How to read skincare ingredients lists – this is a question we get asked all the time. We think that it’s not only important to understand what to look for but also develop an understanding of ingredients to avoid in skincare.
The burning question that everyone has but no one can find an answer to how to read an ingredients list. Now, we’ve all been there we go to the store we look at a product it seems interesting we pick it up and turn it around and the first thing ingredients are just mumbo jumbo all these words that we can’t understand.
The first one sounds like Harry Potter spell the second one sounds like the name of your great aunt wants to remove you from her will the third one is the disease you’ve convinced yourself you’re going to die from after doing a quick google search of how to get rid of your cough.
You don’t/can’t know everything!
So, when it comes to reading the ingredient list, you have to understand that you do not and cannot know everything about specific ingredients. There are thousands of ingredients out there with so much research attached to them which is then interpreted differently, leading to tonnes and tonnes of information. Most of which you don’t even need to know about!
The best way to eliminate that unnecessary information and understand what ingredients to avoid in skincare is to find resources that you can trust. Like our Dr Skincare blog.
Everyone has their favourite resources but I’m going to talk about my two favourite ones the first one being Paula’s Choice ingredient dictionary. This is the website that I find myself going back to over and repeatedly anytime that I don’t know what an ingredient is. She supplies information about the ingredient, whether it’s good or bad for the skin, how irritating it’s going to be and most importantly it then cites multiple sources showing evidence of where she got this information from. I think this is so important because there are a lot of dermatologists who make claims about ingredients yet cannot site a single study that backs up a claim. So, I highly recommend checking her out! I also love NC decoder, another website which is like Paula’s Choice but provides an alternative opinion or viewpoint on a certain ingredient. Remember that you always must diversify your information streams when researching anything.
4 Top tricks for understanding what ingredients to avoid in skincare:
Firstly, always look at the first six ingredients that are listed from the highest concentration to the lowest. This gives you a good general idea of what is most prevalent in the product. This is helpful as finding a product that has amazing ingredients within the first 6 listed, indicates a high-quality product that you’re going to want to use on your skin! The fewer ingredients the better – one I recommend is the
