The INCI list is where brands either earn your trust or quietly lose it.
INCI — International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients — is the standardised list of ingredients on every skincare product, in descending order by concentration. The first five ingredients make up the bulk of the formula. Everything after 1% can appear in any order the brand chooses.
A few things worth knowing:
“Fragrance” or “Parfum” is a catch-all term that can hide hundreds of undisclosed synthetic chemicals, including known allergens and hormone disruptors.
The shorter the list, the higher each ingredient’s concentration tends to be. Twelve ingredients done well beats forty ingredients done cheaply.
“Natural” means nothing legally. COSMOS or ECOCERT certification does.
Water is often the first ingredient in conventional skincare — because it’s cheap. In concentrated, water-free formulas, every ingredient is doing real work.
You don’t need a chemistry degree to make better choices. You just need to know what to look for.