Best cosmetic ingredient databases in 2026

Cosmetic ingredient databases answer three different questions that get conflated: identity and function, supplier trade names and pricing, and regulatory status by market. CosIng, the European Commission's own database, is free and authoritative for EU identity and annex status but covers no other market and resolves no trade names. Good Face Project states the largest proprietary ontology in the category, graded across safety, sustainability and efficacy, with a public trade name library; CM Studio+ indexes 8,000+ raw materials with live pricing and direct purchasing; Coptis operates Coptis Ingredients as a separate platform; Tamats publishes a no-account ingredient index where each restriction names the regulation or retailer standard it was compiled from. Pick by the question you are actually asking.

Ingredient databases in this industry answer three different questions that get conflated: what is this substance (identity and function), who sells it (trade names and suppliers), and may I use it here (regulatory status by market). Almost no product does all three well, and knowing which one you are actually asking saves the wrong subscription.

We make one of these. Tamats is on this list and is labelled as ours. Everything factual about another tool is read from that vendor's own published material, with the URL and the date we read it, and each entry says plainly when the other option is the better buy — including ours, which carries what it is not for.

The tools, at a glance

What actually separates them

Which question it is built for

Identity, sourcing or legality. A catalog optimised for supplier discovery will not tell you an annex limit, and a regulatory index will not tell you who stocks it in 20kg drums.

Trade name to INCI resolution

Real formulas are written in trade names. A database that cannot resolve a supplier blend to its INCI components leaves the hardest step manual.

Is the grading transparent?

Scored or graded ingredient data is convenient and opaque. If a score drives a decision, the methodology behind it and the sources it reads should be published.

Public or gated

An index you can check before you buy — and link a colleague to — is worth more than a richer one behind a demo request.

The list

1. Good Face Project

   Best for

   Teams who want breadth and grading: a stated proprietary ontology of cosmetic ingredients graded across safety, sustainability and efficacy, plus a public trade name library and a private raw materials catalog.

   The nearest neighbour in category: cloud formulation software built around a proprietary ingredient ontology, sold across the whole value chain.

   • —Good Face describes itself as “the software for cosmetic product innovators, powered by AI and the industry's best data”.
   • —Four capability areas are named on the home page: Formulation, Regulatory Compliance, Claim Validation and Predictive Modeling.
   • —It is sold to four audiences: formulators and manufacturers, ingredient suppliers, brands, and retailers.

   Read from thegoodfaceproject.com on 2026-08-03Full comparisonGood Face Project alternatives

2. CM Studio+

   Best for

   Sourcing-first lookup: raw material search across a stated 8,000+ ingredients with live pricing and direct purchasing in the same place.

   A free-tier formulation platform bundled with an ingredient marketplace — the closest thing in the category to a zero-cost starting point.

   • —CM Studio+ combines formulation software, ingredient search, compliance tools and a marketplace in one system, sold to manufacturers, formulators and ingredient suppliers.
   • —Listed capabilities include AI-powered formula generation and evaluation, raw material search across 8,000+ ingredients with live pricing, regulatory compliance screening for EU, US and ASEAN, PLM features (versioning, batch tracking, QC workflows), direct purchasing with checkout, equipment maintenance and document management, and free data migration from competing platforms.
   • —On the free tier they state: “The base version is free, which is already more than anyone else in this space offers... Advanced capabilities are how we sustain the platform, and you only pay for what you choose to use.”

   Read from cmstudioplus.com on 2026-08-03Full comparisonCM Studio+ alternatives

3. Coptis

   Best for

   Labs already on Coptis PLM — the company also operates Coptis Ingredients as a separate ingredient platform.

   A long-established cosmetics PLM suite, sold to R&D laboratories and manufacturers running formal product-development cycles.

   • —Coptis describes Coptis PLM as “the only cosmetics software for managing all phases of the product development cycle”.
   • —It is aimed at cosmetic manufacturers, formulators, brands and R&D laboratories.
   • —Its stated capabilities include optimizing the formulation process, ensuring global regulatory compliance, centralizing and securing R&D data, team collaboration, and anticipating formula safety risks.

   Read from www.coptis.com on 2026-08-03Full comparisonCoptis alternatives

4. ChatGPT and other general AI assistants

   Best for

   Explaining what an ingredient does, in plain language, quickly — and the worst possible source for its regulatory status.

   The tool most cosmetic teams actually use for regulatory questions today — and the one that quietly produces the most expensive mistakes.

   Full comparison

5. Tamats — this is our product

   Best for

   The regulatory question specifically: a public, no-account ingredient index where each entry's restrictions name the regulation or retailer standard they were compiled from, derived from CosIng and the market corpora.

   Not for

   Supplier discovery, live pricing, stock availability or purchasing. Tamats does not sell ingredients and does not carry a supplier catalog.

Questions buyers actually ask

What is the best cosmetic ingredient database?

It depends which question you are asking. For regulatory status by market, you want an index that cites the regulation behind each restriction. For supplier discovery and pricing, you want a marketplace-backed catalog like CM Studio+. For graded attributes across safety, sustainability and efficacy, Good Face Project states the largest proprietary ontology in the category. These are three different products that all get called ingredient databases.

Is CosIng free to use?

Yes — CosIng is the European Commission's own database of cosmetic substances and ingredients, published openly. It is authoritative for EU ingredient identity and annex status and it is not a formulation tool: it will not tell you US, Korean or Japanese status, it will not resolve supplier trade names, and it will not screen a whole formula. Tools in this category build on it rather than replace it.

How do I find the INCI name for a supplier trade name?

The supplier's technical data sheet is the authoritative source, since a trade name is often a blend with several INCI components and its own water content. Trade name libraries help at scale: Good Face Project publishes a public one, and CM Studio+ and the PLM suites resolve trade names from their raw material catalogs.