The science of skincare: Part 2 - Beyond the Bottle: Understanding INCI, formulations and advanced ingredients

We’ve all done it, picked up a product and said:

“This is really hydrating.”
“This one is soothing.”
“I love this for barrier support.”

But turn the bottle over and look at the ingredient list…

Could you actually point to what’s helping make it hydrating?

- What’s providing emollience?

- What’s helping reduce water loss?

- What’s influencing the texture and skin feel?

- What’s helping keep the oil and water phases together?

- Which ingredients are there for a targeted skin benefit, and which are helping the formulation function?

Because suddenly there are 25-30 ingredients staring back at you and it can feel like you need to be a cosmetic chemist just to understand what you’re looking at.

You don’t.

That’s exactly what The Science of Skincare: Part 2 is about.

I’m going to teach you how to look at an INCI list and pull out the information that is actually useful to you as a skin practitioner.

We’ll break formulations down into their different jobs:

- The base & vehicle.

- Humectants.

- Emollients.

- Occlusives.

- Emulsifiers.

- Thickeners & texture modifiers.

- Targeted actives.

- Preservatives + supporting ingredients.

Not because I want you memorising every ingredient.

I want you to turn a product over and start recognising the different roles ingredients may be playing within that formulation and the clues the INCI can give you about how the product is structured.

And just as importantly, we’re learning what an INCI list can’t tell you.

An ingredient list alone usually won’t tell you exact percentages, pH, stability, manufacturing processes, delivery systems or exactly how that finished formulation will perform unless that information has been disclosed elsewhere.

So rather than pretending an INCI gives us every answer, I want you to know what useful information you can take from it and where its limitations are.

Then we’re going beyond the ingredients everybody already talks about.

We’ll explore a selection of less commonly taught ingredients appearing within modern skincare, including prickly pear, carnosine and anti-glycation, ectoin and ergothioneine, looking at what they are, why they may be used and what the available evidence allows us to say about them.

This is not a cosmetic chemistry or product formulation qualification. I’m not teaching you how to formulate products. The aim is to give you a stronger framework for reading ingredient lists, understanding formulation structure and making more informed product recommendations within your existing scope.

So the next time you turn a bottle around, you’re not just searching for the one ingredient you recognise.

You’ll have a clearer framework for understanding what you’re looking at.

Because recognising an ingredient isn’t the same as understanding a formulation. 🪽

*Important educational disclaimer*

This masterclass teaches practitioner-level formulation literacy and INCI interpretation. It is not cosmetic chemistry or formulation training. An INCI list cannot independently reveal exact percentages, product pH, manufacturing processes, raw material quality, stability, delivery technology or finished product performance unless this information has been disclosed by the manufacturer. Product and ingredient examples are used for educational purposes and do not represent universal recommendations.