Ice Elements 2-Minute Miracle Exfoliating Gel - U HAVE 2 TRY
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free skin care · Fri May 19, 2006 4:40 pm

OMG! I have had my first IE 2mm experience and it is just fantabulous!!!

I spread on a nice thin layer of the 2mm and then went on to brush my teeth. By the time I was done with my teeth the 2mm was ready for me to rub... and rub... and rub away dead skin and oil (kind of yuck!)

I have to tell you all that if you have not tried this yet and you want to, go over to http://iceelements.com and get yourself a sample of this stuff. You will not regret it! They will send you 2 1/4 oz containers for the cost of shipping. It is $2.95 in the US. I am not sure if they ship out of the country... It says that you have to phone in the orders because the samples are not in their system for online orders as it is a special item, however they do have forums over there so if you are living outside of the US and want to try you could post to Shelly (one of the owners) and ask about it there. It seems that they get back to people very quickly in the forum so you should not have to wait long for an answer.

This is definitely on my list of favorites! My skin has been sooo dry and it made it feel soooo smooth! I have one little spot that I can still feel has dryness (well, that stands out from the rest of my face) and I will get that tomorrow. They say that it can be used on back to back days but I would rather give it a day just to be sure.

I would say that I used about 1/4 or less of one of the 1/4 oz jars that they sent me so the 2 jars should go for at least 9 or 10 exfoliations.

free skin care · Tue Jan 16, 2007 4:02 pm

EDS members, I just recently got a private message asking me what the exfoliating materials were in this 2 minute miracle product.

I look at the product ingredient list, and man was I surprised! I think you will be too. Here is what I've concluded:

Cosmetic products have labeling rules. Usually, a company must put them in order from the highest loaded ingredient all the way down to the ingredient that is loaded the least in the product. If they have done this and followed the convention, then lets look at this product as it is listed.

Now first of all, there has to be "water" in this product somewhere, although I don't see it listed in the ingredient list. I suspect it is in the Aloe Vera. Aloe Vera is simply a skin conditioner and won't exfoliate or ball up.

Butylene Glycol is a liquid and is a solvent. It won't exfoliate or ball up either.

"Glycerin"...not Clycerin, they spelled it wrong, is a humectant which draws moisture to the skin. This material does not exfoliate or ball up.

Carbomer is a polymer that creates the gel. NOW THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT...carbomers are ONLY used to form gels, they don't exfoliate. However, when polymers like this dry up, the can ball up when rubbed around on the skin! This is NOT DEAD SKIN CELLS balling up....this is just polymer material, like rubber cement for lack of a better analogy.

Sodium Hydroxide does not exfoliate or ball up. It is used her as a high pH ingredient used to neutralize the carbomer polymer to form the gel.

Hyaluronic Acid is a wonderful moisturizer and I love this stuff, but it does not exfoliate or ball up.

The three extracts and calendula are what we call "foo foo" ingredients. They don't do much of anything and usually are added just to make a product sound special or add to a label claim. These won't exfoliate or ball up either.

Benzophenone 4 is a UV active ingredient often used in sunscreens, but in this case I think it might be added to stabilize the formula against UV light degradation over time. This is not an exfoliant or material that will ball up.

Propylene Glycol is another liquid that is also a solvent material. It does not exfoliate or ball up.

Propylparaben, Methylparaben and "Diazolidinyl Urea"...they spelled this one wrong also, are the preservatives in this formula. They do not exfoliate or ball up.

Cyanocobalamin is the man made version of vitamin B-12 which does not exfoliate or ball up either.

WELL...there you have it, no more ingredients. So, there ARE NO exfoliating materials in this product! And the balling up effect is the polymer (carbomer) which is drying up on the skin and being rolled into little balls as you rub it around. I don't want to call this an outright hoax, because it probably does feel smooth and moisturizing which is at least one claim that is true.

NOTE...and this is interesting. They tell you to leave it on the skin until the "gel begins to liquify". What happens is the pH of your skin is around 5 and the salts on your skin combined with this pH can "break" the carbomer gel and make it turn watery! This also makes the polymer easy to ball up if you rub it around.

It does bother me that they charge almost $25 for a product that has no exfoliating ingredients in it, and really costs approximately 1/10th the asking price in raw materials and packaging.

Sorry about the bad news, but that's what really is going on here.

John

free skin care · Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:03 am

I've really enjoyed the comments on this product since my post. The varied opinions are really interesting.

You know, if the product had included aluminum oxide, or AHA's and BHA's, or polyethylene particles, or jojoba beads, or crushed walnut shells, or something like that, I wouldn't have made any comment at all. These are all ingredients known for their capability to exfoliate the skin. The 2MM product doesn't contain any of these, and that's where my comment came from. Perhaps, it would have been better worded if I had said, this product has been "formulated" in such a way that it cannot function (perform exfoliation) as claimed.

Now, that being said, let's look at an analogy. Keep in mind that the skin is ALWAYS sloughing off dead skin cells on its own. In a sense, your skin is exfoliating itself on a constant basis, and there is always dead skin cells right on the surface ready to fall off rather easily. Let's say I create a product and put it in a 4 ounce jar. The product in the jar is AIR, that's right, nothing but air. And I put these instructions on the bottle:

"Rinse your face with warm water, leaving the skin wet and moist. Scoop out a large portion of the "product" onto your fingers and vigorously rub the product on your face for several minutes. The rubbing action with the product will mechanically exfoliate the dead skin cells off of your skin. Rinse after use and blot dry".

Well guess what?! Your skin will indeed be exfoliated and it will be MOIST! Water as we all know is a great moisturizer. My "claims" have come true! HOWEVER, would you pay $25 for a 4 ounce bottle of my product??

Bosoxy, I enjoy your post too in a good way. You would be seriously surprised at how many cosmetic chemists, both men and women call these extracts and things like that "foo foo" ingredients. These ingredients are usually water extractions or glycol extractions and are mostly water or glycol or alcohol. Then, they are usually loaded in the formula at 1% or even less, a lot less. There may be a very, very slight active capability from these ingredients, but it is very slight. We often chuckle at a "visual" that we all get when adding "foo foo" ingredients to a formula. We picture the large scale batch chemist standing over 2,000 pounds of some lotion and getting a "pinch" of the "foo foo" ingredient and sprinkling (like a witch doctor) it over the surface of this huge batch, which is essentially what about 0.01% of a batch like that would be.

John

free skin care · Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:39 pm

Hi Lisey!

Yes, it is safe to use everyday! As long as you are getting the daily results, then you can use it. If if stops balling up on you then skip a day or two between uses.

I use it 2 - 3 times a week... once in a while I may use it 4 times if I need it, but I would not get the balling up if I used it every day.

Take care.
Bosoxy.

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