Make-up – ingredient lists and INCI analysis

Make-up includes foundations and BB creams, concealers, powders, blushes, bronzers and highlighters, primers and setting sprays, mascaras, eyeshadows and eyeliners, brow make-up and nail polish. Lipsticks are grouped with lip care in this database. What unites these products is that colour, coverage or finish is their main purpose. Ingredient lists can therefore be long and include several colourants.

Typical ingredients include pigments such as TITANIUM DIOXIDE (CI 77891) and IRON OXIDES (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), fillers like MICA, TALC or SILICA, film formers and silicones such as DIMETHICONE or TRIMETHYLSILOXYSILICATE, and volatile carriers like ISODODECANE. Mascaras often combine waxes with polymers such as ACRYLATES COPOLYMER. Together they shape texture, wear and finish.

In decorative cosmetics sold in several shades, the EU allows all colourants used across the range to be listed after a ‘may contain’ or +/- mark. Colourants must appear in Annex IV of the Cosmetics Regulation, and some are permitted only for certain uses, for example not near the eyes. Nanomaterials, sometimes used as pigments, are marked [nano].