A shared vocabulary
INCI names are assigned through the International Nomenclature Committee administered by the Personal Care Products Council in Washington, D.C. The European Commission's CosIng database lists INCI names alongside their EU regulatory status and functions. If an ingredient puzzles you, CosIng is the most direct free source; it will tell you, for example, that tocopheryl acetate is listed as an antioxidant and skin conditioner, and whether any restrictions apply.
INCI uses Latin or botanical names for plant materials, which is why rosemary appears as Rosmarinus officinalis leaf extract and water as aqua. A long Latin name is not a sign of sophistication; it is simply the rule.
The order, and the 1% line
EU Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 — retained in UK law — requires ingredients above 1% to be listed in descending order of weight at the time of formulation. Ingredients at or below 1% may follow in any order. In the United States, FDA labelling rules under the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act work similarly. The Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022 (MoCRA) added facility registration, product listing and adverse event reporting, and directs the FDA to require fragrance allergen disclosure.
“You cannot read a percentage off an INCI list. You can read a ceiling.”
That ceiling is the useful part. Preservatives such as phenoxyethanol are capped at 1% in the EU, so anything after phenoxyethanol is very likely at or below 1%. Thickeners such as xanthan gum and chelators such as disodium EDTA are typically used at fractions of a percent and make similar landmarks.
The 1% landmark
An EU-capped preservative. Ingredients listed after it are almost always trace amounts.
A single word for many
May hide dozens of components. Named allergens must be disclosed above set thresholds.
Colour Index numbers
Colourants are listed by CI number; this one is titanium dioxide.
Fragrance and allergens
For years EU labelling required 26 named fragrance allergens — such as limonene, linalool and citral — to be listed individually when present above 0.001% in leave-on products or 0.01% in rinse-off products. Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1545 expanded that list substantially, with transition periods running into the late 2020s. Seeing those names does not mean a product is harmful; it means a reader with a diagnosed fragrance allergy can avoid what affects them.
Symbols worth knowing
- Open jar with “12M”: the period-after-opening, here twelve months.
- Hourglass: a best-before date, required in the EU for products with a minimum durability of 30 months or less.
- Hand-in-book: further information is on an enclosed leaflet or the outer box.
- “+/−” or “may contain”: colourants used across a range of shades.
Claims with no legal definition
In the EU and UK, claims must meet the common criteria of Regulation (EU) No 655/2013: legal compliance, truthfulness, evidential support, honesty, fairness and informed decision-making. A 2017 technical document agreed by EU authorities gives guidance on “free from” and “hypoallergenic” claims. But many of the most persuasive words remain loosely policed:
- “Clean” — no regulatory meaning anywhere we know of.
- “Natural” — ISO 16128 offers a way to calculate natural origin indices, but it is a voluntary guideline and does not set a threshold for using the word.
- “Dermatologist tested” — confirms involvement, not a favourable outcome.
- “Non-comedogenic” — often based on older rabbit ear or small human back tests that do not reliably predict facial results.
- “Free from parabens” — discouraged by EU guidance when it denigrates a legally permitted ingredient.
A five-minute routine for any label
Read the first five ingredients to learn what the product mostly is. Find the preservative to locate the 1% line. Check where the advertised active sits. Scan for fragrance and named allergens. Then look at the pack for light and air protection. That is the whole method; the rest is practice.
Once you can read a single label, the next question is how labels combine on your shelf. Continue to What Plays Well Together.