Beautiful lip colors swatched in feature photo all from ILIA Beauty

In this series, Amazingy Magazine brings you well-rounded knowledge on some of the most prevalent ingredients out there. In our mission to promote a green and healthy lifestyle, inside and out, we believe that the first step is advocating educated consumption. We want you to be able to quiz yourself on back of a product with the ingredient list and to pass with flying colors. This means you understand the gibberish that ingredients are often disguised as, for both food and cosmetics. Practice self-love by knowing what exactly you’re putting in your body AND on your body.

One of the questions we receive frequently is about the term “may contain” on the back of cosmetic products. Since there are so many of you out there wondering what that phrase means when it’s used in ingredient lists, we thought we’d write a little piece explaining to you why brands use these words. There are several different possible reasons that brands might do this. More often than not, it’s used as a disclaimer or as kind of a blanket coverage when brands are worried about allergenic ingredients. Here are some of the most common reasons you’d see “may contain”.

1. Sometimes, when brands are switching from old formulas to a newer formula, they’ll use the phrase on all their packaging because they’re still distributing both formulations. However, this is extremely rare and I haven’t seen it very much at all.

2. Another possible reason is that the product could have been made using shared equipment where other things are produced that do include those trace elements. Even if the equipment is properly cleaned in between different uses, a brand might still list “may contain” those ingredients in question simply to err on the side of caution.

3. This is by far the most common reason and it only relates to pigmented makeups (think blush, lipstick, eyeshadow). If the base formulation for every shade of lipstick is the same and it’s only the color that changes, it’s very common for a makeup line to use the same packaging for every shade. So while some shades might include carmine and others don’t, they all have “may contain traces of carmine” on the back. This saves the brand from having to print separate packaging for every individual lipstick hue, and it saves the forest a couple more trees as well.

I know how frustrating it can be when you’re reading an ingredient list and you see “may contain”—it seems like manufacturers should know whether an ingredient is in there or not. In any case, I hope this article helps clear up some of your confusion on the matter. At the end of the day, the best thing you can do is to get in touch with the brands directly. Most of our brands here at Amazingy are pretty transparent when it comes to what their policy is for using “may contain”.

Have more questions you want answered? Leave a comment below on what you’d like to know more about next.