Journal · by topic
Face mask ingredients
What the entries on a mask's list are doing there, and which of them are worth a second look. Each piece works from the ingredient lists on this site and from the safety opinions written about the ingredients themselves.
5 pieces · 40 min in total · 15 sources cited
- 5,941ingredient entries read
7 min read
What is actually in a face mask
We read the back of every mask on this site, 215 of them, 5,941 printed ingredient entries. Most of a face mask is water, nine ingredients do most of the remaining work, and not one substance in the whole corpus is banned in the EU.
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- 45/215masks contain a volatile alcohol
8 min read
Alcohol in a face mask: position is the whole story
Two different things on a label are called alcohol, and only one of them dries your skin. Of our 215 masks, 45 contain the volatile kind, and where it sits in the list matters more than whether it is there at all.
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- 149/215masks carry no pregnancy flag
8 min read
What gets flagged for pregnancy, and what actually matters
149 of the 215 masks on this site carry nothing we flag for pregnancy. Of the 66 that do, exactly 1 ingredient in the whole corpus is one we grade as avoid. The rest is precaution, and most of it is plants.
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- 73% vs 28%of European and Korean lists here print Parfum
7 min read
Korean vs European face masks: what changes on the list
Both groups answer to the same EU law, so the differences are habits of formulation rather than rules. Across the 75 Korean and 127 European masks on this site, the habits are consistent and one of them dominates everything else: 73% of the European lists print Parfum against 28% of the Korean ones.
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- 8oils on these labels are established human allergens
10 min read
Essential oils in a face mask, and what air does to them
36 of our 215 masks carry an essential oil, and 19 different ones appear across the labels. The EU treats them as perfume, the safety literature treats most of them as allergens, and the part almost nobody mentions is that the oil in a jar you have opened twenty times is not the oil the safety opinion assessed.
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