How to read an ingredient list in two minutes
We sell some of what is named here
Routinae sells some of the products written about here, so read this the way you would read any shop’s opinion of its own shelves. Where we think a cheaper product does the same job we say so, and where the evidence is thin we say that too. Our buying standard is published so you can check the argument against it.
An ingredient list is not a formula and it will never tell you whether a product is good. What it does tell you is whether the front of the bottle is honest, and that is worth two minutes.
1. Find the hero ingredient and see where it sits
Ingredients are listed in descending order down to one per cent, after which the order means nothing. So if a product is named after an ingredient sitting eighth or ninth, the name is a flavour rather than a formula. That is not automatically a problem — it is only a problem if you bought it for that ingredient.
2. Check whether fragrance is declared
Look for parfum, fragrance, or any of the named allergens like linalool and limonene. Essential oils count too, whatever the marketing says about them being natural. If your skin has been reacting to things and you cannot work out what, this is the single most useful line on the label.
3. Count the length, roughly
A short list is not better than a long one. But a short list is easier to debug. If something goes wrong with a twelve-ingredient cream you have twelve suspects; with a fifty-ingredient one you have fifty and no realistic way to narrow them.
4. Ignore the middle
The stretch below one per cent — extracts, ferments, botanicals, peptide blends — is where brands put the story. Some of it does something. Most of it is present in quantities too small to matter, and it is listed in whatever order the formulator felt like. Do not spend your two minutes there.
What a list cannot tell you
Concentration above one per cent. pH. Whether the actives are stable in that packaging. Whether the sunscreen actually measures its claimed SPF. Those need testing, not reading — which is why we ask suppliers for test reports rather than admiring the label.
Every product here lists its full INCI on the product page. If you want the standard we hold them to first, it is on How we choose.