How to read an INCI list: the first five ingredients, and everything after

The front sells. The back declares.

Every cosmetic sold in the EU or the UK carries a list of ingredients written in INCI — the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients. It is required by Article 19 of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, it uses standardised names rather than marketing ones, and unlike the front of the pack it has a legal obligation to be accurate.

It also looks impenetrable, which is a shame, because it is governed by about four conventions. Learn those and most of a label opens up. This is the companion to how to read a supplement label, for the things you put on your skin rather than in your mouth.

1. Descending order, until it stops

Ingredients are listed in descending order of weight at the time they were added. That is the rule people know. The part they usually do not know is where it stops applying: below one per cent, ingredients may be listed in any order.

So a list is really two lists joined without a seam. Above the 1% line, position is information. Below it, position is whatever the manufacturer chose — and putting the most impressive-sounding ingredient first among the sub-1% group is free.

Finding the line

Nothing marks it, but the formula tells you. Certain ingredients are almost always used at well under one per cent, and the first of them is roughly where the line falls:

• Preservatives — phenoxyethanol, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, benzoic acid
• Chelators — sodium phytate, disodium EDTA
• pH adjusters — citric acid, sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide
• Gums and thickeners at typical use levels — xanthan gum
• Antioxidants — tocopherol

Find the first of those, and everything after it is in the free-order zone. If the peptide or the botanical extract the product is named after appears below that point, it is present at under one per cent — which is not automatically wrong, since many actives are used at fractions of a per cent by design, but it is a different claim from what the front of the pack implies.

2. Colourants are declared differently

Colourants are identified by a Colour Index number rather than a chemical name, and by convention they are listed at the end, in any order, regardless of how much is present. CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499 are the red, yellow and black iron oxides. CI 77891 is titanium dioxide. CI 77007 is ultramarine.

This is why position tells you the function. Titanium dioxide near the top of a sunscreen is a UV filter; CI 77891 at the bottom of a cream is a white pigment. Same substance, different job, and the notation is what separates them.

Products sold in several shades may list the colourants for the whole range inside square brackets, with a note that not all shades contain all of them.

3. Parfum, and the allergens that changed on 31 July 2026

A fragrance is usually a composition of dozens of materials, and the law allows it to be declared with one word: Parfum, or Aroma for flavours. That would hide a great deal, so there is a carve-out. Substances known to cause contact allergy have to be named individually, no matter that they arrived inside the fragrance.

For years that carve-out covered 26 substances — the familiar tail of linalool, limonene, geraniol, citronellol, coumarin that appears after Parfum on so many labels.

Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1545 raised that list to 82. Fifty-six substances were added to Annex III, and the first deadline has now passed: since 31 July 2026, cosmetics newly placed on the EU market must declare the full list. Products already on the market before that date may be sold until 31 July 2028, so for the next two years you will see both generations of label side by side.

The thresholds are unchanged: an allergen must be named when it exceeds 0.001% in a leave-on product — a cream, a serum, a sunscreen — and 0.01% in a rinse-off product, a cleanser or shampoo. Note how small those are. A leave-on threshold of 0.001% is ten parts per million.

Two things follow. First, a longer allergen tail on a 2026 label does not mean a more allergenic product — it may be the same formula, declared under the new rules. Second, and more useful: this applies to naturally occurring allergens too. Linalool and geraniol in an essential oil are the same molecules as linalool and geraniol in a synthetic fragrance, and they are declared identically. “Fragranced with natural essential oils” is a sourcing statement, not an allergy statement.

If you react to fragrance, the reliable label is the one whose ingredient list contains neither Parfum nor an allergen tail at all.

4. Square brackets that are not colourants

One more piece of notation is required. An ingredient present as a nanomaterial is followed by the word [nano] — so Titanium Dioxide [nano] is a different declaration from Titanium Dioxide. It tells you the particle size class, which for a mineral sunscreen is directly connected to how visible the film is on skin, as our article on mineral and organic filters sets out.

5. Asterisks, daggers and circled numbers

These are not part of INCI and not required by the Cosmetics Regulation. They are the manufacturer's own key, and the key has to be printed somewhere on the pack. Usually an asterisk means the ingredient came from organic farming, and a second symbol marks something like “from natural essential oils”.

Because they are voluntary, they mean exactly what the key says and nothing more. Organic-farming claims that go further — a stated percentage of natural origin, or a certification like COSMOS — come from a private certification scheme, not from EU cosmetic law, and the certifying body should be named next to the claim.

What an INCI list cannot tell you

Three things, and it is worth being clear about them.

It does not give concentrations. Except for the 1% line and the allergen thresholds, no quantity is declared. A product may state a percentage voluntarily; most do not.

It does not distinguish grades. Two products declaring the same extract may be using preparations that differ substantially in how they were made and what they contain.

It does not tell you whether the formula works. Presence is not performance. That is a question for the evidence behind the claim, and under Article 20 of the regulation plus Regulation (EU) No 655/2013, a claim has to be supported and has to stay on the appearance and condition of the skin — never on treating or curing anything.

The order to read it in

1. Read the first five ingredients. That is most of the product by weight, and it tells you what kind of formula it is — water-based, oil-based, or a suspension.
2. Find the first preservative or chelator. Everything after it is under one per cent.
3. Locate the ingredient the product is named after. Above the line or below it?
4. Read the tail. Colour Index numbers, allergens, nano tags — the notation tells you what each one is doing.
5. Check the key for any symbols, and check who certified anything the pack calls certified.

Five steps, about a minute, and it works on any cosmetic. Ours included — every product page under Face Care carries the complete INCI list in order, with nothing summarised and nothing left out.

References: Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 on cosmetic products, Articles 19 and 20 and Annex III; Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1545 amending Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 as regards labelling of fragrance allergens; Commission Regulation (EU) No 655/2013 on common criteria for claims.