INCI

INCI stands for International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients. It is the naming system a cosmetic label uses so that the same substance reads the same way in every market: water is Aqua, shea butter is Butyrospermum Parkii Butter, whatever language the rest of the label is in.

One name per substance, and the name is fixed. You do not translate it and you do not shorten it.

The rule that shapes a declaration

Ingredients are listed in descending order of quantity, with two conventions that trip people up:

• Below 1 %, ingredients may be listed in any order, after everything above 1 %.
• Colorants go last, usually grouped, by their CI numbers.

Some ingredients also carry rules of their own. Allergens from fragrance have to be named above a threshold, and a few substances are restricted or forbidden outright depending on the market.

Because the order comes from the quantities, the declaration is a consequence of the formula. Change a percentage and the list can reorder itself.

Why it is composed rather than typed

Typing the list by hand means retyping it every time the formula moves, and a reordering that nobody noticed is exactly the kind of error an inspection finds. The safer arrangement is to hold the INCI name on the ingredient once, and let the declaration be composed from the formula.

That is how BatchDash does it: each ingredient carries its INCI name in its compliance fields, and the declaration comes out of the formula in descending order. You review it before it reaches a label, because a machine ordering percentages does not know your market’s exceptions.

Where it goes next

The composed list flows into the label template, which fills the rest from the batch: the lot code, the dates, the quantity. In the EU it also sits alongside the manufacturing records that make up a product information file. See the batch record.

The pitch version is on the page for cosmetics makers.