CAS stands for Chemical Abstracts Service, a division of the American Chemical Society, which assigns the numbers that universally designate chemical substances.
Recognised worldwide, the CAS number is a numerical code that allows the identification of chemical substances, whether they are of natural or synthetic origin.
It is assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service, in ascending order, to each substance that has been described in the literature.
This service also maintains and markets a database of these substances, the CAS Registry.
The CAS number is not reserved for the cosmetics industry, but it is useful to it as it is to all other industries since it facilitates searches in databases, which all allow a search by CAS number. Given the complexity of chemical nomenclature and the possibility of designating a substance by several names, the CAS number allows each substance to be identified without any ambiguity.
For example, the CAS number for caffeine is 58-08-2.
