Ingredient Rules API

Beta

Look up an ingredient by INCI, CAS or EC and get every rule in every market, with the legal quote.

Substances with the rules that list them in the EU, Great Britain, US federal law and eight US states; machine-readable rules per market with scope, limits, dates and citations; a side-by-side comparison across markets.

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At a glance

Status: Beta
Endpoints: GET /v1/cosmetics/ingredients
GET /v1/cosmetics/ingredients/{id}
GET /v1/cosmetics/rules
GET /v1/cosmetics/compare
GET /v1/cosmetics/categories
Cost: 1 unit (each endpoint)
MCP tools: cosmetics_ingredient_lookup
cosmetics_ingredient_get
cosmetics_rules_by_market
cosmetics_compare_markets
cosmetics_categories
Data: Cosmetics dataset 1.0.0, built 2026-10-14.

Try it

Choose an endpoint and a sample, change the parameters, and send. Without a key the public demo answers the sample requests (marked demo, not counted against any quota, limited per IP address). With your key, or your account when you are signed in, any values work and the call counts against your plan. A key stays in this page's memory: it is never stored. Get a free key.

Recorded answer of the real API on the current data for this sample (long arrays trimmed).

Response 200GET/v1/cosmetics/ingredients

{
  "data": {
    "count": 3,
    "substances": [
      {
        "id": "inci:SALICYLIC ACID",
        "id_type": "inci",
        "value": "SALICYLIC ACID",
        "display_name": "Salicylic acid",
        "linked_identifiers": [
          {
            "id": "cas:69-72-7",
            "via_rule_ids": ["EU-III-98", "GB-III-98", "… 1 more"],
            "method": "CAS and legal-glossary INCI of a rule with exactly one CAS (code)"
          }
        ],
        "rule_count": 8,
        "markets": {
          "EU": [
            {
              "rule_id": "EU-III-98",
              "jurisdiction": "EU",
              "instrument": "Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009",
              "annex": "III",
              "entry": "98",
              "provision": "Annex III, entry 98",
              "status": "restricted",
              "chemical_name": "Benzoic acid, 2-hydroxy-",
              "…": "8 more fields"
            },
            {
              "rule_id": "EU-III-98",
              "jurisdiction": "EU",
              "instrument": "Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009",
              "annex": "III",
              "entry": "98",
              "provision": "Annex III, entry 98",
              "status": "restricted",
              "chemical_name": "Benzoic acid, 2-hydroxy-",
              "…": "8 more fields"
            },
            "… 2 more"
          ],
          "GB": [
            {
              "rule_id": "GB-III-98",
              "jurisdiction": "GB",
              "instrument": "Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 (GB)",
              "annex": "III",
              "entry": "98",
              "provision": "Annex III, entry 98",
              "status": "restricted",
              "chemical_name": "Benzoic acid, 2-hydroxy-",
              "…": "8 more fields"
            },
            {
              "rule_id": "GB-III-98",
              "jurisdiction": "GB",
              "instrument": "Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 (GB)",
              "annex": "III",
              "entry": "98",
              "provision": "Annex III, entry 98",
              "status": "restricted",
              "chemical_name": "Benzoic acid, 2-hydroxy-",
              "…": "8 more fields"
            },
            "… 2 more"
          ]
        }
      },
      {
        "id": "name:SALICYLIC ACID",
        "id_type": "name",
        "value": "SALICYLIC ACID",
        "display_name": "Salicylic acid",
        "linked_identifiers": [],
        "rule_count": 2,
        "markets": {
          "EU": [
            {
              "rule_id": "EU-V-3",
              "jurisdiction": "EU",
              "instrument": "Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009",
              "annex": "V",
              "entry": "3",
              "provision": "Annex V, entry 3",
              "status": "allowed_preservative",
              "chemical_name": "Salicylic acid and its salts",
              "…": "8 more fields"
            }
          ],
          "GB": [
            {
              "rule_id": "GB-V-3",
              "jurisdiction": "GB",
              "instrument": "Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 (GB)",
              "annex": "V",
              "entry": "3",
              "provision": "Annex V, entry 3",
              "status": "allowed_preservative",
              "chemical_name": "Salicylic acid and its salts",
              "…": "8 more fields"
            }
          ]
        }
      },
      "… 1 more"
    ],
    "note": "Identifiers as listed in the legal texts (CAS, EC, legal-glossary INCI, chemical names) and CosIng example INCI names; each rule says how it matched."
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "req_…",
    "api_version": "1",
    "dataset": "cosmetics",
    "dataset_version": "1.0.0",
    "dataset_built_at": "2026-10-14T21:29:15+00:00",
    "data_status": "released",
    "sources": [
      {
        "id": "eur_lex_regulation_ec_no_1223_2009_conso",
        "name": "EUR-Lex: Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, consolidated text 02009R1223-20260518, and amending acts M1-M54",
        "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02009R1223-20260518",
        "licence": "© European Union; reuse incl. commercial authorised with acknowledgement (Commission Decision 2011/833/EU). Consolidated text is documentation only.",
        "commercial_redistribution_ok": true
      },
      {
        "id": "cosing_annex_exports_and_ingredient_inve",
        "name": "CosIng annex exports and ingredient inventory (European Commission)",
        "url": "https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/cosing/",
        "licence": "© European Union; Commission reuse policy (Decision 2011/833/EU). CosIng has no legal value: used only for INCI names, their CAS / EC numbers and cross-checks.",
        "commercial_redistribution_ok": true
      },
      "… 8 more"
    ],
    "provenance_note": "Every value carries provenance (source, id or URL, retrieval date; method and confidence where an AI judged). Calculations list their inputs and method.",
    "disclaimer": "Regulatory reference data. Not a safety assessment; a Responsible Person or safety assessor must sign off products.",
    "usage": "…"
  }
}

1Pin and diff: the version is also in the X-Dataset-Version header

curlGET/v1/cosmetics/ingredients

curl -s "https://api.cosmeticrules.com/demo/v1/cosmetics/ingredients?inci=Salicylic+Acid"

Endpoints

Endpoints of the Ingredient Rules API
Endpoint	What it does	Cost	MCP tool	Documentation
GET /v1/cosmetics/ingredients	Ingredient lookup by INCI, CAS or text	1 unit	cosmetics_ingredient_lookup	Docs
GET /v1/cosmetics/ingredients/{id}	Get a substance by id	1 unit	cosmetics_ingredient_get	Docs
GET /v1/cosmetics/rules	Rules by market	1 unit	cosmetics_rules_by_market	Docs
GET /v1/cosmetics/compare	Compare an ingredient's rules across markets	1 unit	cosmetics_compare_markets	Docs
GET /v1/cosmetics/categories	Product categories	free	cosmetics_categories	Docs

What is included

Lookup by INCI name, CAS or EC number, or text
Rules by market with clauses, limits copied by code and verbatim quotes
Comparison across markets with EU and GB divergence
Product categories the checks accept

How it differs

Verbatim quotes and the snapshot of the text each rule rests on.
How the two extraction passes agreed, on every rule.
EU and GB compared entry by entry.

Plans

One key and one plan cover every Cosmetic Rules product, this one included. Free: 2,500 units a month (2,500 calls of /v1/cosmetics/ingredients). Paid plans are coming soon. Caching inside your product is allowed, and so is use by AI agents. Plans and units.

Status: Beta (new: the interface may still change, with notice in the docs). All products.