Formulation Audit

Know exactly which ingredients earn their place.

Enter an existing cosmetic formulation line by line with dosages, or upload it as a CSV, Excel or PDF, and theformulator.ai audits every ingredient against its functional role, category norms from 1M+ launched products, and a catalogue of chemistry conflict rules. Each ingredient is classified Essential, Optimizable, Questionable or Removable, with the effective concentration range it was measured against. A Quick Audit costs 1 credit; the first three are free.

Upload any formulation. Get an evidence-backed evaluation of every ingredient: functional necessity, concentration adequacy, chemistry conflicts, and optimization opportunities. Built for companies with hundreds of existing SKUs to optimize.

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Section 01

The four verdicts.

ESSENTIAL

Functionally necessary and correctly dosed

Glycerin at 5.0% — Primary humectant. Within effective range (2–10%). Present in 94% of similar products. No redundancy.

OPTIMIZABLE

Functional but concentration or source could be improved

Tocopheryl Acetate at 0.8% — Functional antioxidant, but at the low end of its effective range (0.5–2.0%). Consider increasing to 1.0–1.5% for stronger stabilization.

QUESTIONABLE

Presence is hard to justify from available evidence

Sodium Hyaluronate at 0.005% — At 0.005%, this is 5% of the minimum effective concentration (0.1%). Present for label claims only — delivers no measurable hydration benefit at this level.

REMOVABLE

Below minimum effective concentration or redundant

Panthenol at 0.01% — At 0.01%, this is 2% of the minimum effective concentration (0.5%). Sub-functional. Include at 0.5–5% or remove entirely.

Section 02

What the audit catches.

Sub-functional dosing

28% of products include actives below their minimum effective concentration.

Hyaluronic acid at 0.005%. Retinol at 0.001%. Niacinamide at 0.1%. These concentrations appear on the label but deliver no functional benefit. The audit flags every instance, with the actual effective range from technical data sheets and peer-reviewed literature.

Ingredient bloat

15% of formulations contain more ingredients than their category needs.

A face moisturizer with 34 ingredients when the category median is 22. Three redundant thickeners when one would suffice. Two overlapping humectants at sub-optimal concentrations instead of one at its effective level. The audit identifies redundancy groups and suggests consolidation.

Chemistry conflicts

Incompatible ingredients that shouldn't coexist in the same formula.

Anionic surfactants paired with cationic conditioning agents. Vitamin C at pH 3.5 destabilizing a carbomer network that needs pH 5.5+. Niacinamide and direct acids competing for the same pH window. The audit checks hundreds of chemistry rules and flags conflicts with specific fix recommendations.

Section 03

How it works.

01

Upload your formula

Upload a CSV, Excel, DOCX or PDF formulation, or enter ingredient rows manually. Review the concentrations before running the audit.

02

AI evaluates every ingredient

Each ingredient is looked up against 44,000+ technical data sheets, 30,000+ functional roles, market norms from 1M+ products, and hundreds of chemistry rules. Concentration flags are computed deterministically, not left to AI judgment.

03

Get an actionable report

Download a branded PDF with every ingredient classified, rationale for each verdict, and specific optimization recommendations. Quick audit or deep audit, your choice.

Powered by regulatory intelligence across 21 markets, ingredient safety methodology, market intelligence from real products, and the chemistry knowledge base.

1M+ products batch-analyzed28% sub-functional actives detected15% ingredient bloat identified30,000+ functional roles mapped
Pricing

Straightforward credits.

Quick Audit

1 credit

Deep Audit

2 credits

Free account

Includes 3 free Quick Audits

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Your formulations stay private.

Private workspace

Your generated formulations are stored in a workspace tied to your account. No one at theformulator.ai can access your formulation content.

No internal access

We do not use your formulation data for training, analytics, or any purpose other than delivering your results.

You own your data

Export your formulations at any time in full. If you leave, your data leaves with you.

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Frequently asked questions

What does the audit check that I can't see from the INCI list?

Concentration adequacy against the effective range for each ingredient's functional role, redundancy across ingredients doing the same job, and chemistry conflicts between ingredients that should not share a formula. The three patterns it most often catches, illustrated: actives dosed below their minimum effective concentration — Sodium Hyaluronate at 0.005%, panthenol at 0.01% — present for the label and delivering nothing; ingredient bloat, where a moisturizer carries far more ingredients than its category median with three thickeners doing one thickener's work; and incompatibilities such as an anionic surfactant with a cationic conditioner, or vitamin C at pH 3.5 destabilising a carbomer network that needs pH 5.5 or above. Each verdict states the range it was measured against.

Are the verdicts AI opinion or deterministic?

The concentration flags are computed from technical data sheets, 30,000+ functional roles and category benchmarks drawn from 1M+ launched products — a 0.005% Sodium Hyaluronate flag is arithmetic against a stated minimum, not a judgment. Chemistry conflicts are screened against a catalogue of conflict rules. The rationale that explains each verdict is written by a model, and it is constrained to cite the corpus figures behind the flag rather than free-associate. The part that can be wrong in a costly way is the arithmetic, and that part is not left to a model.

What formats can I upload?

Enter ingredient rows with concentrations, or upload a CSV, Excel, DOCX or PDF formulation. Review the extracted table before running the audit. Concentrations are required for an adequacy verdict.

What is the difference between a Quick Audit and a Deep Audit?

A Quick Audit (1 credit) classifies every ingredient and gives the rationale and effective-range citation for each verdict. A Deep Audit (2 credits) extends the same evaluation with alternatives and optimisation recommendations. Both return a branded PDF you can share with a client or a manufacturer. A free account includes three Quick Audits.