Ingredient List Reader

An ingredient list looks like a ranking, and for part of its length it is one. Past a certain point the regulation stops requiring any order at all, and nothing on the package marks where that happens. Paste a list below and this will estimate where the boundary falls, so you can tell which positions mean something and which mean nothing.

Paste the ingredient list

Copy it from the package or the brand’s own product page. Commas or new lines both work.

Which ingredient is the product sold on? (optional)

How solid is this? The grouping rule is law. The location of the line is an inference from how preservatives, chelating agents, gums and gelling agents, pH adjusters, antioxidants and fragrance are used, and no label discloses it. Treat the estimate as a bound, not a measurement, and treat anything below it as an amount nobody outside the company knows.

The rule this is built on

United States cosmetic labeling is set by 21 CFR 701.3. Ingredients must be declared in descending order of predominance, with an alternative that almost every brand uses: everything above 1% in order, then everything at or below 1% without respect to order of predominance, then color additives in any order.

So the first part of a list is a genuine ranking, and the rest is a set. An ingredient four from the end may be present in ten times the amount of one eight from the end, and the label is equally correct either way. How to read a skincare ingredient list quotes the regulation in full.

How the estimate works, and where it stops

Certain materials are used at low concentrations by necessity: preservatives, chelating agents, gums and gelling agents, pH adjusters, antioxidants and fragrance. When one of them appears, the ingredients after it are almost certainly below 1%. That is the whole method.

It is an inference about formulation, not a disclosure, and it can be wrong in both directions. A product using an unusual preservative this tool does not recognize will get no estimate. A formula that genuinely uses a gum above 1% will have its line placed too early. Nobody outside the company knows the real numbers, which is the actual point: the label is not required to state a single amount.

What to do with the answer

If the marketed ingredient sits above the line: the product contains a meaningful amount of it, though still an undisclosed one.
If it sits below: the label supports no claim about how much is there. It might be plenty. Nothing on the package says so.
If a brand states a percentage: that is information the regulation does not require, and it is worth something on its own.
If two products claim to be equivalent: most dupe claims cannot be settled from labels, with one category of exception.

What this tool is not

It does not judge whether an ingredient works, whether a product suits you, or whether anything here is safe for your skin. Evidence for individual ingredients is graded separately in the ingredients section, with the reasoning shown. Nothing entered here is sent anywhere: the parsing runs in your browser and nothing is stored.