WeStore Headless

Tag: cosmetic ingredients

  • What “Clean Beauty” Actually Means — and What It Doesn’t

    What “Clean Beauty” Actually Means — and What It Doesn’t

    “Clean” is not a regulated term in cosmetics. No agency defines it, no standard governs it, and no test qualifies a product for it. In practice each retailer publishes its own exclusion list, and those lists disagree with each other.

    What it usually signals

    Most clean ranges exclude a familiar set: certain parabens, formaldehyde releasers, some sulphates, synthetic fragrance, and a handful of others. If you react to something on that list, the label is a useful shortcut for you specifically.

    Natural is not a safety rating

    Poison ivy is natural. Several of the most common contact allergens in cosmetics are essential oils. Conversely, many synthetic ingredients exist precisely because they are more stable, better tolerated, and less allergenic than the botanical alternative they replaced.

    Preservatives earn their place

    Any product containing water can grow bacteria and mould. Preservative-free is not a virtue in a jar you keep in a warm bathroom for six months; it is a risk. Well-preserved products are safer products.

    Read the list, not the badge

    If you have a specific ingredient to avoid — an allergen, a sensitiser, something your dermatologist flagged — look for that ingredient by name. That is a real criterion. “Clean” is a category someone else defined, and they may not have defined it the way you would.

  • How to Read a Cosmetics Ingredient List Without a Chemistry Degree

    How to Read a Cosmetics Ingredient List Without a Chemistry Degree

    The ingredient list on the back of a jar is written in INCI — the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients — a standardised naming system used worldwide. It looks impenetrable, but it follows a few rules that make it far more useful than the marketing copy on the front.

    Order tells you concentration

    Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight, down to one percent. After that threshold, the manufacturer can list them in any order. So if the ingredient you are paying for appears after the preservatives and fragrance, you are looking at a very small amount of it.

    The first five do most of the work

    They typically make up the large majority of the formula. Water, a humectant such as glycerin, an emollient, an emulsifier, and a thickener — that is a moisturiser. The interesting actives usually sit lower down.

    Latin names are plants

    Botanical ingredients carry their botanical binomial, often with the common name in brackets. Butyrospermum parkii is shea butter. Simmondsia chinensis is jojoba. It looks clinical, but it is simply the standard.

    What the list cannot tell you

    It will not tell you the exact percentage of an active, the pH of the formula, or how the ingredients behave together — all of which matter. A well-formulated product with a modest concentration frequently outperforms a poorly buffered one with an impressive number on the label.

    Read the list to rule things out — a known irritant, an allergen you react to — rather than to rank products against each other.