What is Micellar water?
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It is water in which tensioactive agents (basically fancier soap molecules) are inserted, causing micelles to form.
Micelles are formations where these soap molecules gather their hydrophobic parts (also called tails) inside a “bubble” (the micelle), while their hydrophilic parts (also called heads) gather on the outside, effectively generating the “bubble’s” membrane.
These micelles facilitate washing off unwanted substances (naturally-occuring sebum , dead skin cells, make-up, etc) thanks to the fact that they contain parts that both “capture” hydrophobic and hydrophilic substances. That is because hydrophobic substances tend to “attract” each other and agglomerate, while the same can be said for hydrophilic.
So the micellar water allows to wash-off a wider range of substances thanks to these micelles, as they can be dissolved more easily
A micelle is a cluster of surfactant molecules dissolved in a liquid solution.
Surfactants are molecules that are attracted to the edges/surfaces of a body of liquid because half of them is attracted by the liquid and the other half is repulsed by it. The only place where half the molecule can be in the liquid and half can be out is at the surface of the liquid.
If there’s enough of them in the liquid, instead of sticking to the edges, they will cluster together into little globs called micelles. That way all the parts of the surfactant that repel the liquid can be close together and not be exposed to the water.
The most common example of this is soap dissolved in water at a certain concentration. But in principle many liquids have their own surfactants. You could have an alcohol surfactant or an ammonia surfactant etc.
So micellar water is just water with a little bit of soap in it at the right concentration.
Water is ionic (has electrical charge polarity, one side is positive, one is negative). So, ions and polar molecules fit into water pretty easily (the water aligns to the charge and tends to form structures around the solute ion, keeping it in solution).
Many organic molecules are non-polar, so they do not mix well with water. One way to get around that problem, and make the organic molecules able to be taken up in the water, is to add a partly-polar organic molecule like fatty acids, say, and the polar ends all join together on one side, and happily play with nearby water molecules (form loose bonds), and the other (far) end is non-polar and is repelled away from the water.
A micelle is a structure that forms when many such dual-molecules join together and form a sort of a bubble with the polar sides on the outside (facing the water) and the non-polar parts on the inside. Thus, the micelle aids the uptake of non-polar molecules into the generally polar/ionic solvent which is water. The non-polar parts can be isolated to the insides of the micelles, and thus you can get sort of a mixture between polar/ionic water and non-polar “islands” that float around easily.
I presume “micellated water” (a term I never have used) would be water in which there is a high enough content of those dual-nature molecules that micelles have formed in useful concentrations and the water will relatively readily take up organic molecules it would normally refuse.
It’s a way for Garnier to separate you from $15.89 for fancy soapy water….A Fool And Their Money Is Soon Parted!!!!!
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