What is the Difference Between Functional and Performance Ingredients

The key difference between functional and performance ingredients is that functional ingredients are the ones that actually make the cosmetic product work, whereas performance ingredients are the components that give the desired outcome in the body.

Functional and performance ingredients are important components in different products in the market, mainly including skincare products, food products, pharmaceutical products, supplements, etc. They have different roles in the body and outside the body.

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What are Functional Ingredients
3. What are Performance Ingredients
4. Functional vs Performance Ingredients in Tabular Form
5. Summary – Functional vs Performance Ingredients

What are Functional Ingredients?

Functional ingredients are the components of a cosmetic product that actually make the product work. This can include detergents, conditioning agents, moisturizers, colorants in make-ups, food products, etc. that can provide benefits to the consumer. The presence of at least one of these products can make the product work properly.

The idea of functional foods started in Japan in the 1980s. This started with the launch of three large-scale government programs based on the analysis and development of functional food and molecular design.

In the food industry, a functional ingredient is a bioactive compound that is useful in the manufacture of functional food products. We can obtain these bioactive products from various sources such as primary produce, marine sources, microorganisms, and inorganic raw material.

Typically, a functional ingredient does not have a strict definition. In the food industry, they are the ingredients having the potential to influence health over and above the basic nutritional value. Therefore, functional foods are foods that can display health-promoting properties over and above the nutritional value. Developing foods, beverages, and supplements with functional ingredients is very important.

Some examples of functional ingredients in skincare products include preservatives, water, thickeners, pH adjusters, delivery systems, emollients, and surfactants. In the food industry, some essential functional ingredients include vitamins, minerals, probiotics, fiber, etc.

What are Performance Ingredients?

Performance ingredients are the components in a product that make changes in the body. In other words, these are ingredients that display the performance inside the body. For example, the performance ingredients in a skincare product cause actual changes in the appearance of the skin. Therefore, these are sometimes known as active ingredients as well.

The typically used performance ingredients in skincare products include hydroxyl acids that are important in anti-aging and exfoliation products, tretinoin or benzoyl peroxide that can be found in acne treatments, polysaccharides in moisturizers, hyaluronic acid that is useful in skin lightening, antioxidants that occurs in a wide variety of skincare products, etc.

What is the Difference Between Functional and Performance Ingredients?

There are different types of ingredients found in a particular commercial product. Functional ingredients and performance ingredients are two such types. The key difference between functional and performance ingredients is that functional ingredients are the ones that actually make the cosmetic product work, whereas performance ingredients are the components that give the desired outcome in the body.

The following table summarizes the difference between functional and performance ingredients.

Summary – Functional vs Performance Ingredients

Functional ingredients and performance ingredients are two ingredients we find in cosmetic products. The key difference between functional and performance ingredients is that functional ingredients are the ones that actually make the cosmetic product work, whereas performance ingredients are the components that give the desired outcome in our body.