Journal · Clinical reading · 7 min
Reading an ingredient list like a chemist.
The order is not random. Everything above the 1% line is meaningful. Everything below is dosed for allergen labelling, not efficacy.
The Biomedical Emporium® formulation desk
21 January 2026
INCI lists are ordered by weight in descending order, until the 1% line. Below that line, the order shifts to alphabetical for allergen disclosure. In practice, the first six or seven ingredients are the formula. Everything else is either preservation, chelation, or scent-cover chemistry.
Read the first six for structure. Water, the primary surfactant or emollient, the humectant, the emulsifier, the barrier lipid, the primary active. If the primary active is not in the first six, the formula is a colour and a claim, not a treatment.
The second thing to read is where the actives sit relative to phenoxyethanol. Phenoxyethanol is capped at 1% in most jurisdictions. Anything below it in the list is at a lower concentration than 1%.
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