Ingredients ·
How to read an INCI label in 60 seconds
The first five ingredients tell you almost everything. Here's how to decode them.
Every cosmetic in Europe lists its ingredients in descending order by weight. That single rule turns any label into an honest confession — if you know where to look.
The first five lines are the product. Everything after them is usually present in small percentages. A “rosemary shampoo” with rosemary in position fourteen contains a rumour of rosemary.
Find the 1% line. Ingredients under 1% may be listed in any order, and the line usually starts near the preservatives (look for phenoxyethanol or potassium sorbate). Anything after that point — including most “star ingredients” in mass-market products — is seasoning.
Latin means plant, English means lab. Rosmarinus officinalis leaf oil is rosemary from a still; fragrance/parfum is a sealed box the manufacturer doesn’t have to open. Neither is automatically evil — but only one tells you what’s inside.
Our own test: every Verdant label should make sense read aloud. If we can’t explain an ingredient to a customer at the atelier counter in one sentence, it doesn’t go in the pot.
Pull any bottle off your shelf and give it the sixty seconds. The label was legally required to tell you the truth all along — most brands just bet you’d never read it.
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Comments (2)
Amara D.
The 1% rule changed how I shop entirely. Half my shelf is expensive water, apparently.
Willem J.
Short version: if you can't find the plant in the first five lines, the leaf on the box is decoration. Noted.