Two products, two formats, and a reason for each. Here is everything that's in them and what each ingredient is doing.
Why one is an oil and one is a gel
This is the shortest way to understand the range.
The Ingrown Hair Oil is anhydrous — no water at all — because its hero ingredient is an oil-phase lipid. It cannot be delivered any other way. Putting it in a cream or a gel would mean either not using it, or using less of it.
The Smooth Gel is water-based because its active is water-soluble. Same logic, opposite answer.
The format follows the chemistry. Neither was a marketing decision, and if you have ever wondered why almost every product in this category is an oil regardless of what's in it, that is a fair thing to wonder.
Ingrown Hair Oil
Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Squalane, Mandelic Acid, Bisabolol, Tocopherol, Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Oil, Bacillus Ferment.
Nine ingredients. No water. No preservative. No fragrance. No essential oils. No tea tree.
The hero: Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Oil and Bacillus Ferment
These two together are the reason this product exists in the form it does.
They are a lipid active built around fatty acids captured from an extremophilic microorganism — bacteria that live in conditions almost nothing else survives. Among those lipids is a branched-chain fatty acid of bacterial origin that had not previously been used in skincare. It sits at an unusual crossroads between the bacterial and plant worlds, carried in oat oil.
What it does: it supports the integrity of the skin barrier, and it supports the balance of the skin's own microbial population rather than trying to sterilise it.
Why that matters here: a follicle is not a sterile tube. It has its own microbial ecology, and the difference between an irritated follicle that settles and one that tips into folliculitis is partly about that balance. Most of this category takes the opposite approach and reaches for antibacterials — tea tree, usually. Supporting the ecosystem is a more considered answer than attacking it.
It is effective at low dose, which is why it sits near the end of the ingredient list. Position on an INCI list tells you concentration, not importance.
Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride
What it is: a lightweight emollient made from coconut-derived fatty acids joined to glycerin.
Why it's here: it is the base. It spreads easily, absorbs quickly, leaves no film, and it is very stable — which matters in a product with no preservative, where oxidation is the thing that would spoil it.
C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate
What it is: a synthetic ester. Benzoic acid joined to a mix of fatty alcohols.
Why it's here: it is the difference between an oil you use daily and one you abandon. Dry, silky finish instead of a greasy one, and the reason this won't mark your clothes.
The honest bit: it's synthetic, and there is no plant-derived alternative that performs the same way. We could have left it out and had a more natural-sounding label and a worse product.
Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil
What it is: not technically an oil. Jojoba is a liquid wax ester, and its structure is unusually close to human sebum.
Why it's here: it softens the hair shaft, which is the single most useful thing you can do to stop a hair curling back into skin.
Squalane
What it is: a saturated lipid. Your skin makes squalene; squalane is the stable hydrogenated version, from sugarcane or olives.
Why it's here: barrier support. Skin-identical, very well tolerated, non-comedogenic. Tight, dry skin around a follicle is one of the conditions that traps a hair.
Mandelic Acid — 0.3%
What it is: an alpha hydroxy acid derived from bitter almonds, with the largest molecule of the common AHAs. It penetrates more slowly and more evenly than glycolic acid, and irritates less.
Why it's here: mandelic acid has documented antibacterial activity, and that is what it is doing at this level.
What it is not doing: exfoliating. Not at 0.3%. Products that use mandelic acid to resurface skin run at 5% to 10%. We have named the percentage precisely so nobody has to guess, and so nobody buys this expecting a peel.
Bisabolol
What it is: the main active compound in chamomile, though most cosmetic bisabolol now comes from candeia trees or is made synthetically.
Why it's here: it is one of the better-evidenced anti-irritants in cosmetic chemistry. An ingrown hair is an inflammatory response to a foreign object, so calming that response is real work, not decorative work.
Tocopherol
What it is: vitamin E.
Why it's here: mostly to protect the other oils. With no preservative, oxidation is what would degrade this formula, and tocopherol slows it down.
Smooth Gel
Aqua, Glycerin, Betaine, Lactobacillus/Cocoa Fruit Ferment Filtrate, Decapeptide-1, Ethylhexylglycerin, Phenoxyethanol, Ethoxydiglycol, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Hyaluronate, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice.
Eleven ingredients. One active, and a base built to deliver it. No fragrance. No essential oils. No alcohol.
The hero: Lactobacillus/Cocoa Fruit Ferment Filtrate and Decapeptide-1
These two together are the reason this product exists.
They are flavones isolated from cocoa by fermentation, paired with a bioengineered decapeptide — a chain of ten amino acids, made rather than extracted — shaped to mimic Fibroblast Growth Factor-5. FGF-5 is one of the body's own signals for ending the hair's active growth phase.
What it does: it works on the hair growth cycle rather than on the hair itself, encouraging the follicle to leave its growing phase earlier than it otherwise would. Shorten that phase and regrowth comes back finer and shorter.
Why that matters here: every follicle you have runs on a cycle, everywhere on the body, so a lever on the cycle applies as readily to a shin as to a jawline. And softer regrowth is not only a comfort question — a finer hair is less likely to be stiff enough to curl back into skin, which is where an ingrown hair begins.
It is effective at low dose. Position on an INCI list tells you concentration, not importance.
Aqua
What it is: water, and the largest part of the formula.
Why it's here: the active is water-soluble, so water is the phase it is delivered in. It is also the reason this product needs a preservative and the oil does not.
Glycerin and Betaine
What they are: two humectants — ingredients that hold water against the skin rather than sealing it in the way an oil does. Betaine is derived from sugar beet.
Why they're here: skin that is shaved, threaded or waxed every day or two loses water faster than skin that isn't. Keeping the stratum corneum hydrated makes the surface more flexible and less likely to trap a hair on its way out.
Sodium Hyaluronate
What it is: the salt form of hyaluronic acid, smaller and more stable than the acid itself, and a molecule your skin already makes.
Why it's here: hydration, and the reason a water gel can feel cushioned rather than tight as it dries down.
Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice
What it is: juice pressed from the aloe leaf, with a long history of use on skin that has been through something.
Why it's here: it is soothing on freshly-removed skin, and it earns its place in a product designed to be applied straight after a shave, thread or wax.
Xanthan Gum
What it is: a polysaccharide made by fermentation, and one of the most widely used natural gelling agents there is.
Why it's here: it is what makes this a gel rather than a watery liquid. It gives the roller something to lay down evenly instead of running off the jawline.
Ethoxydiglycol
What it is: a solvent, used at low levels in skincare.
Why it's here: it keeps the active properly in solution and aids its delivery into the skin. A well-chosen active that stays on the surface is a wasted one.
Phenoxyethanol and Ethylhexylglycerin
What they are: the preservative system. Phenoxyethanol does the preserving; ethylhexylglycerin boosts it and conditions the skin, which means less phenoxyethanol is needed.
Why they're here: anything containing water can grow microbes. The Ingrown Hair Oil has no water in it and therefore needs no preservative; this one has water as its largest ingredient and must be preserved. That is not an inconsistency, it is the same reasoning applied to two different formulas.
The honest bit: this pairing is one of the best-established and best-tolerated modern preservative systems in cosmetic chemistry, which is why it is here. An unpreserved water gel would be the riskier product on your bathroom shelf, not the purer one.
What the Smooth Gel will not do
It will not remove hair. It is not a hair removal method, and it is not a treatment for hirsutism, PCOS or any hormonal condition. Stop using it and regrowth returns to normal.
What's deliberately not in either product
No tea tree oil
Almost every ingrown hair product on the market contains tea tree. It has genuine antibacterial activity, and it is also one of the more common causes of contact allergy among essential oils — a rate that rises as the oil oxidises in the bottle. On thin, freshly shaved skin, that trade-off didn't look worth it. We took the microbiome route instead.
No fragrance
The entire category competes on scent. Fragrance is also the single most common cause of cosmetic contact allergy. On a bikini line, on freshly waxed skin, on a face shaved daily — an easy call. There is no fragrance in either product, natural or synthetic.
No alcohol
Denatured alcohol is what makes most drugstore ingrown hair treatments sting. It also dries the stratum corneum, which produces more dead cells, which blocks more follicles. The treatment feeds the problem.
How natural is it?
Most of it is naturally derived. Some of it isn't, and the C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate definitely isn't.
We're calculating the exact natural origin index under ISO 16128 — the actual standard for this — and we'll publish the real number here once every supplier has confirmed theirs. We'd rather leave this section incomplete than round it up.
Published by the ungro lab. If you want to know something about either formula that isn't answered here, ask us and we'll add it.