Know Your Grooming Labels

No, we're not talking about labels like Molton Brown and Clinique For Men, but rather – the little labels you see on the back of every grooming and beauty product out there. Who can confidently say that they know what each of them mean?

It’s probably one of the last things many people look at (if at all!), but Paul Crawford from the Cosmetics, Toiletry and Perfumer Association points out that ‘The information will explain how to get the best results out of your products, and how to use them safely’. With that in mind, here’s our guide to labels….

The lid is the recommended number of months, from opening, that the product should be used before it becomes 'useless'.

Similar to the lid is the egg timer, which is usually accompanied by a written best before date. But don’t worry if you can’t find one because not all products display them, maybe because they come in single use packs or their high alcohol content prevents them from deteriorating.

Quite an easy one. It means the quantity displayed on the product is correct, according to EU standards.

This doesn't mean you can recycle it, but actually just refers to waste management. It doesn’t have any legal meaning here in Britain and it’s only found on products sold globally.

Now, this IS a recycling symbol and found on a wide range of items. It's the triangular symbol, with three arrows chasing each other. The lettering beneath the symbol tells you the material, but don’t worry about the number in the middle because that just refers to same thing (material type). But, if this number is a %, then this is quite different and it shows the percentage of recycled materials contained in the product.

This claims that the product has used the maximum amount of organic ingredients (95%), as satisfied by the Soil Association.

If it can’t claim to be organic overall, the product can still claim to contain organic ingredients, so long as at least 70% or more of the total formula contains organic ingredients.

So there we go. Will you ever look at your grooming products the same again…?!