1. Hard Rules vs Evidence vs Confidence

We separate three types of information in every report:

Hard Rules: Codified regulatory restrictions (bans, concentration limits, conditions of use) with official citations. These come directly from government rulebooks and annexes.
Evidence: Enforcement events, warning letters, import alerts, and adverse-event reports that mention an ingredient. These are factual occurrences but do not prove causation.
Confidence: Our assessment of how reliable a given piece of information is. Stable = direct from official source. Provisional = legacy or heuristic. Contextual = suggested guidance.

A rule with high confidence but zero evidence may still be actionable. An ingredient with many enforcement events but no hard rule may still be risky for marketing claims. We present all three so you can make informed tradeoffs.

2. Data Collection

We ingest data directly from official government sources and regulatory databases. Our current sources include:

U.S. FDA warning letters and import alerts
FDA/openFDA cosmetic adverse event reports
Health Canada Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist
EU CosIng Annex II-VI restrictions

We do not scrape retailer sites, brand pages, or unofficial databases. All data comes from primary regulatory authority publications.

2. Normalization

Each source uses different naming conventions, classifications, and rule formats. We normalize these into a single schema:

Ingredient identity: Canonical names mapped to CAS numbers where available
Market: US, EU, JP, KR, CA, ASEAN
Status: allowed, restricted, prohibited, disclosure_required, drug_boundary
Rule type: ban, restriction, preservative, uv_filter, colorant, allergen

Normalization is performed by our ingestion pipeline. If you spot a mapping error, contact us with the ingredient name and expected correction.

3. Update Cadence

Sources are refreshed on a rolling schedule:

FDA warning letters: daily
Import alerts: weekly
Adverse events: weekly
Health Canada Hotlist: monthly
EU CosIng: monthly

Each source page shows the last successful refresh timestamp. Sources marked "Stale" have not refreshed within 7 days.

4. Limitations

Our data has known limitations:

Enforcement events are matched by keyword similarity, not confirmed ingredient-level causation
Adverse event reports are matched by product name, not confirmed ingredient causation
Cross-market rules may not cover all product types or special-use categories
Concentration limits are source-specific and may differ between leave-on and rinse-off products

This tool is for informational and planning purposes. It does not constitute legal or regulatory advice. Always consult a qualified regulatory professional before launching a product.

5. Independence

IngredientCompliance is operated by Gerim-Sterling LLC. We are not affiliated with the FDA, Health Canada, the European Commission, or any other regulatory body. We republish public regulatory data with normalization and commentary.