Issue link: https://www.ascpskindeepdigital.com/i/1547015
42 ASCP Skin Deep Autumn 2026 TWO RETINOL SERUMS SIT on your retail shelf. One costs three times more than the other. The expensive product's packaging says, "patented delivery system," and the product rep used the phrase "advanced encapsulation" four times in 10 minutes. Your client will ask which one they should take home, and you want to answer honestly. Start here. A patent—as in "patented delivery system"—answers one question: Is this new and distinct enough to protect? How the finished product performs on skin is a separate question, and it gets answered by a different kind of evidence. Both questions are worth asking. But they live in different places. So let's open the box. Once you understand how the most common delivery system works, the language on the packaging becomes much easier to read. THE VEHICLE The most established delivery system in skin care is the liposome, and it starts with a molecule shaped like a tadpole. That molecule is a phospholipid. Its round head loves water. Its two long tails love oil. Put enough of them in water, and they sort themselves out. The tails turn inward to hide from the water. The heads face outward to GETTY IMAGES greet it. Two facing layers of phospholipids curve around and close in to form a hollow ball with a watery center. Want to know the coolest part? This is the same architecture your cell membranes use and the same architecture found in the lipid "mortar" packed between your corneocytes. A liposome shows up at the skin's surface built from material the barrier already knows. THE PATH IN Your stratum corneum is like a wall. Corneocytes are the bricks, and layers of lipids are the mortar holding them together. Water-loving ingredients meet an oily mortar. Oil-loving ingredients meet a watery brick. Traffic slows in both directions, which is exactly what a healthy barrier should do. A liposome moves through that traffic in two documented ways. It settles onto the surface and merges with the skin's lipids, which raises the pressure pushing its cargo inward. It also mingles within the mortar, loosening that structure just enough for the liposome to slip through. Not all ingredients can safely or effectively pass through the skin barrier. Liposomes carry a code that allows fragile, sharp, or unstable actives to pass through the security INGREDIENT DECK Signed, Sealed, Delivered A guide to how liposomes work in the skin by Ella Cressman-Sandoval