Selling an ingredient

What to put on your label

On this page9

Identity, by name Net quantity A lot number The restrictions Handling and storage Your name and a way to reach you Leave room for all of it And keep your own copy References

Your label is the source document for somebody else's compliance.

Identity, by name

What the material actually is, in the names a customer will have to use on their own ingredient declaration. A marketing name alone leaves them guessing at the one thing they cannot guess at.

Net quantity

By weight for a powder, and weight is also what you should be filling to. Dry materials settle and vary in bulk density, so volume is not a reliable proxy for either of you.

A lot number

Which is how a customer who matched a colour last month gets the same one again, and how you answer a question about a batch two years later. It costs a mark and it is the backbone of consistency.

The restrictions

Approved uses and exclusions, stated rather than linked. A customer reading the jar at a bench is not going to go and look it up.

Handling and storage

Keep dry, keep closed, keep out of light where it matters. For fragrance oil this reaches flammability, and for powders it reaches caking.

Your name and a way to reach you

Obvious, and routinely missing from small supply operations selling decanted material. A customer with a question about an ingredient in their product needs to reach the person who sold it.

Leave room for all of it

A 30 mL jar of mica with an identity, a quantity, a lot, restrictions and a contact is a crowded label. Laying it out before choosing the container is the usual advice and it applies hardest at the smallest sizes.

And keep your own copy

A filed label per lot, with the batch record. When a customer asks what they bought in March, that file is the only answer that is not a guess.

References

21 CFR 73.2496, mica as a color additive for use in cosmetics: "Mica is safe for use in coloring cosmetics generally, including cosmetics applied to the area of the eye, in amounts consistent with good manufacturing practice", conforming in identity and specifications to 73.1496(a)(1) and (b), bearing labeling in accordance with 70.25, and exempt from batch certification because "certification of this color additive is not necessary for the protection of the public health". law.cornell.edu

The Davis Pack Supply catalog, measured 18 October 2026. The soap and candle supply shelf is 1,361 rows: 812 containers and 549 closures, the largest in the library, derived from three archetypes across five leaves. 482 PET, 159 HDPE, 100 glass and 71 PP, from 15 to 2,000 mL with a median of 225. The closures include 13 spice caps, which is the sifter fitment a jar of mica needs.

Written from 21 CFR 73.2496 and 701.20, and from the catalog as it stood on 18 October 2026. Whether a given color additive is approved for a given use is a question about that additive and that use, and the answer is in the regulation rather than in a supplier description; nothing here substitutes for checking it.