Common questions about ingredients and formulas.
Can't find your answer here? Explore individual ingredient pages for detailed taxonomy data, or use the product search to investigate specific formulas.
How do I read an INCI ingredient list?
INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) lists appear on product packaging and list every ingredient in descending order of concentration. The first ingredient is present in the highest amount, and each subsequent ingredient is present in a lower or equal concentration. Ingredients at 1% or below may appear in any order. On glossary.beauty, every published formula preserves this ordering so you can see exactly what dominates a product's composition.
What does it mean when water is the first ingredient?
When Aqua (water) appears as the first ingredient in an INCI list, it means water is the ingredient present in the highest concentration. This is extremely common — the majority of skincare products, shampoos, and conditioners are water-based formulations. The ingredients that follow water are what differentiate one product from another. Use the glossary.beauty product search to filter by specific active ingredients and see where they rank in the formula.
Which skincare products contain the highest concentration of niacinamide?
On glossary.beauty, you can search for products that include niacinamide and sort by ingredient position. A lower position number means the ingredient appears earlier in the INCI list, which generally indicates a higher concentration. Visit the product search page, add niacinamide as an included ingredient, and sort by ingredient position to find formulas where niacinamide is most prominent.
How does glossary.beauty rank ingredients by concentration?
glossary.beauty preserves the INCI list ordering from the original product label. By regulation, manufacturers must list ingredients in descending order of concentration (above 1%). We do not estimate exact percentages — instead, we use the position in the list as a proxy for relative concentration. Position 1 is always the dominant ingredient. This approach is reliable because it is based on the manufacturer's own declared ordering.
What is the glossary.beauty ingredient taxonomy?
Our curated taxonomy maps every parsed ingredient name to a canonical INCI identifier. Each ingredient has a primary name, approved aliases (alternative label names used across brands and regions), functional classifications (e.g., humectant, emollient, preservative), and category memberships. The taxonomy is continuously maintained — when a new alias or variant spelling is encountered during formula parsing, it is reviewed and linked to the correct canonical entry.
How often is the formula database updated?
glossary.beauty continuously sources formula data from brand websites, regulatory databases, and verified retail listings. New products and reformulations are added as they are discovered and verified. Each formula version is tracked independently, so you can see when a product was reformulated and how its ingredient list changed over time.
Can I compare ingredients across different products?
Yes. The product search page lets you filter by included and excluded ingredients, compare formulas across regions, and sort by ingredient position. For example, you can find all moisturizers that contain hyaluronic acid but exclude parabens, or compare which sunscreens use zinc oxide as a top-three ingredient. Each product page also shows the full ranked ingredient list with links to individual ingredient detail pages.
What regions does glossary.beauty cover?
glossary.beauty currently covers three markets: the United States (US), Canada (CA), and the United Kingdom (UK). Many products have different formulations across regions — the same brand and product name may have a different INCI list in the US versus the UK. glossary.beauty tracks these regional variants separately so you can compare the actual composition in your market.