Decoding the Ingredients in Beauty Products

Clique aqui para ler este post em Português.

Of all the trends I’ve seen in the beauty world, the one that excites me the most is the trend for consumers to be better informed about products and ingredients.

I think it’s wonderful for us to want to know more about the ingredients in the formulas of the products we love. It’s also great to be able to discern what products don’t work well with our skin and why. Above all, the biggest benefit is to be able to see through the marketing and learn more about our skin.

There are so many wonderful resources that have useful information about ingredients in cosmetics—in fact, there are so many options it may be hard to know where to start! So, I’ve compiled a list of tools I turn to.

INCI What?

Before the list, a brief introduction to INCI, or International Nomenclature Of Cosmetic Ingredients. INCI is an international system for the designation of cosmetic ingredients which is recognized and adopted around the globe. There are specific rules that guide the definition of the “name” of each ingredient and an international committee composed of members from the FDA, the European Commission, and the Health Departments in Canada and Japan. All of this ensures that names of ingredients are used consistently across products, countries, and languages. 

 

 

Resources for ingredient identification & information

 

INCI Decoder

I can’t really put into words just how much I love this website! On INCI Decoder you can look up makeup or skincare products or specific ingredients. If you look up an ingredient—glycerin, for example—it will give you a few different options. “Quick Facts” provides a brief overview of that ingredient. “Geeky Details” is for when you really want to dig deep and learn more about why a particular ingredient does what it does. “Products,” unsurprisingly, is a list of products containing that ingredient. And my favorite, “Show Me Some Proof” is a list of articles that back up the site’s claims. Not all of these sections are available for all ingredients, but it’s still a fairly new website with a ton of potential. Isn’t it amazing?!

If you look up a product, such as Drunk Elephant’s B Hydra Intensive Hydration Gel, you’ll get a list of ingredients (with abbreviations describing each of their functions) followed by an extended list describing each ingredient.

If the product you’re looking for isn’t on there yet, you can add it! The site depends on the contributions of its users to grow.

What I love about this website is that it’s easy to navigate, and the visual hierarchy makes it very easy to understand. You can quickly glance whether an ingredient is a “goodie” as they list them, and also learn a lot mor if you’d like to.

 

COSDNA

COSDNA is another amazing option. The web design isn’t as modern as INCI Decoder, but it’s been around for a long time and, since it also relies on contributions from its readers, it has a lot more information. I was even able to find information about products from O Boticário, a very famous brand from back home.

Each product has its own page with a simple list of ingredients, each with a grade based on whether that ingredient is comedogenic or irritating to the skin. The website’s simplicity and use of color makes it very easy to identify problematic ingredients.

 

Think Dirty

Think Dirty is a wonderful app to use while out and about! It can scan products and give you a grade and ingredients list color-coded by each ingredient’s safety, like COSDNA. If you tap an ingredient, its box expands to reveal a lot more information about its health impacts, sources, warnings, and more. If you add products you already own to the “bathroom shelf” it will also give you an overall score on the chemical composition of the products you use on a daily basis.

 

 

I hope these resources are as useful to you as they are to me! It’s so important to know more about what we consume and apply on our skin, and any knowledge is good knowledge. What other resources do you use? Share yours in the comments!

 

Stay curious,

Nati