INCI and CosIng Explained: How the EU Names Every Cosmetic Ingredient (2026 Guide)

Every cosmetic product sold in the European Union carries an ingredient list that looks roughly the same: a string of cryptic scientific names separated by commas, in tiny font on the back of the package. Those names are not arbitrary. They come from a precise, internationally agreed system called INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients), and the EU runs a public, regulator-maintained database called CosIng that catalogs every one of them.

If you have ever Googled something like “cosing sodium hyaluronate humectant skin conditioning” and landed on a sparse European Commission page that listed a function, a CAS number, and not much else, you have already used CosIng. This guide explains what that database actually is, how to read an entry, what the function codes mean, and how to use it to decode any cosmetic label in your bathroom.

What does INCI actually stand for?

INCI is short for International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients. It is a standardized system for naming cosmetic ingredients in a way that is consistent across every market in the world. The system is maintained by the Personal Care Products Council in the United States and adopted as the legal labeling standard by the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Japan, Brazil, and most of the rest of the cosmetic-regulating world.

Under INCI rules, every ingredient gets exactly one official name. Water becomes Aqua. Vitamin E becomes Tocopherol. Vitamin C is split into a handful of specific molecules with names like Ascorbic Acid, Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate, or Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate, each one a different chemical compound that the product team had to specifically choose. The naming is precise on purpose: “Vitamin C” tells you nothing useful, but “Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate” tells a chemist exactly what molecule is in the bottle.

INCI names appear on the ingredient list in descending order of concentration above 1%, and in any order below 1%. (We covered the ordering rules and the “1% line” in our reading-the-label like a chemist post.)

What is CosIng?

CosIng is the European Commission’s Cosmetic Ingredient Database. It is the EU’s official, public catalog of cosmetic ingredients. You can browse it directly at ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/cosing. It is maintained by the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), which is the same arm of the European Commission that enforces Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, the master EU cosmetic regulation.

CosIng currently holds entries for roughly 30,000 cosmetic ingredients. Each entry is a small dossier of regulatory facts about that single ingredient:

• The official INCI Name (what appears on labels)
• One or more chemical names (IUPAC name, common chemical name)
• The CAS number (Chemical Abstracts Service registry identifier, the international standard for uniquely identifying any chemical compound)
• The EC number (the European Community registry number, analogous to CAS but EU-specific)
• One or more declared cosmetic functions (humectant, skin conditioning, surfactant, etc.)
• Any regulatory restrictions under Annex II (banned), Annex III (restricted with conditions), Annex IV (permitted colourants), Annex V (permitted preservatives), or Annex VI (permitted UV filters)
• References to SCCS opinions (Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety) where the EU has reviewed the ingredient’s safety

CosIng is the regulator’s view of every ingredient. It is the source of truth that brands have to match when they label a product for the EU market.

Anatomy of a CosIng entry

The clearest way to understand CosIng is to walk through a real entry. Take Sodium Hyaluronate, the salt form of hyaluronic acid that appears in roughly half of all serums on the market. Its CosIng entry includes:

• INCI Name: Sodium Hyaluronate
• Chemical / IUPAC Name: Sodium hyaluronate (the sodium salt of hyaluronic acid, a glycosaminoglycan polymer)
• CAS No.: 9067-32-7
• EC No.: 618-313-9
• Function: Humectant, Skin Conditioning, Skin Conditioning - Miscellaneous
• Restrictions: None (not listed in any restrictive annex)

The function field is what most consumers find useful. It tells you why the ingredient is in the formula. Humectant means it pulls water from deeper skin layers and the surrounding air to the top layer, where it hydrates the stratum corneum. Skin Conditioning is a broad category meaning the ingredient improves the appearance and feel of skin generally.

For comparison, a CosIng entry for Niacinamide lists its function as Skin Conditioning. Cetyl Alcohol is Emollient, Emulsion Stabilising, Opacifying, Surfactant - Foam Boosting. Phenoxyethanol is Preservative. Titanium Dioxide is UV Filter, Colourant (and shows up in Annex VI under permitted UV filters with specific concentration limits).

If you have ever searched for “cosing niacinamide skin conditioning” or “cosing sodium hyaluronate humectant skin conditioning” on Google, those queries are pulling directly from this database structure. The page you landed on was almost certainly the EU’s own CosIng entry for that ingredient.

The function codes: a quick decoder

CosIng uses a standardized list of cosmetic functions. Here are the ones you will see most often on real labels, with what they actually mean:

• Humectant: attracts water into the skin or hair (sodium hyaluronate, glycerin, propylene glycol, urea)
• Skin Conditioning: broad category for ingredients that improve skin appearance or feel (covers a lot of plant extracts and active molecules)
• Emollient: softens skin and reduces water loss by sitting on the surface (esters, fatty alcohols, plant oils)
• Surfactant - Cleansing: lifts oil and dirt from skin in cleansers (sodium laureth sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine, decyl glucoside)
• Surfactant - Emulsifying: holds oil and water together in a stable formula (polysorbates, cetearyl alcohol)
• Preservative: prevents microbial growth in the product (phenoxyethanol, methylisothiazolinone, benzyl alcohol)
• Antioxidant: reduces oxidative damage to the product or skin (tocopherol, ascorbic acid, BHT)
• UV Filter: absorbs or reflects ultraviolet radiation (titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, avobenzone, tinosorb)
• Colourant: adds colour to the product (CI 77891 is titanium dioxide as colourant, CI 77491 is iron oxide red)
• Fragrance: adds scent (the actual fragrance compounds usually hide behind the single word “Parfum” with the 82 fragrance allergens listed separately above 0.001% leave-on / 0.01% rinse-off)
• Solvent: dissolves other ingredients (water, ethanol, propylene glycol)
• Opacifying: makes the product opaque or pearly
• Viscosity Controlling: thickens or thins the product
• Antimicrobial: kills or inhibits microbes (separate from Preservative; this is functional, not preservative)

A single ingredient often has multiple functions. Cetearyl Alcohol acts as an emollient, opacifying agent, and emulsion stabiliser depending on the formula it sits in. Glycerin is both a humectant and a solvent. The CosIng entry will list all of them.

How to look up an ingredient yourself

Reading a label and want to know what an ingredient does? You can use CosIng directly:

1. Open ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/cosing in your browser.
2. Search the INCI name (the spelling exactly as it appears on the label).
3. Open the result. You will see the function, CAS number, any restrictions, and any SCCS opinion references.

Pro tip: append ?q=Sodium+Hyaluronate style query strings to the URL to share specific lookups. If an ingredient appears with no function listed, that usually means it has been re-classified or replaced under the 2026 INCI Glossary update. Check the current INCI Glossary published by the Personal Care Products Council for the new name.

CosIng does not tell you whether an ingredient is “good” or “bad” for your skin. It is a regulatory database, not a recommendation engine. It tells you what the ingredient legally is, what it does in the formula, and whether the EU has placed any restrictions on its use. Interpreting that information into a personal decision is what tools like LuxSense are for.

When CosIng disagrees with marketing

The biggest practical value of CosIng is that it lets you cut through marketing language. A product labelled “Vitamin C Serum” could contain any one of at least ten different ingredients that all qualify as “Vitamin C”:

• Ascorbic Acid (the parent molecule, potent but unstable)
• Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate (stable, oil-soluble derivative)
• Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate (stable, water-soluble derivative)
• Ascorbyl Glucoside (stable, slow-converting derivative)
• 3-O-Ethyl Ascorbic Acid (ethylated form, very stable)
• Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate (oil-soluble, lipid-bilayer compatible)
• Ascorbyl Palmitate (fat-soluble, mild)
• Ascorbyl Tetraisopalmitate (stable, oil-phase)

Each one has its own CosIng entry, its own CAS number, its own stability profile, and its own clinical evidence. The product’s marketing copy says “Vitamin C.” Only the INCI list and the CosIng lookup tell you which one you are actually buying.

Same story for hyaluronic acid: Sodium Hyaluronate, Hyaluronic Acid, Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid, Sodium Hyaluronate Crosspolymer, and Sodium Acetylated Hyaluronate are all different molecules with different molecular weights and different effects on the skin. CosIng catalogs each one separately.

This is also where you spot the difference between, say, Niacinamide (a single, well-characterised molecule with strong evidence for oil regulation and barrier support) and “Niacinamide Complex” (which on the INCI list might be Niacinamide blended with a humectant and a peptide of much lower concentration). The CosIng entry tells you what Niacinamide is. The INCI list, read carefully, tells you how much of it is actually in the product.

What is changing in 2026

The 2026 EU regulatory calendar has three big updates that show up directly in CosIng:

1. July 30, 2026: The new INCI Glossary takes effect. This is the largest update to cosmetic ingredient nomenclature in seven years. Some ingredient names are changing, some are merging, some are being deprecated. Full coverage in our 2026 INCI Glossary Update post.

2. August 1, 2026: 82 fragrance allergens become individually labellable. Up from the previous 26. Brands that previously hid fragrance under “Parfum” now have to list specific allergens above the disclosure threshold. CosIng entries for these 82 ingredients have been updated to reflect the new labelling status. Detail in the 82 fragrance allergens explainer.

3. October 10, 2026 onward: Microplastic phase-out begins. Specific synthetic polymers below 5mm are being progressively prohibited in rinse-off cosmetics. CosIng entries for affected polymers will reflect the new Annex II status. Detail in the microplastics ban explainer.

If you are buying skincare in the second half of 2026, the CosIng database is the cleanest way to verify that what is on the label matches what the regulation now requires.

How LuxSense uses CosIng

LuxSense builds its scoring database on top of CosIng and PubChem. For every ingredient on a product label, LuxSense pulls:

• The CosIng entry (function, restrictions, SCCS opinion references)
• The PubChem record (hazard codes, safety data sheet information, scientific literature)
• Cross-references to current EU Annexes (banned ingredients in Annex II, restricted in Annex III, etc.)

These three sources combine into a 0-100 safety score per ingredient. The score is transparent: every ingredient page on LuxSense shows the CosIng function, the PubChem hazard codes, and the reasoning behind the score. You can think of LuxSense as a faster, cross-referenced version of the CosIng lookup you would do manually, scaled across the 30,000+ ingredient catalog.

FAQ

What does INCI stand for? International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients. It is the standardized scientific naming system used worldwide for cosmetic ingredient labeling.

What is the INCI list? The ordered ingredient list on a cosmetic product. Ingredients above 1% concentration must be listed in descending order of concentration. Ingredients below 1% can appear in any order. Colourants are usually grouped at the end with “May Contain” or ”+/-” prefixes.

What is an INCI name? The official, standardized scientific name for a single cosmetic ingredient (for example, “Sodium Hyaluronate” rather than “hyaluronic acid”, or “Tocopherol” rather than “vitamin E”).

What is INCI in cosmetics? The naming convention used to identify cosmetic ingredients on product labels in a way that is consistent across every country with cosmetic labeling regulations.

Is CosIng the same as INCI? No. INCI is the naming system. CosIng is the EU’s regulatory database that catalogs ingredients with their INCI names plus chemical names, CAS numbers, functions, and any regulatory restrictions.

How do I look up a cosmetic ingredient in CosIng? Visit ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/cosing, search the INCI name exactly as it appears on the product label, and open the entry to see the function, restrictions, and supporting documents.

How many cosmetic ingredients are catalogued in CosIng? Roughly 30,000 entries as of 2026, with new ingredients added as they receive an INCI name through the Personal Care Products Council process and are reviewed for EU regulatory status.

How many cosmetic ingredients are banned in the EU? Approximately 1,700 ingredients appear in Annex II of EU Regulation 1223/2009 (full prohibition). Several thousand more appear in Annex III with restrictions on concentration, use case, or required warnings. Our EU banned cosmetic ingredients 2026 list walks through the categories.

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Every product page in LuxSense pulls the CosIng entry, the function code, and any regulatory restrictions for every ingredient on the label. Scan a product or browse the 33,000+ ingredient database to see how CosIng translates into per-product scoring.