How to read the back of a skincare pack
The ingredient list is the most honest part of any skincare product, because the format is set by law and the marketing department does not get a say in it.
The names are standardised, on purpose
Every ingredient appears under its INCI name — a single international naming system, so the same thing is called the same thing on every pack in every country. It is why water is always Aqua and olive oil is always Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil. A brand cannot use a supplier’s trade name or a name it invented for the marketing.
The effect is that two products claiming completely different things can be compared directly, which is not an accident.
The order means something — down to a point
Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight. Whatever there is most of comes first, which is why water heads the list on most creams and an oil heads it on a balm.
Anything present at 1% or less may be listed in any order, as long as it comes after everything above 1%. So the back half of a long ingredient list is not ranked at all.
This is how a product can be sold on an ingredient that is barely in it. If the hero ingredient sits among the last third of the list, it is at or under 1% — and where exactly it appears in that group tells you nothing.
None of that makes a low percentage wrong. Plenty of actives work at a fraction of a percent, and some would irritate at more. It only means the position of a name in the list is not evidence of how much is there, and anyone implying otherwise is guessing.
Fragrance is a single word covering many
A whole fragrance blend can be declared as Parfum rather than broken into its parts. There is one check on it: certain fragrance allergens have to be named individually once they are present above set thresholds, even though the rest of the blend stays behind that single word. So if you react to fragrance, the named allergens near the end of a list are worth more of your attention than the word Parfum itself.
Colours are numbers
Colourants appear as Colour Index numbers rather than names. Where one product is sold in several shades, the colourants for the whole range may be listed together after “may contain” or a +/− symbol — meaning some of those are in the tube you are holding and some are not.
What this changes when you are shopping
- Read the first five or six ingredients. That is most of what is in the bottle.
- Find the ingredient the product is named after. If it is in the last third, it is at or below 1%.
- If you react to fragrance, look for named allergens, not just the word Parfum.
- A long list is not a bad list and a short one is not a pure one. The length tells you about the formulation style, not the quality.
The labelling requirements described here are those that apply to cosmetics sold in the UK. We have summarised them rather than quoted them; if you are formulating rather than shopping, go to the regulation itself.
We are a shop, not a clinic. Nothing here is medical advice — if your skin needs looking at, please see a GP, pharmacist or dermatologist.