How to Read an Ingredient List
What INCI tells you, and where the information stops.
Last reviewed by the Hairavie editorial team on September 1, 2026.
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What INCI is
INCI is a standardised naming system so the same ingredient carries the same name across brands and countries. It's why "Cocos Nucifera Oil" appears instead of a marketing name.
The ordering principle
Ingredients are generally listed in descending order of concentration, which is why what appears near the top usually tells you the most about a formula's character.
Below a small threshold, remaining ingredients may be listed in any order, and fragrance and colourants have their own conventions. So the top of a list is informative and the tail is much less so.
What a list cannot tell you
- Exact percentages of anything
- Which grade, molecular weight or derivative was used
- How the formula was processed or emulsified
- How the ingredients behave together in the finished product
- How it will feel on your hair
This is why Hairavie lowers a product's confidence when formula data is incomplete instead of guessing. An unknown is never scored as a zero.
How to read one usefully
- Look at the first five or six ingredients to gauge what kind of product this really is.
- Notice whether conditioning agents, oils or film formers appear high or low.
- Treat a beloved ingredient in the last third of a long list as a minor player.
- Compare lists between two products you've actually used — your own reactions are the most informative dataset you have.
How Hairavie knows this
Hairavie cites peer-reviewed research, scientific reviews, reference textbooks, dermatology organisations and government health resources. Beauty blogs are never used as scientific authority.
- Regulatory guidanceCosmetics labeling guide — ingredient declaration. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. View source
- Scientific reviewGavazzoni Dias, M. F. R. (2015). Hair cosmetics: an overview. International Journal of Trichology
- Reference textbookRobbins, C. R. (2012). Chemical and Physical Behavior of Human Hair (5th ed.). Springer
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