When it comes to reading food labels, the whole “if you can’t pronounce it, skip it” approach to ingredients can be a pretty effective, time-saving shorthand for filling your cart with only healthy items. But sadly the same is not necessarily true when it comes to your beauty buys.

Beauty industry standards require ingredients to be listed by their International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredient (INCI)—AKA scientific or Latin—names, and that means even the simplest labels can be difficult to decipher. This is clearly a challenge for people, a fact that was reflected in a 2017 survey that showed 51 percent of consumers would switch to a new personal-care product if they were better able to understand what was in it. To help with that transition, some brands have begun taking innovative steps toward providing greater clarity in their labeling.

Brian Oh, founder and CEO of VENN Skincare, says he actually wants consumers to question his company’s ingredients. To that end, VENN highlighted nine key components in gold foil on the product’s packaging. “This is a way to cause consumers to take a closer look at the ingredients in VENN’s formula and to make VENN users feel empowered by the safe ingredients,” he says.

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