Journal · by topic
Reading a face mask label
An ingredient list is a legal document written to a format, and the format is the part nobody explains. These pieces take the conventions one at a time: the order the entries are in, the point past which that order stops meaning anything, and the words a label is not allowed to print.
4 pieces · 36 min in total · 13 sources cited
- 41%of advertised ingredients sit below the line
8 min read
The ≈1% line: why the hero ingredient sits near the end
EU law orders an ingredient list by weight, but only down to 1%. Below that, a brand may print in any order it likes. On the masks we have read, 61% of a typical list sits in that free-for-all, and 41% of the ingredients advertised on the front of the box are down there with it.
Read
- 89%start with water, whatever the format
7 min read
Sheet, clay or hydrogel: what actually changes in the formula
We sorted 215 masks into 10 formats and read what the ingredient lists do differently. Water is still the first entry on 89% of them, so the format is mostly a delivery decision. But three of the 10 change the formula in ways you can see from the pack.
Read
- 17%of botanical entries give an English name too
12 min read
The words an ingredient list is not allowed to use
EU law does not let a pack write "vitamin C" in its ingredient list. It must use the name in the Commission's glossary, which for a plant is Latin. Only 7% of the 5,941 entries we have read bother to translate themselves, and on the 6 masks named after vitamin C the back of the box declares 4 different molecules.
Read
- 79of 215 masks pass a fragrance-free name test
9 min read
“Fragrance-free” has a test, and it is not the ingredient list
79 of our 215 masks pass the fragrance-free test we run over the printed list. The test a claim on the front of the box is supposed to meet is a different one: it asks what an ingredient is doing in the formula, not what it is called - which is a question no ingredient list can answer.
Read