How to Read a Cosmetic Ingredients List

With faux-organic beauty products taking over our shop shelves, learning how to spot a true organic beauty from a chemical imposter has never been more important.

The key is in cracking their ingredients list, a feat often easier said than done.

These lists can be difficult to decipher - what with the rolling microscopic text, the long chemical names and, of course, the Latin!

I'd go as far as to say that in most cases ingredients lists are intentionally off-putting.

After all, the last thing the ‘natural’ mega-brand manufacturers want is for you to actually know what's in their products…

At Pai we buck the trend and list all of our ingredients in single lines with plain English translations. 

Surprisingly, we're still the only cosmetics company to do this, but as a chronic sensitive skin sufferer I know how important it is to understand exactly what you’re putting on your skin.

With that in mind I’ve pulled together my top tips for navigating ingredient lists - follow these and you’ll be making fully informed buying decisions in no time!

1. Read from Top to Bottom

Ingredients are always listed in proportional order with highest quantities at the top of the list.

So if an ingredient you don’t like the sound of features somewhere in the top half, it’s probably best to leave that product on the shelf.

2. Understand your ingredients

The Cosmetics Safety Database is a useful tool for getting to know your ingredients.

It's an online directory of cosmetic ingredients that gives each a toxicity hazard score (0 being least harmful and 10 being most harmful).

It does have some flaws though, so be mindful of the following:

i. where there is 100% data gap (ie. no scientific data available) an ingredient is automatically given a hazard score of 0, regardless of its potential toxicity.

ii. concentration is not taken into account – an ingredient may well be harmful at 100% but harmless at 0.1%.

iii. where ingredients have the same name there is no distinction between the naturally derived and synthetically produced versions. These can be a world apart, particularly when it comes to skin irritancy.

3. Know your Organic Kitemarks

Not all organic standards are equal.

Look for the Soil Association or USDA kitemarks as these demand the cleanest ingredients – with 70% of their non-water ingredients having to be organically grown, harvested and extracted.

Standards such as ECOCERT allow companies to use as little as 10% organic ingredients in products that carry their ‘organic’ kitemark.

I’ll blog about this in more detail later in the week.

4. Seek out Organic Stars

A product claiming to be organic should have its organic ingredients clearly marked, usually with a star ‘*’.

If 70% of its non-water ingredients are organic then you’ll expect to see quite a few stars. If there are just a couple then you’ll know that its organic credentials are, at best, tenuous.

5. Know your irritants

Pai customers don’t just want to know that their products are organic, they want to ensure they are sensitive skin friendly too.

The following ingredients tend to be most irritating. This is by no means an exhaustive list and everyone’s skin is different, so it’s important to isolate your personal triggers:

i. Detergents – Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine

ii. Preservatives – Benzyl Alcohol, Phenoxyethanol and Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate.

iii. Fragrance – ‘Parfum’ the term can signify artificial fragrance which is a bad irritant. With natural essential oils – care must always be taken as in high dosages they can be irritating. Some, such as lemongrass, are irritating even at concentrations as low as 0.1%.