Ingredient Library
Horsetail
Equisetum arvense
Horsetail is a silica-rich plant traditionally used to strengthen and firm skin, hair, and nails. Toning, it suits mature skin and brittle hair.
A natural history
Horsetail is a living fossil, the last survivor of an ancient family of plants that once grew as towering, tree sized giants in the steamy forests of the coal age, long before the dinosaurs. The slender, jointed stems you see today are descended directly from those primordial groves, a green thread reaching back hundreds of millions of years.
Its secret is silica. Horsetail is one of the richest plant sources of this strengthening mineral, so rich that bundles of the stems were used for centuries to scour and polish pewter and fine wood, earning it the country name scouring rush. That same mineral wealth is why horsetail has long been valued in beauty traditions for the look of strong skin, hair, and nails.
What it does for your skin
Horsetail is prized as a silica rich, antioxidant botanical. In laboratory testing, horsetail extract proved rich in antioxidant phenolic and flavonoid compounds with real free radical scavenging activity.[1] In a study on human skin cells, compounds from horsetail calmed markers of inflammation, pointing to a soothing role.[2] In a formula it is a traditional, mineral rich botanical used to support the look of strong, conditioned skin, hair, and nails. Its benefits rest largely on tradition and laboratory study.
References
[1] Mimica-Dukic N, et al. Phenolic compounds in field horsetail (Equisetum arvense L.) as natural antioxidants. Molecules. 2008;13(7):1455-1464. doi:10.3390/molecules13071455
[2] Jeong SY, et al. Phytochemical investigation of Equisetum arvense and evaluation of their anti-inflammatory potential in stimulated keratinocytes. Pharmaceuticals (Basel). 2023;16(10):1478. doi:10.3390/ph16101478
Found in these formulas
Questions, answered
It is a silica-rich, antioxidant botanical traditionally valued for supporting the look of strong, conditioned skin, hair, and nails.
It is one of nature's great silica gatherers, so mineral-rich that its stems were once used to scour and polish metal, earning the name scouring rush.