What Is an INCI Name and Who Assigns It?

Every ingredient list on a cosmetic product label runs on a naming system most people never think about. AQUA, GLYCERIN, SODIUM CHLORIDE, PARFUM: these are INCI names, part of the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients. They are not marketing terms and not chemical nomenclature in the IUPAC sense. They are a controlled vocabulary built specifically for ingredient labelling, and a volunteer nomenclature committee sponsored by a private US trade body decides what goes into it.

Who assigns INCI names

INCI names are assigned by the International Cosmetic Ingredient Nomenclature Committee, known as the INC, which is sponsored by the Personal Care Products Council (PCPC), a US trade association formerly named the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association (CTFA). The INC is a volunteer body of scientists from industry, academia, government regulators and sister associations. According to the PCPC, the committee currently has 17 full members and 13 liaison members, and it maintains subcommittees for biotechnology, general chemistry and polymers.

The INC meets five times a year for two-day sessions to review applications for new names and petitions to change existing ones. Names are assigned by consensus, following the INC's own INCI Nomenclature Conventions, which set the rules for how a name is built: botanical names use Latin binomials, chemical substances follow adapted chemical nomenclature, and each name is meant to identify one specific material. Applicants can expect roughly six months from submission to assignment when no extra information is requested.

Assigned names are compiled into the International Cosmetic Ingredient Dictionary and Handbook, the INC's official reference, available to subscribers as wINCI. This dictionary, not any single country's regulation, is the original source of an INCI name. Regulators in the EU, the US and elsewhere then decide separately how and whether to require these names on their own labels.

How the EU turns INCI names into a labelling requirement

Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, the EU Cosmetic Products Regulation, does not hand labelling authority to the PCPC. Instead, Article 33 instructs the European Commission to compile and keep updated a glossary of common ingredient names, drawing on internationally recognised nomenclatures including INCI. The regulation is explicit that this glossary is not a list of substances authorised for use in cosmetic products: it standardises names, not permissions.

Article 19(6) then makes the glossary operational on the label. Ingredient information on a cosmetic product must be expressed using the common ingredient name set out in that glossary; where no name has been assigned there, the label falls back to a term from a generally accepted nomenclature. Article 19(1)(g) sets the surrounding rule: the list of ingredients must appear in descending order of weight at the time they were added, with ingredients below 1% concentration allowed to follow in any order, and nanomaterials must carry "(nano)" after the name.

The glossary itself has been updated several times since the first version, Commission Decision 96/335/EC. The version cosingchecker.com currently holds is Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2025/1175, which entered into force on 30 July 2025. Economic operators may use it voluntarily from that date; the applies-from date for mandatory use on labels is 30 July 2026. Checking cosingchecker.com/api/v1/inci-glossary/ against entries tagged "EU 2025/1175" today returns all 30,418 common ingredient names, each carrying that same 2026-07-30 application date, including entry 2112 (AQUA) and entry 19071 (PARFUM).

Where EU and US ingredient names diverge

Formulators who write labels for both markets run into real differences, not stylistic ones, even though both sides start from the same INC-assigned INCI names.

• Water: the INCI name is AQUA and it is what the EU glossary and label require. US labelling law, 21 CFR 701.3, requires the "common or usual name" in English and does not accept AQUA as a substitute for WATER on a US label. FDA guidance allows AQUA to appear in parentheses after WATER, not instead of it.
• Fragrance: the INCI term is PARFUM. On a cosingchecker.com record, PARFUM is defined for EU labelling as covering "perfume and aromatic compositions and their raw materials," referred to as 'parfum' or 'aroma' under Article 19. US labelling under 21 CFR 701.3 permits the ingredient to be declared simply as "fragrance."
• Colorants: EU labels name colorants other than hair dyes by their Colour Index (CI) number, for example CI 77891 for titanium dioxide used as a colorant, rather than by the chemical name; the glossary, including the 2025/1175 version, carries them that way. US labelling instead generally uses the FDA-listed color additive name.
• Botanical extracts: both systems use Latin binomial botanical names inside the INCI name itself (for example ROSA DAMASCENA FLOWER EXTRACT), so this is one area where EU and US labels normally agree, since both draw the botanical portion from the same INC-assigned name.

These divergences matter for anyone repackaging a product between markets: substituting an EU glossary name onto a US label, or vice versa, is not a cosmetic choice, it is a compliance decision governed by a different regulation on each side.

How to search for an INCI name

Three questions come up repeatedly: what does this name mean, is it the current EU-required form, and what record backs it. Each has a different starting point on cosingchecker.com.

1. To check what a name means or find its identifiers (CAS number, EC number, described function), search it at cosingchecker.com/search/ or cosingchecker.com/checker/. A search for PARFUM returns the CosIng record describing it as an ingredient-labelling term for fragrance materials, cross-referenced to Article 19.
2. To confirm whether a name is the current EU common ingredient name for labelling, and which glossary version and application date it carries, use cosingchecker.com/inci-glossary/. This holds the glossary compiled under Article 33, separately from the CosIng ingredient inventory.
3. To read the underlying regulatory record for an ingredient, including any annex restriction, use the ingredient's own page under cosingchecker.com's ingredient database. A glossary entry only confirms the name; it does not by itself say whether the substance is restricted or banned.

That last distinction is worth stating plainly. A name appearing in the Article 33 glossary, or in the INC's own dictionary, is identity evidence: it confirms what an ingredient is called. It is not permission evidence. Whether a named substance may be used, and under what conditions, is a separate question answered by the annexes to Regulation 1223/2009, not by the glossary. And if a search on cosingchecker.com returns no annex restriction for a name, that reflects absence from the site's current data, not a legal finding that the substance is unrestricted; the annexes themselves, via EUR-Lex, remain the authoritative text.

Sources

• International Cosmetic Ingredient Nomenclature Committee (INC) — https://www.personalcarecouncil.org/resources/inci/international-cosmetic-ingredient-nomenclature-committee-inc/
• INCI Name Assignment Timetable, PCPC — https://www.personalcarecouncil.org/resources/inci/inci-name-assignment-timetable/
• Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, consolidated text — https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2009/1223/oj
• Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, Article 19 — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2009/1223/article/19
• Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2025/1175 — https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2025/1175/oj/eng
• SGS Safeguards notice on Implementing Decision (EU) 2025/1175 — https://www.sgs.com/en-us/news/2025/11/safeguards-16325-implementing-decision-eu-2025-1175-of-the-european-commission-updated-glossary-of-cosmetic-ingredient-names
• 21 CFR 701.3, Designation of ingredients (eCFR) — https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-G/part-701/subpart-A/section-701.3
• FDA, Cosmetic Ingredient Names — https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetics-labeling/cosmetic-ingredient-names