How to actually read an ingredient list

Ingredient lists are ordered by concentration, from highest to lowest, until you hit roughly 1% — after that, order is arbitrary. That means the first five ingredients tell you almost everything about how a formula will feel and perform.

Look for the active you're paying for near the top third of the list, not buried at the very end. A vitamin C serum with L-ascorbic acid listed eighteenth is mostly water and filler.

Fragrance and 'parfum' are the two words worth pausing on if you have sensitive skin — they can legally hide dozens of individual compounds behind one line.