Read what is actually in it.
A free app for cosmetic ingredient labels, built on the European Commission's own reference. Point it at a label and it tells you what each name is and what it does.
Getting the app
The iPhone and iPad app is out now, free, on the App Store. The Android app is open to testers while it goes through Google's closed test. The reference itself is free to use in any browser at skinrx.help.
Helping the Android app on its way
Android — help it through Google's test
The Android app is the same one as on the iPhone: search the reference, read a label from a photograph or a pasted list, and put a routine together. Before Google will publish it, it has to pass a closed test.
Please use the same Google account that is signed in on your Android phone for all three steps, and take them in order:
- Join the tester group. Join on Google Groups
- Accept the test. Become a tester
- Install the app. Open it on Google Play — this link shows Not found until the first two steps are done. That is Google hiding a test app from anyone not yet signed up, not a broken link.
Google asks for twelve testers who keep the app installed for fourteen days, so all that is really asked of you is to leave it on your phone. Use it as much or as little as you like. If anything reads wrongly, tap Report in the app or write to hi@skinrx.help.
iPhone and iPad
Already out. Get it free on the App Store — no account, no adverts.
If a label reads wrongly, tap Report in the app or write to hi@skinrx.help. That is still the most useful thing anyone can send me.
What it does
- Reads a label. Photograph the ingredients panel or paste the list, and every name is matched against 32,000 ingredients from the EU's own glossary.
- Says what each one is for. Its function, whether it is restricted and to what limit, and where the 1% line falls.
- Flags what people look for. Declarable fragrance allergens, essential oils, silicones, drying alcohol and UV filters — counted, not judged.
- Reads a whole routine. Several products together, to see what overlaps and which actives repeat.
- Works without a signal. The reference lives on the phone, so searching and decoding need no connection.
The manual
Every screen explained, with what each reading means and where the limits are. Read the manual — PDF, 39 pages, 2.6 MB.
Worth a look before you install it, if you want to know what it does and does not claim to tell you.
Where the data comes from
The ingredient names, their functions and their restrictions are from the European Commission's cosmetic ingredient glossary and the annexes to Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 — public, official, and cited as such. Product labels are read from the packaging and checked by hand.
It is a reference, not advice. It reports what a label declares and what the law says about it; it cannot tell you whether a product suits your skin, and it is not a way to check whether a formulation is lawful.
No accounts, no adverts, no tracking
There is nothing to sign up for. The app carries no advertising, and no analytics or tracking of its own, and never asks to track you. On its own it only checks skinrx.help for newer data and, when you open a product, fetches its photograph from skinrevu.co; on Android, the camera scanner and the tip jar use Google's libraries, which send Google usage figures, never the photo or its words. Anything else is sent only when you choose — a correction, or, with Help improve the dictionary turned on, an ingredient name the reference did not recognise or a search that found nothing.
The full detail is in the privacy policy.