One can never be 100% sure about the ingredients and chemicals used in everyday skin care products or cosmetics. But now, not knowing might be a thing of the past as new apps developed to let consumers know what they are using, will be available soon.
The first of these is a free iPhone app called Think Dirty. Based in Toronto, Think Dirty scans the barcode of a cosmetic product to check for ingredients and chemicals and then gives it score.
The score will then indicate whether the product contains any harmful ingredients, chemicals or allergens.
Not only will Think Dirty tell you what ingredients were used to make the product, but it will also list each ingredient separately and explain it‘s potential effect on your skin or health.
The app uses different sources to give you the information. These include The Environmental Working Group (EWG), The David Suzuki Foundation and The National Library of Medicine‘s Hazardous Substances Data Bank.
Think Dirty will also include warnings from different agencies in other countries about said ingredient.
Lily Tse, founder of Think Dirty says the app‘s main focus is to make the chemical-jargon filled label of a product more understandable to consumers:
“œWe all use so many products, and even when we look at the back of the label, we don‘t understand what‘s in them because we‘re not chemists,“ she said.
Tse explained that major cosmetic companies almost only focus on costing and not so much what they put in their products. Making something synthetic can be mass produced more easily and thus, lower the cost of production.
This is where Think Dirty will help everyday consumers know what they‘re putting on their skin.
According to the EWG, cosmetic consumers are exposed to approximately 168 chemicals found in everyday beauty products.
The EWG, a Washington-based health research and advocacy group, spend their time looking thoroughly into which toxic goes into cosmetics and beauty products.
The Skin Deep Cosmetics Database is a website that the EWG started in 2004. It services as a kind of glossary for consumers to look up potentially hazardous ingredients and chemicals in skin care products.
Currently, it has information on about 78 000 products that are available in the United States.
Nneka Leiba, deputy director of research at the EWG, said that the website has helped change the way consumers think about cosmetics:
“œWe‘ve had hundreds of millions of searches on the site since its launch 2004 and it‘s one of our flagship projects. It has pretty much changed the way people think about cosmetics,“ she said.
And the EWG‘s commitment to safe cosmetics will be even stronger; they are also currently planning on releasing a app later this month that will also allow consumers to access information on their products by simply scanning the barcode.
Should the product you are using contain some ingredients that are not face friendly, both the Think Dirty and Skin Deep app will suggest a safer, less harmful option for you.
Hopefully, with the proposed success of both these apps, major cosmetic companies will finally step up to the plate and use non-toxic, allergen free ingredients in their products – all while still creating your favourite shade of lipstick.
Source: MyBroadband
