Personal care products are part of everyone’s daily routine, and all of them are absorbed by our largest organ – the skin. Ingredient labels are hard to read since they’re in fine print, and it’s not even mandatory that these ingredients be legible to consumers. All of the chemical names can be hard to search and understand, let alone memorize.
Toronto-based designer created an app called Think Dirty to empower ingredient-conscious consumers to choose the safest beauty and personal care products.
The EU has banned over 1,300 chemicals, Canada – 640, and the U.S. FDA did the same with only 11 ingredients for cosmetics.The problem, according to the project author, is that different personal care products use different kind of ingredients. Moreover, some of these ingredients are banned in certain countries, while some others don’t mind them at all.
In the U.S., there are more than 80,000 chemicals in products that are used daily, like cosmetics and body-care products. Of these chemicals, only 20% have been tested, and very few are restricted or banned. The EU has banned over 1,300 chemicals, Canada – 640, and the U.S. FDA did the same with only 11 for cosmetics. So yes, there are wide discrepancies in safety standards, making it difficult for consumers to navigate the cosmetics aisle.
Some users opt for “natural” products, but that doesn’t help at all times. Said term has no legal definitions, meaning many product claims are often misleading to consumers.
The Think Dirty mobile app will try to solve this problem if it hits the set funding goal at Indiegogo. The application will come with a robust database of products, educational content, and challenges to incentivize positive behavior for health and environment.
Touted as the easiest way to learn about the potentially toxic ingredients in your cosmetics and personal care products, the application will allow users to just scan the product barcode, and let the underlying software do its magic, giving easy-to-understand information on the product, its ingredients and cleaner options.