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A magazine about scent and what the label says

PARFUMÉRIA ZET

Cosmetics

How to read a cosmetics ingredient list (INCI)

The ingredient list on a cosmetics pack is not random. It follows fixed rules for order and naming – once you know them, you can read a cream or a shampoo in thirty seconds.

Words: PARFUMÉRIA ZET. Updated 12 October 2026.

A fragrance composition, which may contain dozens of ingredients, hides behind a single word on the pack.

Common names: INCI

Ingredients are listed on the pack by their common names, taken from a glossary maintained by the European Commission (Article 33 of the Cosmetics Regulation). In practice these are INCI names – which is why water is Aqua, glycerine is Glycerin and vitamin E is Tocopherol, whatever the language of the pack. You will find the same names in the CosIng database.

Order by weight

The list is headed by the word “ingredients” and the ingredients follow in descending order of weight at the time they are added to the product. Ingredients at concentrations below 1% may be listed in any order after those present in larger amounts.

What follows from this:

  • The first five to seven items usually make up most of the product. In a cream these tend to be water, oils, humectants and emulsifiers.
  • If an advertised ingredient comes right at the end of the list, it may be present at a low concentration – but not always. Some active ingredients work at low doses.
  • Colourants may be listed by their Colour Index number (e.g. CI 77891). Ingredients in the form of nanomaterials are followed by the word (nano).

Parfum and allergens

A fragrance composition, which may contain dozens of ingredients, hides behind a single word on the pack: Parfum (or Aroma). The exception is fragrance substances on the list of allergens in Annex III of the regulation. These must be named if their concentration exceeds:

  • 0.001% in products that stay on the skin (cream, body lotion, perfume),
  • 0.01% in products that are rinsed off (shampoo, shower gel, soap).

That is why Parfum is often followed by Linalool, Limonene, Citronellol, Geraniol. Regulation (EU) 2023/1545 extended the list – details and deadlines in the article Fragrance allergens.

Shelf life: a date or an open jar

If a product’s minimum durability is 30 months or less, the pack must give a “best used before” date. For a longer shelf life, it states how long the product is safe after opening – with the open-jar symbol and a number of months (for example 12M).

A quick routine

  1. Look at the first few items: that is the “body” of the product.
  2. Find the word Parfum. If you would rather avoid it, look for products without it.
  3. Check the named allergens that follow it. If you know which substance you react to, look it up in the Ingredient Decoder.
  4. Preservatives (e.g. Phenoxyethanol) usually sit in the middle or at the end of the list. Their presence is not a fault in itself – water-based products without preservation would spoil quickly.