無添加 does not have a legal definition
You will see 無添加 (mutenka, “additive-free”) on a lot of Japanese packaging. It is not a regulated term, and there is no standard list of what a product has to leave out to use it.
The phrase is a leftover from an older labelling regime. Before 2001, Japanese cosmetics only had to declare a specific set of designated ingredients — the ones then associated with allergic reactions. “無添加” originally meant a product contained none of those. Since 2001, every ingredient has had to be declared anyway, so the original meaning has largely dissolved while the word stayed on the box.
In practice it is a claim about a specific short list, and responsible brands say which: 「パラベン無添加」 (paraben-free), 「アルコール無添加」 (alcohol-free). A bare 無添加 with nothing after it tells you almost nothing. It never means “contains nothing synthetic” and it never means the ingredient list is short.
Organic is not regulated for cosmetics in Japan
Japan has no legal standard for organic cosmetics. The JAS organic system covers food and agricultural products, not skincare. A Japanese product can be labelled organic with a single organic-farmed plant extract present at a fraction of a percent.
Certification marks from other bodies — COSMOS, Ecocert, USDA — do carry real criteria, but those are private standards, they differ from one another, and a product carrying one is making a claim about that standard rather than about Japanese law. If organic content matters to you, the mark is worth more than the word.
The specific claims are more useful than the vague ones
- 無香料 means no fragrance was added for scent. It does not mean the product has no smell — raw ingredients have their own odour, and a masking agent may be used to cover it.
- アルコールフリー conventionally refers to ethanol. Products carrying it commonly still contain fatty alcohols such as セタノール (cetyl alcohol), which behave nothing like ethanol on skin.
- ノンコメドジェニック means the product was tested for pore-clogging, not that it cannot cause a breakout on your skin.
- 低刺激(“low irritation”) and 敏感肌用(“for sensitive skin”) are not defined by any standard and are not testable claims.
What to do instead
The front of the box is marketing; the ingredient list is the product. If you are avoiding something specific, look for it in the list rather than relying on a claim that it is absent — that is the only check that actually answers the question.
This is also the more reliable habit for a product you cannot read. How to read a Japanese cosmetic ingredient label covers where to find the list and how to read its order, and nemi will check a full list against ingredients you have told it to avoid.