Body care and cosmetics ingredients.

Whenever I buy body care products, I take a look at the ingredient list to figure out if there's anything in the product that I'd rather avoid. For example I try to avoid sulphates in shampoo or parabens in any type of product. But then again, if there aren't any sulphates or parebens in a product, doesn't mean there aren't any other irritating or potentially harmful ingredients in there. So what to use and what not to use?

I do not know that much about ingredients, and therefore I use my trusted friend Google every now and then to find out more about them. One day I came across a website which comes in really handy for this: www.cosdna.com.

You can search for separate ingredients or for products. If the product you're looking for isn't on their website already, you can type or paste the ingredient list in there. That way you can analyse the product and save it so other people can find it too.

How ingredients are listed when you analyse a product.

You can find information on what certain ingredients are for, how safe they are, information on irritability and whether they are comedogenic (and thus can cause acne).
Not every single ingredient can be found in this database, but I find it can give you a general idea of how safe a product is, or you can compare products based on their ingredient lists.