The library
Ingredient explanations, practical checks and the bigger picture.
Practical label checks are organized by category above. Search the ingredient reference and wider guides below.
Ingredients 132
- Acesulfame potassium The sweetener that shares a label with another sweetener, for a reason the ingredient list will not explain.
- Agar The seaweed extract that sets a dessert without an animal in it, defined in regulation as precisely what it appears to be.
- Allantoin A quiet ingredient with a regulated strength, which is more than almost anything else in the same jar can say.
- Allulose A rare sugar that is chemically a sugar, tastes like sugar, and is subtracted from the sugar line by regulatory decision.
- Amodimethicone A silicone that goes where the damage is, and the reason the sulfate rule and the silicone rule cannot be followed separately.
- Annatto The seed extract behind orange cheese, and the colour most often mistaken for the insect one.
- Ascorbic acid An active where the evidence points at a concentration and a pH, and the label is required to disclose neither.
- Aspartame One of the few ingredients required to shout on the packet, in bold type, at a group of readers most people have never heard of.
- Avobenzone A sunscreen ingredient whose central problem is that sunlight destroys it, and whose fix is another ingredient nobody explains.
- Azelaic acid An acid that occurs in wheat and on your own skin, and one of the very few actives a pregnancy page can be positive about.
- Azodicarbonamide An additive that became famous for the wrong reason, and whose actual regulatory question is more interesting than the one that made it famous.
- Balsam of Peru A natural resin that is not one substance, which is why a positive test for it identifies a problem without naming it.
- Barley malt extract Contains gluten, gets no allergen warning, and is the single most common reason a cereal is not gluten-free.
- Beeswax One of the few animal ingredients whose name tells you what it is, and one of the few that divides vegetarians from vegans.
- Bemotrizinol A filter the rest of the world has had since the late 1990s, admitted to the American monograph in the summer of 2026.
- Benzoyl peroxide One substance with two regulatory lives, a printed percentage in one of them, and a use in the dairy aisle almost nobody knows about.
- Benzyl salicylate A fragrance ingredient that shares half a name with an acne treatment, and inherits worries that were never about it.
- Beta-carotene A colour that is also a nutrient, permitted in two forms the label does not distinguish, with one caution that belongs to supplements rather than to food.
- BHA An antioxidant that sits on a national carcinogen list and on an approved additive list at the same time, and the reason is worth understanding.
- BHT An antioxidant that keeps fats from going rancid, and the clearest example of a cross-market claim that circulates because it sounds like the true ones.
- Biotin A vitamin your gut bacteria already make, sold in enormous doses for hair, with a consequence that shows up in a laboratory rather than a mirror.
- Brominated vegetable oil A rare case of a regulator removing something it had permitted for decades, with the reasoning set out in full.
- Caffeine The most consumed stimulant in the world, and a US listing that covers one drink category and stops.
- Calamine The pink lotion in the bathroom cupboard is a regulated drug active, and the regulator quietly tells you what it is made of by choosing what to measure.
- Calcium carbonate A mineral that raises an origin question in supplements and closes it in food, and a regulation that says so explicitly.
- Caramel colour The most used colour in the world, made from a list of seven starting materials, two of which matter to readers who are avoiding something.
- Carmine A red colour made from insects, which is why it has to be named rather than hidden inside the word "colour".
- Carnauba wax The shine on a sweet is usually one of three waxes. This is the one that grew on a tree.
- Carrageenan A seaweed extract that sets and thickens, and a reputation built substantially on a different molecule that has never been in your food.
- Casein The main protein in milk, and the reason "non-dairy" is not the same as milk-free.
- Caseinates Milk protein in a salt form, and the one place a regulation was written specifically to stop a label misleading you.
- Ceramides One of the few skincare ingredients that is literally the same material as the thing it repairs.
- Citric acid The most common additive on labels, a name that points at lemons, and a regulation that openly describes the mould it is actually made with.
- Coal tar One of the oldest treatments still in the regulations, and the only one on this site whose rule requires the concentration to be printed.
- Cocamidopropyl betaine A mild surfactant chosen to replace a harsher one, which turns out to have the better documented allergy record of the two.
- Cocoa butter A fat named after an animal product it has never contained, permitted as a drug at strengths most ingredients never reach, and shadowed in food by a legally defined stand-in.
- Collagen An animal protein sold as a beauty product, with a research picture that neither side of the argument reports accurately.
- Colloidal oatmeal A skin protectant with the unusual distinction of a floor rather than a ceiling, and an oat question that cosmetic labelling has no machinery for.
- Cyanocobalamin A vitamin you can get from no plant, in a form that comes from no animal, and a regulation that states the origin outright.
- Cyclamate The clearest test of whether banned somewhere means dangerous, because this is the direction of travel nobody quotes.
- Dimethicone The silicone people try to avoid on principle, sitting in a drug regulation with a stated concentration range.
- Egg The rare case where the labelling rules are completely on your side, and the difficulty moves entirely to the names.
- Enzymes The shortest word on a cheese label, and a regulation that says out loud it may stand for any of three different things.
- Erythritol The sugar alcohol with the best digestive record and the only open safety question in the family.
- Eugenol One molecule doing three jobs, in perfume, in food and at the dentist, which is why avoiding it takes more than reading one kind of label.
- Ferrous sulfate An ordinary supplement carrying one of the strongest mandated warnings in food labelling, and a panel that tells you which salt you are getting.
- Folic acid A B vitamin with the strongest evidence of any supplement in pregnancy, and a warning built into the wording of its own claim.
- Gelatin Collagen from animal skin and bone, and the single most common reason a product that looks vegetarian is not.
- Geraniol A fragrance material found in roses, in citronella and in most things that smell floral, including a good number that do not advertise a scent at all.
- Glycerin One of the most used ingredients in existence, an origin the label does not state, and a European definition caught mid-revision.
- Glycolic acid The smallest of the fruit acids, and the clearest case on this site of an ingredient whose label tells you nothing that matters.
- Grapefruit An ordinary fruit that appears in prescribing information, and one of the few foods a medicine label puts a number on.
- Guar gum A thickener made by grinding a bean, with an origin the regulation names outright and a legume question the ingredient list will not raise for you.
- Gum arabic A tree exudate whose botanical family sets off the wrong alarm, and a name that hides which tree it came from.
- High fructose corn syrup A name that promises something extreme and a regulation that specifies two numbers on either side of ordinary sugar.
- Honey The one ingredient on this site with an age on it, and the reason is not sugar.
- Hyaluronic acid A humectant sold on a single property, whose actual behaviour turns on a number no ingredient list carries.
- Hydrolysed wheat protein The best-documented case anywhere of a cosmetic ingredient causing a food allergy, and the reason we read cosmetic and food labels against the same profile.
- Hypromellose A capsule made from wood pulp rather than from an animal, and one of the few ingredients whose presence answers a question rather than raising one.
- Iodine A mineral with a narrow useful range, a common shortfall on one diet and a common excess from one supplement.
- Isinglass The clearest example on this site of something a label cannot tell you, because the rules specifically permit the silence.
- Kaolin The same white powder is regulated three separate ways depending on whether you spread it, swallow it, or never meant to eat it at all.
- L-Cysteine A dough conditioner at the centre of a persistent rumour, where the rumour is closer to the truth than most and the label still cannot settle it.
- Lactic acid An ingredient named after milk that normally has nothing to do with it, and the one line in the regulation that stops this being a clean answer.
- Lanolin Wool wax from a living animal, one of the few personal care ingredients whose amount you can actually read, and a known contact allergen.
- Limonene A citrus molecule that becomes a different problem after it has met the air, on a label that records neither the change nor the date.
- Linalool The most widely used fragrance material there is, with a sensitisation problem that develops after the product is opened.
- Magnesium stearate A manufacturing lubricant that attracts more suspicion than almost anything else in a capsule, mostly for the wrong reason.
- Maltitol The member of this family that delivers least of what the category promises, and the label rarely says how much of it you are getting.
- Maltodextrin A bulking agent whose gluten answer depends on which continent the label was printed for.
- Mineral oil One of the most avoided ingredients in skincare, and one of the few the regulations permit to make up the entire product.
- Minoxidil A blood pressure drug whose side effect became its purpose, and the only thing on the hair growth shelf that went through drug approval.
- Modified food starch Two separate worries, both usually unfounded, attached to one of the most common ingredients in processed food.
- Monk fruit A sweetener two regulators have reached opposite conclusions about, for reasons that are procedural rather than toxicological.
- Mono- and diglycerides An emulsifier that can be made from vegetable oil or from animal fat, and a label that uses the same words for both.
- Monosodium glutamate The additive with the largest gap between its reputation and its regulation, and a label rule that settles the most common worry about it.
- Niacinamide An active with real evidence behind it, sold in products whose labels cannot tell you whether you are getting the studied dose.
- Octocrylene A sunscreen ingredient whose most important job is not the one its category name describes.
- Oxybenzone A sunscreen filter with a genuinely striking measurement behind it, and a set of authors who refused to draw the obvious alarming conclusion.
- Palm oil The same ingredient, the same product, and two labelling regimes that disagree about whether you are told.
- Panthenol A well-behaved conditioning ingredient with one claim attached to it that a regulator has already ruled on.
- Parabens The most avoided preservatives in cosmetics, and a worry that rests on a finding almost everyone reports incorrectly.
- Peanut A legume that everyone files with the nuts, and an oil that the law deliberately leaves out of the declaration.
- Pectin A setting agent that comes from fruit, is described as coming from fruit, and for once leaves nothing for the label to hide.
- Petrolatum The most effective barrier ingredient there is, an oil-derived name that alarms people, and a second entry in the regulation that explains the word white.
- Phenoxyethanol The preservative that filled the gap parabens left, and one of the few ingredients where the review evidence is quietly reassuring.
- Polysorbate 80 An emulsifier whose regulation spells out its two building blocks, one of which carries the origin question this site keeps meeting.
- Potassium bromate A dough improver whose American permission comes from a standard of identity rather than from a food additive approval, which is why it is easy to look up and hard to find.
- Potassium sorbate One of the most flagged preservatives on the internet, and one of the better-studied ones in the food supply.
- Propylene glycol The ingredient whose reputation rests entirely on sharing half a name with something genuinely dangerous.
- Pullulan The capsule nobody argues about, produced by a fungus from starch, and the least common of the three.
- Pyrithione zinc The most common anti-dandruff active, with a regulated concentration range and two pieces of usage guidance that contradict how most people use it.
- Red 3 A revocation that reads like a safety verdict and, in the agency's own words, was a legal one. The distinction is the whole story.
- Red 40 The most used synthetic colour in American food, subject to the strictest per-batch control in the food supply and to a warning label on another continent.
- Rennet The enzyme that turns milk into cheese, available in an animal version and a fermented one, with a label that rarely says which.
- Resorcinol Every other acne active is permitted on its own terms. This one is permitted only in company, and the regulation says so in the same breath as it allows it.
- Retinol The most studied anti-ageing ingredient there is, and the one with the most confusing pregnancy advice.
- Retinyl palmitate The weakest member of the vitamin A family, in far more products than people realise, and sitting in a gap the clinical guidance never quite addresses.
- Saccharin The sweetener that was labelled a probable carcinogen, cleared, and left in a regulation nobody has updated since.
- Safrole A prohibition written widely enough to catch the plant, the tea made from it, and the derivatives someone might reach for instead.
- Salicylic acid A beta hydroxy acid that gets treated as one ingredient when it is really several different exposures.
- Selenium A mineral with one of the narrowest useful windows on a supplement shelf, and an excess that produces the exact thing people take supplements to prevent.
- Selenium sulfide The anti-dandruff active with no permitted range at all, just two exact numbers, and a reason worth knowing for coloured or treated hair.
- Sesame A labelling law that worked exactly as written and produced the opposite of what it intended.
- Shellac The shine on a sweet, a chocolate or an apple, secreted by an insect and often listed as something else entirely.
- Shellfish One everyday word covering two groups that the rules treat separately, which is the whole difficulty.
- Silicon dioxide The additive that looks most industrial on a supplement label and asks the fewest questions once you know what it is.
- Sodium benzoate A preservative with one genuine chemistry problem, which happens only in company, and which the label will not flag for you.
- Sodium lauryl sulfate The rare case where the ingredient does deserve a reputation, just not the one it has.
- Sodium nitrite The additive behind a labelling phrase that says the opposite of what is happening, and does so lawfully.
- Sorbitol A sweetener with a legally required warning that most people read as boilerplate, and one genuine danger that is not about people at all.
- Soy lecithin Derived from soy, declared as soy, and usually not the problem people expect it to be.
- Squalane An emollient with two completely different origins, one name, and a supplier decision the reader is never shown.
- St John's wort A herbal product whose defining property is not what it does on its own, but what it does to everything else you take.
- Stearic acid A fatty acid in soap, chocolate and tablets, and one word in the regulation that people consistently read as more than it says.
- Stevia A sweetener sold on being natural, with a numerical limit a regulator has recently declined to loosen.
- Sucralose An ingredient whose most repeated criticism is factually correct, which is unusual, and does not lead where people take it.
- Sulfites A group of preservatives with their own labelling rule, and a gap that catches people who have learned to read the allergen line first.
- Sulfur One of the oldest treatments in dermatology, still in the regulations, with a different permitted strength depending on what the product claims to treat.
- Talc A mineral whose own safety is not really the question, and a testing requirement that four years after the statute still does not exist.
- Tartrazine One of six colours that carry a legally required warning about children in the EU, and the story behind that sentence is worth knowing.
- Titanium dioxide The clearest case on this site of evidence moving and a regulator acting on it, and of two regulators reaching different answers.
- Tocopherols Vitamin E under its technical name, where a two-letter prefix carries the origin and most readers scroll past it.
- Tree nuts A category that groups species which are not closely related, and a label that sometimes tells you which one and sometimes does not.
- Vanillin One molecule, three production routes, two very different words on a label, and a legal standard behind only one of them.
- Vitamin D3 Two forms of one vitamin, one number apart on the label, and a difference in origin written into the definition itself.
- Vitamin K A vitamin whose ordinary job is the thing one common medicine is designed to prevent, which makes it the clearest interaction on a supplement shelf.
- Whey The liquid left when milk is curdled for cheese, and one of the few ingredients on this site the label is genuinely honest about.
- Xanthan gum The backbone of gluten-free baking, produced by a bacterium, and defined by a regulation that names everything except the one thing coeliac readers want to know.
- Xylitol A sugar alcohol with an unusual amount of evidence behind it, and one genuinely urgent warning that has nothing to do with people.
- Zinc A mineral whose overdose does not announce itself, because it works by quietly crowding out a different one.
- Zinc oxide A white mineral that turns a cosmetic into a drug, and takes a printed concentration with it.
If this is you 18
- Reading labels for a baby or a small child A short list of things that genuinely matter, and permission to stop worrying about the rest.
- Reading labels for acne-prone skin One of the few shelves where the concentration is printed, next to a scale of numbers that measures a rabbit's ear.
- Reading labels for curly and coily hair The most confidently repeated ingredient list on the internet, checked against what the dermatology literature actually says.
- Reading labels for eczema and atopic skin The most ordinary ingredients in a moisturiser turn into regulated drug actives the moment the product claims to protect skin.
- Reading labels for hair loss and thinning A category where the regulator has already written down what it thinks of the claims, in language nobody quotes.
- Reading labels for menopausal skin A change with a measured rate attached to it, which is more than most of the products aimed at it can say.
- Reading labels for teenage skin A category where the products being marketed hardest are the ones with the least reason to be on a young face.
- Reading labels when an ingredient is banned somewhere else The most repeated claim in food writing, applied to a set of ingredients where it is sometimes exactly right and often not.
- Reading labels when you are pregnant Nine months of checking labels. Here is what is worth checking, and what is not.
- Reading labels when you are watching blood sugar There are three places sugar shows up on a packet, and they answer three different questions. Most people read only one of them.
- Reading labels when you avoid animal ingredients "Vegan" is not a legally defined word. That single fact explains most of what makes this difficult.
- Reading labels when you avoid gluten One of the very few reassuring words on a package that means something exact. The gaps are elsewhere.
- Reading labels when you have a thyroid condition Three ordinary things on a supplement label that interact with a thyroid, none of which the label mentions.
- Reading labels when you keep halal or kosher An ingredient list is designed to tell you what a substance is. Your question is where it came from, and those are not the same question.
- Reading labels when you take a prescription A whole aisle of products that interact with common prescriptions, and not one of them mentions the medicine on the box.
- Reading labels when your skin reacts to everything Sensitive skin is not one thing, which is why generic sensitive-skin advice keeps failing you.
- Reading labels with a food allergy The ingredient list is the most trustworthy part of a package. It is also not the whole answer, and the gap is worth understanding precisely.
- Reading labels with a fragrance allergy The most common cause of cosmetic contact allergy, declared under a single word that names nothing.
Comparisons 5
- EWG or Pura: a hazard score or your own profile Two decades of nonprofit research, a hazard score, and a long-running argument about what that score can carry.
- Fooducate or Pura: a tracker or an ingredient reader A nutrition tracker with a grading system, against an ingredient reader with no grades at all.
- Open Food Facts or Pura: open data or a personal answer A free, open, nonprofit database against a paid app. This one is harder to argue than the others, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
- Think Dirty or Pura: cosmetics depth or reading the label One of the original cosmetics scanners, against an app that reads the label instead of looking it up.
- Yuka or Pura: a database or a photograph Two different bets about what an ingredient app should be. Here is where each one wins.
Guides 17
- Drug or cosmetic: which claims are regulated One sentence in the statute decides which rules a product lives under, and it turns on what the maker says rather than what is inside.
- E numbers, decoded An E number is an identifier, not a warning label. It is closer to a passport than a criminal record.
- Hazard versus exposure One idea, and it defuses most of what you will read about ingredients.
- How ingredient scores are calculated Every scanner app gives you a number. It is worth knowing what went into it before you trust it.
- How the law decides a food is healthy There is a legal test for the word healthy, and the surprising thing about it is what it does not contain: any list of ingredients to avoid.
- How to check an ingredient claim yourself Every source this site uses is public. Here is how to reach them, in the order that gets you an answer fastest, including how to check us.
- How to read a cosmetics label The list is honest and complete, and two rules inside it mean it says less than people think it does.
- How to read a hair product label One shelf holds two legal categories, and telling them apart takes about three seconds once you know what to look for.
- How to read a supplement label It is not a food label with different words on it. It is a different document, governed by different rules, and it withholds different things.
- How to read an ingredient label The list on the back follows rules. Once you know four of them, most of the label reads itself.
- Ingredients avoided for the wrong reason A list of corrections, each one traced to the document that settled it, and each one still circulating anyway.
- Ingredients whose source the label hides A short list that does most of the work, because it turns reading every line into checking about a dozen names.
- The INCI name is not the source A naming system that does its job perfectly, and in doing it erases the one thing many readers are trying to find out.
- What "natural", "clean" and "chemical-free" legally mean Some words on a package are regulated. Most of the reassuring ones are not.
- What an allergen label promises, and what it does not One of those two statements is written into statute. The other is not mentioned in it anywhere, and the difference is larger than it looks.
- What comedogenic ratings actually measure The most quoted number in skincare, produced by a test on an animal that is not a person, applied to an ingredient rather than to a product.
- Which cosmetic ingredients are actually drugs A table of the only ingredients in your bathroom whose strength the law requires to be stated, and the ranges they have to sit inside.
Questions 81
- Are INS numbers the same as E numbers? The digits are shared. What the prefix means is not, and that difference is the whole answer.
- Are parabens bad for you? A real study, read wrongly for twenty years, and repeated by almost every page that answers this question.
- Are silicones bad for hair? A category argued about as though it were a single substance, which it is not.
- Are sugar alcohols the same as sugar? Not sugar, not alcohol, not interchangeable with each other, and the one line on the panel a manufacturer may simply leave out.
- Are supplement capsules vegetarian? Similar-looking capsules can use different shell materials. Read both the shell information and the rest of the supplement label.
- Can a cosmetic give you a food allergy? It sounds like something invented to sell an app. It is documented, it happened at scale, and it is genuinely rare.
- Can a cosmetic leave an ingredient off the label? The list is the most reliable thing on the pack and it is not a guarantee, which matters most to the people who depend on it most.
- Can a face cream contain hormones? A rule that regulates a word rather than a molecule, which is why the answer is stranger than a simple yes or no.
- Can babies wear sunscreen? One of the few pieces of advice on a pack that is written by the regulator rather than by the brand, and it is easy to misread as a prohibition.
- Can biotin affect a thyroid test? A supplement taken for hair that does nothing to the gland and something to the measurement, which is a harder problem than it sounds.
- Can I use salicylic acid while pregnant? Short answer, then the reasoning, then the bit that is genuinely worth checking with your clinician.
- Can you take vitamin K with warfarin? One of the few places where the answer for a supplement and the answer for food point in opposite directions.
- Do cosmetics have to be proven safe before sale? The rule is stricter than the internet says and weaker than it sounds, and the gap between the two is one printed sentence.
- Does "non-dairy" mean milk-free? One of the few places where the front of a package can be technically permitted and still mislead you badly.
- Does a proprietary blend have to say how much? The rule requires more than people assume and less than they want, and knowing exactly where the line falls is the useful part.
- Does biotin make hair grow? One of the few questions on this site where a regulator has already published its opinion in plain words.
- Does curly hair need to avoid sulfates? The rule works for some routines and fails for others, and which one you are in depends on a different ingredient entirely.
- Does gluten-free mean wheat-free? The two phrases point in opposite directions, and only one of them has a number behind it.
- Does grapefruit affect statins? One of very few foods that appears in medicine information with an actual number attached to it.
- Does peanut oil have to be declared as an allergen? A labelling answer with a sharp edge on it: the exemption is real, and it is not the same as an answer about your allergy.
- How much zinc is too much? An overdose that does not look like an overdose, because the harm arrives through a different mineral entirely.
- How often should you wash curly hair? The one piece of curly hair advice where the evidence and the internet point in opposite directions.
- Is allulose a sugar? One of the few cases where the chemistry and the Nutrition Facts panel give different answers, and both are correct.
- Is benzoyl peroxide used in food? A genuinely surprising overlap between the pharmacy shelf and the cheese counter, with the limits written down in both places.
- Is BHA banned in food? An ingredient on a national carcinogen list and an approved additive list at the same time, and what that combination actually tells you.
- Is calamine the same as zinc oxide? Two entries, one range, and a bracket in an unrelated regulation that does more to answer the question than either of them.
- Is calcium carbonate made from shells? A rare case where the regulation closes the origin question outright, and a supplement rule that handles the one exception properly.
- Is carmine vegan? No, and the harder part is spotting it, because on a cosmetic it rarely says carmine.
- Is casein the same as lactose? Two different parts of milk, two different reasons to avoid them, and one confusion that sends people to the wrong product.
- Is collagen the same as gelatin? One protein, three names, three degrees of breakdown, and a supplement aisle that sells the last stage at a considerable markup.
- Is colloidal oatmeal gluten-free? A question with a good answer on food and no answer at all on a cosmetic, and the reason is that one aisle has machinery the other does not.
- Is gelatin halal? The honest answer has two parts: what gelatin is made from, which is a fact, and what follows from that, which is not ours to rule on.
- Is gelatin vegetarian? No, and it surprises people because gelatin does not look or taste like an animal product.
- Is gum arabic a nut? A question that comes from a real detail in the regulation, and an answer that turns on the difference between a family tree and an immune system.
- Is healthy a regulated word on a label? The word that sounds most like marketing is the one a manufacturer actually has to qualify for.
- Is L-cysteine made from human hair? One of the few ingredient rumours with something real underneath it, and an honest account of how much.
- Is lactic acid dairy? A question the internet answers too confidently, and the line in the regulation that makes a careful answer better than a clean one.
- Is lanolin vegan? An animal ingredient with an unusually clear answer on one side and an honest disagreement on the other.
- Is lecithin always from soy? A single word on a label covering three different plants, only one of which is a major allergen.
- Is maltodextrin gluten free? One of the rare cases where the honest answer changes depending on which country printed the label.
- Is mineral oil bad for your skin? A question where the answer turns entirely on which of two very different materials you are talking about.
- Is modified food starch gluten-free? Usually yes, and the label gives you a way to check that most people do not know about.
- Is monk fruit allowed in Europe? A sweetener that is ordinary in an American supermarket and mostly absent from a European one, for reasons that are procedural rather than toxicological.
- Is polysorbate 80 vegan? A question with a probable answer and no certain one, and a clear account of why that is.
- Is potassium bromate still legal in bread? The permission does not come from where you would look for it, which is why this question is harder to answer than it should be.
- Is potassium sorbate safe? One of the most flagged preservatives on the internet, and one of the better studied ones in the food supply.
- Is Red 40 banned in Europe? A case where the popular claim is wrong and the true version is more interesting than the myth.
- Is selenium good for your thyroid? A mineral that is real thyroid biochemistry and a marketing claim at the same time, with an unusually small gap between enough and too much.
- Is shellac the same as beeswax? Same job, same shelf, three different origins, and a naming system that helps in exactly one case out of three.
- Is shellac vegan? No, and the difficulty is that the word shellac is often nowhere on the label.
- Is soy lecithin safe if I am allergic to soy? The reassuring answer on this site that still ends with a conversation you should have with your allergist.
- Is sulfur good for acne? One of the few acne answers where the label carries a number you can compare.
- Is talc tested for asbestos? A statutory requirement, a proposed rule, and a withdrawal, leaving the testing where it was: up to the manufacturer.
- Is the B12 in supplements vegan? The one nutrient a plant diet cannot supply, in a form that no animal supplies either.
- Is there casein in butter? A food that is nearly all fat still carries enough milk protein to matter, and which of the two dairy problems you have decides everything.
- Is tocopherol the same as vitamin E? The same nutrient under a name nobody recognises, doing a job nobody expects, with its origin hidden in two letters.
- Is vanilla flavouring the same as vanilla extract? Two labels a few centimetres apart on the same shelf, one of which a manufacturer had to qualify for.
- Is vitamin D3 vegan? One of the rare cases where the number printed beside a vitamin tells you where it came from.
- Is xanthan gum gluten free? A question with a clean chemical answer and a messier labelling one, and the difference is worth holding onto.
- Should you leave dandruff shampoo on? Two pieces of clinical guidance that contradict how almost everyone uses these products, and explain why they feel so drying.
- What does "natural flavors" actually mean? It is a real legal term. It just does not mean what the packaging wants you to think it means.
- What does added sugars mean on a label? Two numbers, one indented under the other, answering questions most people never separate.
- What does enzymes mean on a cheese label? The single most common reason a cheese cannot be confirmed vegetarian, written into the regulation rather than hidden by anyone.
- What does fragrance mean on a label? The largest hole in an otherwise complete document, and it is one word wide.
- What does uncured bacon actually mean? A word on a packet that means close to the opposite of what a shopper reads into it, lawfully.
- What is a balsam of Peru allergy? A patch test result that tells you something real and refuses to tell you which substance did it.
- What is CI 75470? You found it on a lipstick and it looks like every other code on the label. It is not.
- What is magnesium stearate doing in my supplement? The most suspected ingredient in a capsule is there so the tableting machine works.
- What is the difference between folate and folic acid? Two words used interchangeably by a regulation and treated as opposites by supplement marketing.
- What skincare can I use while pregnant? Almost everything written on this subject tells you what to put down. This is the part that says what you can pick up.
- Which artificial sweeteners are banned in the US? A short list, two thirds of it older than the modern sweetener aisle, and none of it in the direction people expect.
- Which cheeses have the most casein? Cheesemaking is a process for concentrating one milk protein, so the question has a structural answer rather than a list.
- Which foods contain casein? All dairy, obviously. The useful part of this list is the products that do not present themselves as dairy at all.
- Which foods contain gelatin? Not a list of everything, which would be useless. A list of the places gelatin appears where nobody thinks to look.
- Why can only some creams say eczema? A single word on a tube, available to one ingredient out of twenty-one, which is why two nearly identical creams describe themselves differently.
- Why do acne products use the same few actives? Not a failure of imagination on the industry's part. The list of things a product is allowed to use is printed, and it is short.
- Why do painkillers warn about Reye's syndrome? A warning so specific that the regulation dictates its punctuation, aimed at a combination of circumstances rather than at a dose.
- Why do sugar-free sweets upset my stomach? The sentence in small print on the back of the packet is the answer, and it is there because a regulator required it.
- Why do sunscreens show a percentage when creams do not? The single most useful distinction on a personal care shelf, and it turns on what the front of the box claims.
- Why does an EU label name more fragrance ingredients? One product, two markets, two ingredient lists, and a change that came into force this summer while nobody outside the industry noticed.
- Why does an iron supplement have a poison warning? One of the strongest mandated sentences in food labelling, on one of the most ordinary products in the cupboard.
Not finding it under the name you know? Every alternative name is indexed A to Z.