INCI dishwashing detergent

Sara Idenfors

How to read the ingredients list:


Authentic soft soap is made from oils/fats and potassium hydroxide instead of sodium hydroxide, which produces bar soap, because potassium hydroxide, or potassium lye as it is also called, creates soft soap crystals. Consequently, soft soap has an ingredients list with INCI names that begin with: Potassium. The names indicate that the soap consists of fatty acid salts (soft soap/soap) saponified with potassium hydroxide and the respective oil/fat.

This therefore does not mean that a “foreign chemical” has been added, but simply gives the specific name of the soft soap that has been formed and the oil/fat from which it was made. In everyday speech, we say soft soap; in “chemical language,” soft soap made from rapeseed oil is called: Potassium Canolate. And Aqua is simply ordinary water.

This is INCI

INCI stands for International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients and is the standardized name for an ingredient that must be listed in a product’s ingredients list. These names are often based on Latin when referring to plant extracts and similar substances, while other substances may have English names. INCI names can differ significantly from the common names we use in everyday life, which means that natural ingredients can sometimes sound chemical—and vice versa. Ordinary table salt is called, for example: Sodium Chloride. An INCI list for ordinary cow’s milk would contain approximately 18 lines, including Copper Gluconate (copper) and Potassium Iodide (trace) (iodine) under trace elements and vitamins—that is how detailed an INCI list actually is. There are currently no INCI requirements for food, so milk is simply called MILK, whereas soap and soft soap may not be called merely soap and soft soap.
Nor does the INCI name indicate whether a natural ingredient was organically grown. 
Some ingredients may also occur in both natural and synthetic forms without this being apparent from the INCI designation.

Our dishwashing detergent contains: 
5–15% soap, 5-<15% nonionic surfactants, <5% amphoteric surfactants, preservative: Sodium Benzoate

Publicly available list of ingredients
in accordance with Annex VII D of regulation (EC) No 648/2004

Product name: Dishwashing detergent
Manufacturer: VästerbottensSåpa AB

Ingredients:
WATER
FATTY ACIDS, C16-18 AND C18-UNSATD., POTASSIUM SALTS
ALCOHOLS, C10-16, ETHOXYLATED PROPOXYLATED
DECYLMONOETHANOLAMIDE ETHOXYLATE
SODIUM CITRATE
POTASSIUM CITRATE
2-METHYL-2,4,6,9-TETRAAZATRICYCLO[9.4.0.0,3,8]PENTADECA-1(15),3,5,7,11,13-HEXAENE
POLYASPARTIC ACID SODIUM SALT
ALCOHOL
COCAMIDOPROPYL BETAINE
TRIETHANOLAMINE
XANTHAN GUM
GLYCERIN
MEK
SODIUM BENZOATE
SODIUM HYDROXIDE
ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL
DENATONIUM BENZOATE

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