Where a cap signals purpose
The actives, entry by entry
Grades that run the full width of the site's scale, and the most tangled relationship with the law of any class here. A substantial share of these entries carry an EU cap, and unusually the capped ones are exactly what a reader might buy a mask for. Read as a group, the entries show a class where a restriction and a purpose tend to arrive together.
- Entries in this class
- 16of 329
- Masks printing one
- 12155% of 219
- Reached by the Regulation
- 77 capped
- Typical place on a label
- 46%of the way down
Actives are the entries a formula is assembled in order to deliver, rather than the ones holding it together or keeping it fresh.
That is the job this class does in a formula, which is not the same as what it does to skin. The second question is answered entry by entry, against a source we read - the grading rubric sets out how.
The short read
Retinol, the arbutins and kojic acid are all capped in the EU, and all of them are things a reader might choose a mask for. A cap is a sign that a substance does enough, at a high enough dose, for a regulator to have named a ceiling - which is a different statement from a warning.
The name of the class tells a reader nothing about which entry they are looking at. Grades here reach from the calmest level on the site to a substance banned from EU cosmetics outright, so the class is no guide at all to the entry.
Most appearances of this class fall below the point on a label where descending order stops carrying information. That is worth sitting with, given these are the ingredients a mask is usually sold on: the pack does not say how much is in it, and position is the only clue the label offers.
All 16 active entries
Widest reach first. The grade and the EU status are separate columns because they are separate questions: a capped Annex V preservative can be the calmest thing on a label, and an unrestricted plant extract can be the entry most worth reading. Every one of these entries has its own page, with the sources behind it.
- Well tolerated
- No meaningful concern for most people; irritation is possible but rare.
- Depends on you
- Genuinely relevant for some people, or depends on dose and pH.
- Worth knowing
- EU-restricted, a common contact allergen, or subject to live debate.
- Avoid
- Banned in EU cosmetics or credibly linked to serious harm.
| Entry | EU status | Masks | Sources | Place on a label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Well tolerated: Allantoin | No specific restriction | 84 | 1 | 45% downusually below ≈1% |
| Well tolerated: NiacinamideVitamin B3 | No specific restriction | 46 | 3 | 17% down |
| Well tolerated: Adenosine | No specific restriction | 28 | 2 | 59% downusually below ≈1% |
| Well tolerated: BisabololBisabolol | No specific restriction | 8 | 2 | 63% downusually below ≈1% |
| Well tolerated: Zinc PCA | No specific restriction | 8 | 2 | 49% downusually below ≈1% |
| Well tolerated: Caffeine | No specific restriction | 7 | 3 | 55% down |
| Worth knowing: RetinolRetinol | Concentration-restricted | 6 | 3 | 76% downusually below ≈1% |
| Well tolerated: Zinc Gluconate | Concentration-restricted | 5 | 1 | 45% downusually below ≈1% |
| Worth knowing: ArbutinBeta-arbutin | Concentration-restricted | 3 | 2 | 94% downusually below ≈1% |
| Worth knowing: Retinyl PalmitateVitamin A palmitate | Concentration-restricted | 3 | 2 | 65% downusually below ≈1% |
| Worth knowing: Kojic Acid | Concentration-restricted | 2 | 2 | 87% downusually below ≈1% |
| Worth knowing: Alpha-Arbutin | Concentration-restricted | 1 | 1 | 27% down |
| Well tolerated: Potassium Methoxysalicylate4MSK | No specific restriction | 1 | 0 | 10% down |
| Well tolerated: Tranexamic Acid | No specific restriction | 1 | 1 | 24% down |
| Avoid: Hydroquinone | Banned in EU cosmetics | none | 3 | — |
| Depends on you: SulfurSulfur | No specific restriction | none | 0 | — |
2 of these entries are in no mask in this catalogue. They are documented for reference - EU-restricted substances kept so a reader knows what should not be on a label, and ingredients that turn up in skincare but not in these masks. The EU watchlist collects the restricted ones.
Where this class sits on a pack
An ingredient list is not in a random order. Article 19(1)(g) of Regulation (EC) 1223/2009 requires it to run “in descending order of weight of the ingredients at the time they are added”, and then allows everything under 1% to be listed “in any order” after the rest. So the top of a list is a statement about quantity and the bottom of it is not - which is the ≈1% line the Panel draws on every product page.
Counted across every appearance of this class in the catalogue, and measured as a fraction of each list’s own length so a 4-entry pack and an 81-entry pack count equally, the active entries sit a median 46% of the way down a list, and 70% of those appearances fall below the ≈1% line. Where that share is high, position has stopped telling a reader anything about how much is in the pack.
Every class in the encyclopaedia, side by side
The encyclopaedia sorts its entries into 24 classes and 10 have a page: a class needs 15 entries to carry one, below which a landing page is a re-headed filter view. “Other” is excluded whatever its size, because a bucket cannot be a landing page. Every figure here is counted across all 24, so any comparison in the copy above is scoped against a set you can see rather than against the ones that happened to ship.
| Class | Entries | Masks | Grades | EU-reached | Place on a label |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Humectant | 42 | 21598% | 41graded well tolerated1graded depends on you | 0 | 33% |
| Emollient | 41 | 12959% | 40graded well tolerated1graded depends on you | 1 | 36% |
| Preservative | 28 | 17881% | 14graded well tolerated2graded depends on you8graded worth knowing4graded avoid | 234 banned | 78% |
| Botanical | 25 | 12457% | 17graded well tolerated7graded depends on you1graded worth knowing | 0 | 50% |
| Emulsifier | 22 | 15671% | 22graded well tolerated | 0 | 51% |
| Thickener | 22 | 19790% | 22graded well tolerated | 1 | 55% |
| Essential oil | 21 | 2913% | 18graded depends on you3graded worth knowing | 8 | 79% |
| Fragrance | 19 | 13260% | 11graded depends on you6graded worth knowing2graded avoid | 192 banned | 88% |
| Antioxidant | 17 | 16073% | 15graded well tolerated2graded depends on you | 0 | 61% |
| Active | 16 | 12155% | 9graded well tolerated1graded depends on you5graded worth knowing1graded avoid | 71 banned | 46% |
| Exfoliantno page | 9 | 3616% | 3graded well tolerated6graded depends on you | 3 | 53% |
| pH adjusterno page | 9 | 14868% | 9graded well tolerated | 3 | 72% |
| Othernever a page | 9 | 7333% | 8graded well tolerated1graded avoid | 21 banned | 72% |
| Clay / mineralno page | 8 | 4621% | 7graded well tolerated1graded worth knowing | 7 | 17% |
| Fermentno page | 7 | 2612% | 7graded well tolerated | 0 | 38% |
| Film formerno page | 7 | 5927% | 7graded well tolerated | 0 | 64% |
| Solventno page | 6 | 21498% | 3graded well tolerated3graded depends on you | 0 | 6% |
| Colourantno page | 5 | 3817% | 4graded well tolerated1graded depends on you | 3 | 96% |
| Peptide / proteinno page | 5 | 3014% | 5graded well tolerated | 0 | 67% |
| Chelatorno page | 4 | 9845% | 4graded well tolerated | 0 | 77% |
| Siliconeno page | 4 | 157% | 3graded well tolerated1graded worth knowing | 1 | 25% |
| Surfactantno page | 2 | 52% | 2graded depends on you | 0 | 26% |
| UV filterno page | 1 | 42% | 1graded well tolerated | 1 | 35% |
| Occlusiveno page | 0 | 00% | — | 0 | — |
An entry has exactly one class, so the entries column sums to 329. The masks column does not sum to 219 and is not meant to - a single list prints entries from a great many classes at once.
Read another class
The other classes with a page
The class a mask mostly is
The humectants, entry by entry
42 entries · on 215 masks
Where the label names a plant
The emollients, entry by entry
41 entries · on 129 masks
Where a list means permission
The preservatives, entry by entry
28 entries · on 178 masks
Unrestricted, and not always calm
The botanicals, entry by entry
25 entries · on 124 masks
The invisible class
The emulsifiers, entry by entry
22 entries · on 156 masks
Texture, and nobody reads it
The thickeners, entry by entry
22 entries · on 197 masks
Small class, long list of cautions
The essential oils, entry by entry
21 entries · on 29 masks
The class the law knows entirely
The fragrance materials, entry by entry
19 entries · on 132 masks
Mostly working for the formula
The antioxidants, entry by entry
17 entries · on 160 masks
Every entry in this class has a page of its own in the ingredient encyclopaedia, where you can search any name off the back of a pack. To see the masks that print these names, and narrow them by price, format or what you want kept out, filter the full catalogue.
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