Cosmetic Clays: INCI Names for Kaolin, Bentonite, and More

Clay suppliers sell by color and vibe. French green clay, pink Brazilian clay, Rhassoul, Moroccan lava clay, Fuller's earth. Every one of those names sells a jar beautifully and tells you nothing about what actually goes on your ingredient filing. Clays are a recurring source of mislabeled INCI decks because makers copy the supplier's product name straight onto their formula sheet instead of pulling the actual mineral identity.

Why this trips people up

Clay names are regional and marketing-driven, but the mineral underneath usually maps to one of a handful of INCI entries. "French green clay" isn't a mineral, it's a description of where a particular illite or montmorillonite deposit was mined and what color the iron content gives it. Two suppliers selling "French green clay" might have slightly different mineral blends, and neither of them is going to hand you an INCI name unless you ask specifically.

The result is formula sheets that list "rose clay" or "Australian pink clay" as an ingredient, which isn't a name any regulator's system recognizes. Filings need the standardized INCI term, not the retail name, full stop.

The common clays and their INCI names

That "ask the supplier" note isn't a cop-out. Clay composition genuinely varies by deposit, and a supplier selling "pink clay" from one quarry may have a materially different mineral mix than another supplier's "pink clay" from a different source. The only reliable path is asking for the technical data sheet or SDS, where section 3 (composition) should list the actual mineral identity, and cross-checking that against current INCI dictionary entries since naming conventions do get updated periodically.

What happens when clays are blends

Some clay products aren't a single mineral at all, they're a supplier blend of two or three clays plus maybe a trace mineral additive for color or texture. When that's the case, you don't file "pink clay blend" as one line. You break it into its actual INCI components and carry through the percentages: if the blend is 70% kaolin and 30% illite, and you're using the blend at 5% in your finished mask, your filing needs kaolin at 3.5% and illite at 1.5%, not a mystery 5% "clay blend" entry.

A few practical habits

• Request the SDS or technical data sheet before you formulate with a new clay, not after you've already built and priced a batch.
• Don't assume color name equals mineral identity. Green doesn't always mean illite, pink doesn't always mean kaolin with iron oxide.
• If a supplier can't tell you the INCI name or mineral composition, that's a sourcing red flag worth acting on before it becomes a filing problem.
• Keep the supplier documentation on file even after you've filed, since amendments or audits may ask you to show where the INCI mapping came from.

If you're staring at a formula sheet full of pretty clay names and no INCI equivalents, that's exactly the kind of mapping problem Cosmetic Comply is built to catch. It matches each ingredient to its INCI name and CAS number, expands supplier blends into their real components with the percentages carried through, and flags anything it can't confidently match so a human reviewer can chase down the actual mineral identity before the notification goes in.