I · FACIAL CARE
Niacinamide: What It Is and Why It's in Your Serum
INCI name: Niacinamide, a small, water-soluble form of vitamin B3 used as a functional active in serums and moisturizers. Its place in skincare is a formulation coincidence rather than a skin-specific discovery — the molecule was identified in 1937 as the cure for pellagra, a nutritional deficiency disease, and didn't appear in cosmetic patent filings for another three decades. It's stable and inexpensive enough to be included at meaningful concentration across every price tier.
- INCI Name
- Niacinamide
- Formula
- C6H6N2O
- Function Group
- Functional active
Origin
Nothing about this molecule's early history involves skin — or even nutrition. Nicotinic acid was first synthesized in 1867 by oxidizing nicotine, and for decades its main use was in photography; it was considered to have no nutritional relevance at all. Casimir Funk isolated it from yeast and rice polishings in 1912 while chasing a cure for a different deficiency disease, found it didn't work, and abandoned it. Only in 1937 did biochemist Conrad Elvehjem extract it from liver and identify it as the long-sought pellagra-preventive factor. Food fortification followed.
Why It's Used
It's a small, water-soluble molecule that is chemically stable and easy to formulate across a wide pH range, which makes it straightforward to combine with other ingredients in serums and moisturizers — a formulation convenience as much as anything else.
Elsewhere
Still widely used in food fortification and nutritional supplements; it only appeared in cosmetic patent filings for topical use starting in the 1970s, decades after its identification.
What the Framework Sees
Because it is stable and inexpensive, niacinamide can be included at meaningful concentration across every price tier. Where a front label states a percentage, Question 2 lets you sanity-check it: a stated 10% should appear well before the phenoxyethanol marker, not after it.
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