Product Ingredient Listing

From my experience, it is helpful to learn to identify whether the cosmetic preparation contains irritants or incompatible ingredient content for your skin type. It will also help u identify if active ingredients(stated on product labels) are present in sufficient amounts to make the product effective.

In a nutshell, learning to read the listing can help you decide if this particular product is worth purchasing or its merely a run for your money.

Moving along..

A typical ingredient list has all ingredients, be it active or inactive, all listed together without any order of distinction.

1. Looking at your product label, you should be to figure out if any active ingredients are in the list.

2. Once you identify which are the active ingredients in the list, you need to find out if they are present in sufficient amounts. Normally the concentration are not stated on the label.

3. We will then look into the listing, the listing normally begins with the ingredient present in the largest concentration (typically water(aqua), oils(paraffin/mineral oils)) and moves downward, often ending with trace contents. In most cases, an active ingredient are not in the first or second spot. And if it is near the end of a long list, it is most likely present in a very small amount.

As much as we would think the active ingredients are supposedly to be present in larger concentrations in the skincare preparation, admittedly, some active ingredients, such as estrogens, work in small amounts.

But many require a reasonably high concentration to be effective. For example, L-ascorbic acid has to be at least at 10%, and alpha lipoic acid at least at 1%. The position of the ingredient on the list can give you at least a rough idea if its concentration is sufficient.

I hope these 3 basic steps will make skincare shopping more economical and it will better you to avoid buying products that contained irritants for your skin.

As for learning what ingredients are incompatible for your skin type, I would suggest you do your own personal research online as there are many school of thoughts when it comes to what skincare ingredients are incompatible. And it would also involve some trial and error with different products of different preparation.

The quest for beauty is never an easy task! Good Luck!