooth Operator is the last step, for everywhere the other four don't reach. Same hydration, just for your body instead of your face.

And at the end of the day, take it all off with Squeaky Clean and start again tomorrow.

Does hyaluronic acid in makeup actually do anything?

Yes. It hydrates while you're wearing it. Put it on and get on with your day.