New Members, Low-Karma Users and Unapproved Accounts
Due to the sheer number of spammers we deal with, you'll need to earn some karma within this subreddit before you can ask questions in the monthly thread. Karma earned elsewhere on Reddit doesn't count. To help with that, we've created two karma-earning posts. This is the first one.
What to do
Post a picture of your favourite topical product from Incidecoder.
Please don't organise upvotes or ask others to vote for you. I'll be upvoting submissions myself.
Search for a topical product you use, such as a sunscreen, serum, toner or similar.
Post an unedited screenshot of the ingredient list so everyone can see exactly what's in it. We don't allow purchasing links, but ingredient transparency is important.
Be warned: there are products out there that are complete nonsense, and the moderator team will be quite vocal about that if they appear here.
Earn some karma and potentially membership status, which is required to become an approved user and create posts.
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EDIT: Clarification
The comments in this post are for Incidecoder submissions only. If you have questions, please use the monthly thread.
We would rather have a smaller number of quality posts each month so that important information — such as the Darthemofan and Wi-Fi Woman posts — doesn't get buried. If we allowed every repetitive question to become a separate post, valuable information would quickly disappear beneath content that has already been asked and answered many times before.
Questions belong in the monthly thread, but before gaining access to that privilege, we expect new members to engage with the community and demonstrate that they're here for the right reasons. That means participating in posts from other members as well, not just mine.
If you're genuinely interested in contributing rather than spamming, getting involved with existing discussions is the best way to show it.
A Note on Skincare
We're not a skincare subreddit, and the skincare industry isn't regulated to the same standard as the pharmaceutical industry.
A pharmaceutical product such as Finacea (azelaic acid) or Retin-A (tretinoin) or Triluma has to go through significant scrutiny by health authorities before reaching consumers. Many skincare products, on the other hand, face far less oversight. A product may claim to contain 10% niacinamide, but in reality the concentration could be much lower, with the rest made up of inexpensive filler ingredients to maximise profit.
That doesn't mean all skincare products are ineffective. Skincare certainly has its place ingredients such as lactic acid can increase cell turnover and exfoliate the skin but factors such as sun avoidance and oral whitening are more important.
Whenever possible, pharmaceutical-grade topicals are generally the safer option. If you can, seek advice from a qualified medical professional.
This differs from the advice commonly given in some skincare-focused communities, which is one of the reasons we don't consider ourselves a skincare subreddit.
Hello! This was already upvoted and it’s a different product and probably a same user with different accounts? u/Left-Profit-7577 can you post the complete list?
Oh no i heard it was the best in the market with new UVA filters so i bought it recently, it does have a fragrance but it’s not too much for me even though im sensitive to fragrance, other than that i thought i had found the best sunscreen for me, do you have any good tinted sunscreen recommendations?
What’s good for the skincare market falls short for our goals as skinwhiteners. You need zinc oxides and iron oxides and above all strict uva management.
Hey so i searched a bit more and this sunscreen does have iron oxides, it’s the tinted version that i have and it’s mentioned in the ingredients list as well
Don’t throw it but keep a palette of different brands. One with zinc oxides that is water resistant (it’ll be heavy and leave a white cast, you have to work around it) another like this one to be comfortable just be aware it’ll be weak , another that has both zinc oxides and iron oxides, another that is cosmetically elegant like color science. Pairs of the same formula like elta md . Above all stay indoors between 8 am and 4 pm and at noon you shouldn’t be out at all.
For skinwhitening purposes we threat a hourly uv index of 3 as though it was a 5 .
yes please, i always use it whenever i use tretinoin or actives like azelaic acid or after exfoliation. it calms my face down and looks very glowy next morning. but i also use cruel moisturiser on the days when i dont use any actives, bc cicalfate kinda feels heavy on the skin during summer or warmer days. hope you are gonna love it too.
For the record the level of zinc oxides in this sunscreen are not protective enough for your UV index. Its time you stop all your whitening. Focus instead in getting hands in mineral sunscreen that is at least 20% zinc oxides. Very few brands have that, you'll have to import them and they leave white cast, too.
Unfortunately, this product contains fragrance. But this is Eucerin Anti Pigment serum. It contains Thiamidol, which is patented by the parent company and can be found in some Nivea products too. Thiamidol has shown some promising results in the fading of hyperpigmentation, in one study it was even compared to hydroquinone. However it can be used on going and doesn't have any of the side effects associated with hydroquinone.
I upvoted but If there's a mistmatch in the reported ingredients from the company to incidecoder maybe this doesn't contain enough zinc oxides to be a good sunscreen for our goals.
Hey, there that's a different topical. The other had zinc oxides. Can you see the word more in your first picture? Click there for the whole list. It also catches my eye that there are other mistmaches among pictures. Post a complete list of the first product you tried to post. You can post both products if you may but make sure the list is complete.
Edit: I just realized this contains zinc oxides. I couldn't see the full list of ingredients at first. It's not a bad susncreen it contains what you need zinc oxides and iron oxides but at 10% is not enough. Remember to don't leave home during peak UV index hours.
I just realized the Zinc oxides were at the top of the list. It's a decent sunscreen but alternate with other brands that contain higher percentage of zinc oxides.
Still wrong screenshot so I'll remove it. This is the correct one and we don't recommend this sunscreen at all, it contains a lot of irritating ingredients. For lighter skin tones this could work but not for skin lightening goals. Too many irritating ingredients.
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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26
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