Database/Skin Conditioning/Creatine
100% petroleum · ISO 16128

Is Creatine natural?

No. Industrially built from synthetic sarcosine and nitrogen-fixed cyanamide; no commercially significant natural-extraction route.

INCI nameCreatine
CAS57-00-1
FormulaC4H9N3O2 · 131.13 Da
FunctionSkin Conditioning
FeedstockCosmetic-grade creatine is chemically synthesised from sarcosine and…

How we scored it

Whole molecule from sarcosine + cyanamide synthesis; both reagents synthetic, no natural fragment survives.
What counts. ISO 16128-2 scores the atoms that remain in the final ingredient. Reagents, solvents, catalysts and protecting groups used during manufacture leave no mass behind and are not counted.

Where it comes from

Cosmetic-grade creatine is chemically synthesised from sarcosine and cyanamide, a nitrogen-fixation product similar in origin to synthetic urea. It is not commercially extracted from meat or produced by fermentation at scale.

In plain English

A lab-made version of a compound your muscles produce naturally, added to conditioning products. It's manufactured from simple synthetic building blocks rather than extracted from a natural source.

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Structure

2D structure of Creatine

2-[carbamimidoyl(methyl)amino]acetic acid

PubChem CID 586 ↗

References

  1. 1ISO 16128-1:2016 and ISO 16128-2:2017 — Guidelines on technical definitions and criteria for natural and organic cosmetic ingredients and products. ISO, Geneva.
  2. 2Creatine. PubChem CID 586. National Center for Biotechnology Information. pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ↗
  3. 3CREATINE. CosIng — European Commission cosmetic ingredient database. ec.europa.eu/cosing ↗
  4. 4CREATINE. CosIng u2014 European Commission database for information on cosmetic substances and ingredients. https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/cosing/search?search=CREATINE