How to read an INCI list

The ingredient list on the back of a skincare box is the only part of the packaging that is legally obliged to tell you the truth. The front is marketing. The back is regulation. Learning to read it takes about ten minutes and it changes what you buy.

What INCI is

INCI stands for International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients. It is a naming system, agreed internationally, that gives every cosmetic ingredient one name regardless of language or market. Aqua is water in Lisbon and in Seoul. Butyrospermum Parkii Butter is shea butter everywhere.

It exists so that a list means the same thing in every country. It is not written to be readable, which is why it looks intimidating. Once you know three rules it stops being.

Rule one: the order is the recipe

Ingredients are listed in descending order of concentration. The first ingredient is the largest part of the formula, the second is next, and so on.

This is the single most useful thing on the box. If a formula is sold on an ingredient and that ingredient is second to last, you now know how much of it is actually in there.

Almost every water-based product starts with Aqua. That is not a criticism — most skincare is mostly water, and it has to be. What matters is the order of everything after it.

Rule two: the 1% line

Below 1% concentration, ingredients may be listed in any order the manufacturer chooses. This is where the list stops being a ranking and becomes a jumble.

You cannot see the line marked, but you can usually find it. Ingredients that are almost always used under 1% include:

  • Preservatives — Phenoxyethanol, Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate
  • Chelators — Disodium EDTA
  • pH adjusters — Sodium Hydroxide, Citric Acid
  • Gums and thickeners — Xanthan Gum, Carbomer
  • Parfum and the fragrance allergens that follow it

Spot the first of those and you have roughly located the 1% line. Anything at or after it is present in a small amount. That is not automatically bad — plenty of actives work at fractions of a percent, and preservatives are there to keep the product safe — but it tells you whether a headline ingredient is doing the work or decorating the label.

Rule three: the tail is the allergen declaration

In the EU and UK, a set of fragrance components must be named individually when they exceed a threshold. That is why some lists end in a run of names that look like a chemistry exam: Linalool, Limonene, Citronellol, Geraniol, Citral, Coumarin.

Those are not additives someone chose to put in. They are naturally occurring parts of essential oils and fragrance blends that the law requires to be declared, because a minority of people react to them. A formula described as allergen-label free has no declarable allergens in that tail. It is a narrower claim than fragrance-free, and much narrower than allergen-free — which is not a claim anyone can honestly make.

Four things that are not what they look like

  • A long list is not a worse list. An emulsion needs an oil phase, a water phase, an emulsifier, a preservative system and a pH buffer before it contains a single active. Length is chemistry, not padding.
  • A Latin name is not a red flag. Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice is aloe. Helianthus Annuus Seed Oil is sunflower oil. INCI uses botanical names because common names differ by country.
  • “Natural” is not a regulated word. Anyone can print it. COSMOS is regulated — it is a certification standard, awarded by a body such as ECOCERT, with a documented percentage of natural and organic content behind it. If a brand claims COSMOS, ask which level: NATURAL or ORGANIC.
  • An asterisk usually means organic. A footnote such as *from organic farming tells you which specific ingredients are certified, rather than the product as a whole.

Reading a list in thirty seconds

  1. Read the first five ingredients. That is most of the formula.
  2. Find the ingredient the product is sold on. Note where it sits.
  3. Look for the first preservative. Everything from there is present in a small amount.
  4. Check the tail for declared fragrance allergens if you react to them.

Why we care about this

Our whole position is that a formula should tell you what is in it and where the strength is verified. That only means something if you can check. Every LOVEBUG product page names its actives, and states a concentration where our supplier has verified it — and where it has not been verified, we leave the figure off rather than guess.

The ingredient list is where you hold any brand, including this one, to that.

Back to blog