We have to start by saying that it is a pet-peeve of ours that the cosmetic industry tends to even make numbers confusing and misleading.
For example, we are seeing a well-known, trendy company claiming they use "1% stabilised retinol" in their product, when in reality they use 1% of RetiStar. RetiStar is the trade name for a stabilised retinol solution that contains only 5% or pure retinol. This means that using 1% RetiStar comes out to be only 0.05% pure retinol in the final product, while other "honest" products do really contain 1% pure retinol. The consumer has to be a cosmetic chemist to figure it all out.
So one day, when we realized that G&G is having the same problem with aPAD, we felt really bad. Like could not sleep for a few days bad. We did a big mistake, and we apologize for it.
It was an honest mistake, and we think the manufacturer of Azeclair communicated about its ingredient in a misleading way, but we should have double checked and should have and could have known better.
Our ingredient sample bottle that we used for development stating INCI is Potassium Azeloyl Diglycinate (and nothing else next to it... )
The correct information about aPAD is this: we are using 20% of Azeclair, the ingredient we buy from the manufacturer. It is a solution, containing a significant amount of water and it means that we have 6% pure Potassium Azeloyl Diglycinate in aPAD.
We understand, this does not sound much when it comes to Azelaic Acid, but please know, that 6% is an absolutely outstanding amount from this molecule. As far as we know, it is the highest amount used currently in products containing this new generation form of Azelaic Acid.
There are a few studies using PAD already, two of them used it for the management of rosacea and used 5% (here and here), and another one used it for the management of melasma. Unfortunately, this latter one did not disclose the exact amount of PAD, but does write that they are using 6.5% of three actives combined (tranexamic acid, PAD and niacinamide), so it is highly unlikely they use more than 5%. Most probably, PAD is used in the 1-3% range given the usual amount used from the other actives.
The manufacturer recommendation is using 3-10% Azeclair that means 1-3% of Potassium Azeloyl Diglycinate. They did several studies (mostly using 10% Azeclair) showing that this is an effective amount in normalizing oil production and evening the skin tone.
When developing the product, we decided to double the manufacturer-recommended amount for a super effective but still safe and well-tolerated product. We tested aPAD on sensitive and rosacea-prone skin as well as for fading pigmentation and for normalizing oil production and received great feedback from our testers confirming that 20% is a good amount to use in our product.
So this is the story of how aPAD came to be.
Realizing the mistake now, we have corrected the product name to make clear that we are using 20% of Azeclair but the formula of aPAD is the same as before.
If you are still reading here, thank you for taking the time to hear us out and read the full story. We really would like to apologize once more and can only hope that if you have been an aPAD user and loved the product, you will continue to use it, or if you have been eyeing it for a while, you will give it a shot. It is a super unique formula at an amazing price point that we are really proud of and has been one of our bestsellers since we launched it two years ago.
Judit