How do you find the percentage of an ingredient?Updated a year ago
Step 1: Know what you’re looking for
It’s important to know the internationally-recognized chemical name of the “hero” ingredient. For example, with vitamin C, the main format is ascorbic acid. INCI Decoder is a great resource for looking up INCI names (even if their listed ingredients for our products are off).
Sometimes, brands will use significantly less potent derivatives of vitamin C, like sodium ascorbyl phosphate or ascorbyl glucoside. We discuss why those derivatives are largely useless in our guide to finding a vitamin C serum that works.
Step 2: Find the ingredient list
Since most of us are shopping online these days, we use computer shortcuts to find the specific term on the page, instead of having to scan the entire ingredient list.
So first, use “Command+F” or “Ctrl+F” to search for the ingredient list. All too often, brands hide it in a subsection, so you may have to click around a few times.
If the brand doesn’t list the ingredients anywhere on its main website, you can look the product up on third-party retailers like Sephora or Ulta.
Step 3: Find your active
Then, once you’ve uncovered the ingredient list, use the same keyboard shortcut to find the active ingredient you’re looking for.
With vitamin C, we like to search for the first three letters: “asc”. This immediately reveals ascorbic acid as well as its derivatives. With hyaluronic acid, we search for “hya” so we can also identify sodium hyaluronate, which is the less-effective sodium salt of hyaluronic acid.
If the ingredient is listed within the first three or four ingredients, you’re looking at what could potentially be a decent formula!
That said, there are a few other factors to consider, like the stability of the packaging and the pH, but at least you know you’re off to a good start.
Step 4: Check the neighbors
Since we want to use an ingredient like vitamin C at 10%, the next step is to look at which ingredients show up before ascorbic acid.
Do you see phenoxyethanol, xantham gum, fragrance, or essential oil listed before it? If so, it’s definitely below the 1% line, and not worthy of your time and money.
Note: Sometimes it’s easier to flip steps 3 and 4. In many cases, we’ll first search for phenoxyethanol, and then check to see which “hero” ingredients are used after it. This allows us to quickly check all of the ingredients before the 1% line.
And now, here are some examples:
Ingredient list that shows less than 1% ascorbic acid
10% ascorbic acid as claimed in the marketing
