The INCI name is not the source

A cosmetics ingredient list is written in a naming system called INCI, and it is a good one. It gives every substance a single established name used worldwide, so a formula reads the same in Istanbul, Lyon and Chicago, and a person who reacts to something can recognise it anywhere.

That consistency is the point. It is also the reason the list cannot answer the question a great many people are asking it.

What the system names

The regulation requires cosmetic ingredients to be declared by their established names. An established name identifies the substance.

It does not identify where the substance came from, how it was made, or what it was made from. Two materials that are chemically the same get the same name, whatever their origin, because chemically they are the same thing.

That is correct as chemistry and it is a dead end for anyone avoiding an origin rather than a molecule.

The clearest case

Squalane is a single word on a label. It is produced from two entirely unrelated starting materials.

Squalene was “originally identified in the early 20th century by Tsujimoto in deep-sea shark liver oils”, and it has traditionally been extracted from shark liver oil, where it makes up “40-80% of the total oil”. It is now also produced from vegetable sources, olive oil and sugarcane among them.

Hydrogenate either and you get squalane. Identical molecule, identical INCI name, and a difference that matters enormously to a reader avoiding animal ingredients or worried about deep-sea shark fisheries.

There is no shark squalane and no olive squalane in the labelling system. There is squalane.

The same pattern, repeatedly

Stearic acid can come from animal fat or from vegetable oil, palm most often. One name.

Glycerin can be a by-product of animal fat processing or of vegetable oil processing or made synthetically. One name.

Collagen is animal by definition, but which animal is not stated, which matters for anyone keeping halal or kosher rather than avoiding animals generally.

Lanolin is from sheep wool and the label says so implicitly, which makes it the exception that shows how rarely origin survives into a name.

Carmine is the opposite exception again: it is from insects, and it has its own name that gives it away, which is why it is one of the few animal ingredients people actually catch.

Why this is not a labelling failure

It is worth being fair to the system, because the alternative is worse than it sounds.

An origin-based naming system would need a different name for every supplier route, would change when a manufacturer switched suppliers, and would make it harder rather than easier for someone with a contact allergy to recognise the substance they react to. The current system is optimised for identifying substances, which is what allergy, safety assessment and regulation all need.

The gap is real all the same, and pretending a careful reader can close it by studying the list harder is the thing this site refuses to do.

What actually answers the question

A certification mark. Vegan, halal and kosher certifications audit the supply chain, which is the level where the answer lives. That is information the ingredient list structurally cannot carry.

A brand’s own sourcing statement. Plant-derived squalane costs more to make, so companies using it say so. The claim is unregulated, and its absence is informative in a way absences usually are not, because a company paying for the more expensive route has a commercial reason to tell you.

Asking. Unsatisfying, and often the only route. Manufacturers know their suppliers.

The one place the food rules do better

Food labelling has allergen declaration, which forces some origin information onto the pack whatever the ingredient is called. Cosmetics has no equivalent in most markets.

So the same reader gets a partial answer in one aisle and none in the next, which is one of the reasons avoiding animal ingredients is harder in a bathroom than in a kitchen, despite the kitchen having far more ingredients in it.