The Enigma of the Searitas Curse

In the realm of folklore and myth, there are countless tales of curses that have plagued individuals and communities throughout history. One such curse that has captured the imagination of many is the Curse of the Seartas. Said to originate in ancient times, this curse is said to have devastating consequences for those who dare to incur its wrath. According to legend, the Curse of the Seartas was cast by a powerful sorcerer who was wronged by the people of a small village. Enraged by their actions, the sorcerer summoned dark forces and unleashed a curse that would haunt the villagers for generations to come. The curse was said to bring forth misfortune, despair, and ultimately, death to all those who had wronged the sorcerer.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Other than that, salt also works as an emulsion stabilizer in water-in-oil emulsions , that is when water droplets are dispersed in the outer oil or silicone phase. If similar to us you are in the weird habit of reading the label on your shower gel while taking a shower, you might have noticed that sodium chloride is almost always on the ingredient list.

The curse was said to bring forth misfortune, despair, and ultimately, death to all those who had wronged the sorcerer. Throughout the years, stories of the curse spread far and wide, instilling fear in the hearts of many. It was believed that anyone who encountered the curse would face unimaginable hardships and sufferings.

L Oreal Paris Magic Skin Beautifier BB Cream

Good old water, aka H2O. The most common skincare ingredient of all. You can usually find it right in the very first spot of the ingredient list, meaning it’s the biggest thing out of all the stuff that makes up the product.

It’s mainly a solvent for ingredients that do not like to dissolve in oils but rather in water.

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Once inside the skin, it hydrates, but not from the outside - putting pure water on the skin (hello long baths!) is drying.

One more thing: the water used in cosmetics is purified and deionized (it means that almost all of the mineral ions inside it is removed). Like this, the products can stay more stable over time.

A clear, colorless and odorless, highly volatile (meaning it does not absorb into the skin but evaporates from it) liquid that's used as an emollient. It gives a nice non-oily light skin feel and it can improve the slip of the formula without leaving a tacky residue behind.

It's also popular in make-up products as its volatility makes mascaras and foundations last longer. If that would not be enough, it's also an excellent solvent, and it's a regular not only on the ingredients lists of make-ups but also on makeup removers.

A super commonly used 5 unit long, cyclic structured silicone that is water-thin and does not stay on the skin but evaporates from it (called volatile silicone). Similar to other silicones, it gives skin and hair a silky, smooth feel.

It's often combined with the non-volatile (i.e. stays on the skin) dimethicone as the two together form a water-resistant, breathable protective barrier on the skin without a negative tacky feel.

Also-called: Glycerol | What-it-does: skin-identical ingredient, moisturizer/humectant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

• A natural moisturizer that’s also in our skin
• A super common, safe, effective and cheap molecule used for more than 50 years
• Not only a simple moisturizer but knows much more: keeps the skin lipids between our skin cells in a healthy (liquid crystal) state, protects against irritation, helps to restore barrier
• Effective from as low as 3% with even more benefits for dry skin at higher concentrations up to 20-40%
• High-glycerin moisturizers are awesome for treating severely dry skin

A light-feeling, volatile (meaning it does not absorb into the skin but evaporates from it) silicone that gives skin a unique, silky and non-greasy feel. It has excellent spreading properties and leaves no oily residue or build-up.

A silicone emulsifier that helps water and silicone oils to mix nicely together. It can also be used together with plant oil + silicone oil mixtures.

Porous spherical microbeads (tiny little balls) that can give an elegant silky texture to the products. They are also used to scatter light to reduce the look of fine lines on the skin, as well as to absorb excess oil and give a matt finish.

Butylene glycol, or let’s just call it BG, is a multi-tasking colorless, syrupy liquid. It’s a great pick for creating a nice feeling product.

BG’s main job is usually to be a solvent for the other ingredients. Other tasks include helping the product to absorb faster and deeper into the skin (penetration enhancer), making the product spread nicely over the skin (slip agent), and attracting water (humectant) into the skin.

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It’s an ingredient whose safety hasn’t been questioned so far by anyone (at least not that we know about). BG is approved by Ecocert and is also used enthusiastically in natural products. BTW, it’s also a food additive.

Probably the most common silicone of all. It is a polymer (created from repeating subunits) molecule and has different molecular weight and thus different viscosity versions from water-light to thick liquid.

As for skincare, it makes the skin silky smooth, creates a subtle gloss and forms a protective barrier (aka occlusive). Also, works well to fill in fine lines and wrinkles and give skin a plump look (of course that is only temporary, but still, it's nice). There are also scar treatment gels out there using dimethicone as their base ingredient. It helps to soften scars and increase their elasticity.

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As for hair care, it is a non-volatile silicone meaning that it stays on the hair rather than evaporates from it and smoothes the hair like no other thing. Depending on your hair type, it can be a bit difficult to wash out and might cause some build-up (btw, this is not true to all silicones, only the non-volatile types).

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

An organic derivative of hectorite clay, Disteardimonium Hectorite is used as a viscosity controller - it thickens up formulations to make them less runny.

It’s most popular use in cosmetics is in sunscreens, under the trademarked name Bentone 38 from Elementis. According to the manufacturer info, it is a real multi-tasker, including the ability to prevent pigments settling during storage, stabilizing a formula for longer, creating a light and smooth skin feel and enhancing the water-resistance of sunscreen formulas.

Boron Nitride is a graphite-like, crystalline material that has light-diffusing and texture improving properties. It is quite the multi-tasker as it can blur imperfections, add an exceptional creamy feel to products and act as a mattifying agent.

In powder makeup products (think blushers, highlighters), it enhances the skin feel and improves the color pay-off. In lipsticks, it gives a creamy feel and a better color on the lips.

It’s pretty much the current IT-preservative. It’s safe and gentle, but even more importantly, it’s not a feared-by-everyone-mostly-without-scientific-reason paraben.

It’s not something new: it was introduced around 1950 and today it can be used up to 1% worldwide. It can be found in nature - in green tea - but the version used in cosmetics is synthetic.

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Other than having a good safety profile and being quite gentle to the skin it has some other advantages too. It can be used in many types of formulations as it has great thermal stability (can be heated up to 85°C) and works on a wide range of pH levels (ph 3-10).

It’s often used together with ethylhexylglycerin as it nicely improves the preservative activity of phenoxyethanol.

A silicone emulsifier that helps water and silicone oils to mix nicely together.

Sodium chloride is the fancy name of salt. Normal, everyday table salt.

If (similar to us) you are in the weird habit of reading the label on your shower gel while taking a shower, you might have noticed that sodium chloride is almost always on the ingredient list. The reason for this is that salt acts as a fantastic thickener in cleansing formulas created with ionic cleansing agents (aka surfactants) such as Sodium Laureth Sulfate. A couple of percents (typically 1-3%) turns a runny surfactant solution into a nice gel texture.

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If you are into chemistry (if not, we understand, just skip this paragraph), the reason is that electrolytes (you know, the Na+ and Cl- ions) screen the electrostatic repulsion between the head groups of ionic surfactants and thus support the formation of long shaped micelles (instead of spherical ones) that entangle like spaghetti, and viola, a gel is formed. However, too much of it causes the phenomenon called "salting out", and the surfactant solution goes runny again.

Other than that, salt also works as an emulsion stabilizer in water-in-oil emulsions, that is when water droplets are dispersed in the outer oil (or silicone) phase. And last but not least, when salt is right at the first spot of the ingredient list (and is not dissolved), the product is usually a body scrub where salt is the physical exfoliating agent.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

A fast spreading emollient ester (hexyl alcohol + lauric acid) that's used in water in oil emulsions or in water-free formulas. It gives a light skin feel.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

A mild, emollient liquid that can improve product spreadability and gives a silky and non-oily feel to the cosmetic products.

It’s a handy multi-tasking ingredient that gives the skin a nice, soft feel. At the same time, it also boosts the effectiveness of other preservatives, such as the nowadays super commonly used phenoxyethanol.

The blend of these two (caprylyl glycol + phenoxyethanol) is called Optiphen, which not only helps to keep your cosmetics free from nasty things for a long time but also gives a good feel to the finished product. It's a popular duo.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

The most common type of feared-by-everyone-mostly-without-scientific-reason parabens. It's a cheap, effective and well-tolerated ingredient to make sure the cosmetic formula does not go wrong too soon.

Apart from the general controversy around parabens (we wrote about it more here), there is a 2006 in-vitro (made in the lab not on real people) research about methylparaben (MP) showing that when exposed to sunlight, MP treated skin cells suffered more harm than non-MP treated skin cells. The study was not done with real people on real skin but still - using a good sunscreen next to MP containing products is a good idea. (Well, in fact using a sunscreen is always a good idea. :))

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Officially, CosIng (the official EU ingredient database) lists Aluminum Hydroxide 's functions as opacifying (making the product white and non-transparent), as well as emollient and skin protectant.

However, with a little bit of digging, it turns out Aluminum Hyroxide often moonlights as a protective coating for UV filter superstar Titanium Dioxide. Specifically, it protects our skin from the harmful effects of nasty Reactive Oxygen Species (free radicals derived from oxygen such as Superoxide and Hydrogen Peroxide) generated when Titanium Dioxide is exposed to UV light. Btw, chlorine in swimming pool water depletes this protective coating, so one more reason to reapply your sunscreen after a dip in the pool on holiday.

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Other than that, Aluminum Hydroxide also often shows up in composite pigment technologies where it is used the other way around (as the base material and not as the coating material) and helps to achieve higher color coverage with less pigment.

• Primary fat-soluble antioxidant in our skin
• Significant photoprotection against UVB rays
• Vit C + Vit E work in synergy and provide great photoprotection
• Has emollient properties
• Easy to formulate, stable and relatively inexpensive

Also-called: Pro-Vitamin B5 | What-it-does: soothing, moisturizer/humectant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

An easy-to-formulate, commonly used, nice to have ingredient that’s also called pro-vitamin B5. As you might guess from the “pro” part, it’s a precursor to vitamin B5 (whose fancy name is pantothenic acid).

Its main job in skincare products is to moisturise the skin. It’s a humectant meaning that it can help the skin to attract water and then hold onto it. There is also research showing that panthenol can help our skin to produce more lovely lipids that are important for a strong and healthy skin barrier.

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Another great thing about panthenol is that it has anti-inflammatory and skin protecting abilities. A study shows that it can reduce the irritation caused by less-nice other ingredients (e.g. fragrance, preservatives or chemical sunscreens) in the product.

Research also shows that it might be useful for wound healing as it promotes fibroblast (nice type of cells in our skin that produce skin-firming collagen) proliferation.

If that wasn’t enough panthenol is also useful in nail and hair care products. A study shows that a nail treatment liquide with 2% panthenol could effectively get into the nail and significantly increase the hydration of it.

As for the hair the hydration effect is also true there. Panthenol might make your hair softer, more elastic and helps to comb your hair more easily.

A multi-functional helper ingredient that's used mainly as a pigment carrier. The pigment can be an inorganic sunscreen (such as titanium dioxide) or a colorant that is blended with alumina platelets and then often coated with some kind of silicone (such as triethoxycaprylylsilane). This special treatment enables pigments to be evenly dispersed in the formula and to be spread out easily and evenly upon application. It is super useful both for mineral sunscreens as well as for makeup products.

Other than that, alumina can also be used as an absorbent (sometimes combined with the mattifying powder called polymethylsilsesquioxane), a viscosity controlling or an opacifying (reduces the transparency of the formula) agent.

Also-called: Titanium Dioxide/Ci 77891;Ci 77891 | What-it-does: colorant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0

Ci 77891 is the color code of titanium dioxide. It's a white pigment with great color consistency and dispersibility.

Red Iron Oxide is the super common pigment that gives the familiar, "rust" red color. It is also the one that gives the pink tones in your foundation. Chemically speaking, it is iron III oxide (Fe2O3).

Yellow Iron Oxide is the super common inorganic (as in no carbon atom in the molecule) pigment that gives the yellow tones in your foundation. Blended with red and black iron oxides, it is essential in all "flesh-toned" makeup products.

Chemically speaking, it is hydrated iron III oxide and depending on the conditions of manufacture, it can range from a light lemon to an orange-yellow shade.

Black Iron Oxide is the super common inorganic (as in no carbon atom in the molecule) pigment that controls the darkness of your foundation or gives the blackness to your mascara. Blended with red and black iron oxides, it is essential in all "flesh-toned" makeup products.

Chemically speaking, it is a mixture of iron II and iron III oxide. Btw, this guy, unlike the yellow and red pigments, is magnetic.

Also-called: Red 28, Red 27, Red 27 Lake, Red 28 Lake, Acid Red 92 Phloxine;Ci 45410 | What-it-does: colorant | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 2

A cosmetic colorant used as a reddish pigment.

Some version of it is a pH-sensitive dye that enables a colorless lip balm to turn red/pink upon application.

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Ci 19140 or Tartrazine is a super common colorant in skincare, makeup, medicine & food. It’s a synthetic lemon yellow that's used alone or mixed with other colors for special shades.

FDA says it's possible, but rare, to have an allergic-type reaction to a color additive. As an example, it mentions that Ci 19140 may cause itching and hives in some people but the colorant is always labeled so that you can avoid it if you are sensitive.

CI 42090 or Blue 1 is a super common synthetic colorant in beauty & food. Used alone, it adds a brilliant smurf-like blue color, combined with Tartrazine, it gives the fifty shades of green.

The curse was said to follow its victims relentlessly, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. It was even said that the curse had the power to reach beyond a person's lifetime, affecting their descendants and future generations. Many tales were told of individuals who fell victim to the Curse of the Seartas. These stories often recounted tragic events and unfortunate circumstances that befell those who were cursed. It was said that the curse brought forth illness, poverty, and despair, leaving those affected in a constant state of torment and misery. Some even claimed that the curse had the ability to manipulate fate itself, ensuring that no matter what efforts were made, the victims would always be met with failure. As with any ancient curse, there were those who sought to unravel its mysteries and find a way to break its hold. Countless scholars, magicians, and adventurers dedicated their lives to studying the curse and seeking a remedy. Many claimed to have discovered loopholes or rituals that could potentially lift the curse, but none were able to verify their claims. The Curse of the Seartas remained as elusive as ever, continuing to haunt those who dared to cross its path. However, it is important to note that the Curse of the Seartas remains purely in the realm of myth and legend. There is no concrete evidence to suggest that such a curse ever existed or had any real impact on people's lives. Nevertheless, the tale of the Curse of the Seartas serves as a cautionary reminder of the power of belief and the enduring fascination humans have with the supernatural and the unknown..

Reviews for "The Dark Side of the Sea: The Curse of the Searitas"

1. John - 2/5

I recently watched "Curse of the Seartas" and I must say I was disappointed. The plot was confusing and poorly developed, leaving me wondering what exactly was going on. The characters were also quite forgettable and lacked depth, making it difficult for me to connect with them or care about their fates. Additionally, the special effects were underwhelming and failed to create a sense of excitement or suspense. Overall, I found "Curse of the Seartas" to be a disappointing and forgettable film.

2. Samantha - 1/5

I cannot say enough negative things about "Curse of the Seartas". It was absolutely dreadful. The acting was wooden and lacking any sort of emotion, it was like watching cardboard cutouts deliver their lines. The story was convoluted and made no sense, leaving me confused and frustrated throughout the entire film. The dialogue was also cringe-worthy, filled with clichés and poorly written lines. I can confidently say that "Curse of the Seartas" is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Save yourself the agony and skip it.

3. Michael - 2/5

I had high hopes for "Curse of the Seartas", but unfortunately, it fell flat. The pacing was slow and dragged on, making it difficult to stay engaged. The film lacked a clear direction and failed to build any tension or suspense. The climax was anticlimactic and left me feeling underwhelmed. While the cinematography was visually appealing, it was not enough to save the lackluster plot and weak character development. Overall, "Curse of the Seartas" was a disappointment and I would not recommend it.

Cursed Seas: The Wrath of the Searitas