Handy Smartphone Apps For Information On Unsafe and Safe Cosmetics

Do you ever wonder whether the cosmetics or skincare items you are buying are safe, and whether there's a safer alternative? Well there's an oddly named app called THINK DIRTY, that you can download for free onto your I-Phone from the i-Tunes Store, that will do that for you. I don't have an i-Phone, but it looks like an interesting app.

The description:

Think Dirty is the easiest way to learn about the potentially toxic ingredients in your cosmetics and personal care products. It’s an independent source that allows you to compare products as you shop. Just scan the product barcode and Think Dirty will give you easy-to-understand info on the product, its ingredients, and cleaner options.

- Barcode Scanning: over 10,000 cosmetics and personal care products majority from Canada and the U.S. are currently in our database.

- Dirty Meter: a comprehensive rating is given, along with detailed (but easy-to-understand) information on ingredients, certifications, and health impacts.

- My Bathroom Rating: keep track of what’s already in your bathroom. Learn your current dirty rating, and track your progress on “cleaning” it up.

- Shopping lists: save products to make shopping faster and easier.

- UPC Submission: Are we missing a product? Scan and submit a barcode for us to look into. For registered users who submitted products, we thank you and will notify you once they are in our database.

If anyone has an i-Phone, and you download the app, let me know what you think. And of course, free is good, you have nothing to lose.

Then for those of us who have Androids, there's another similar app called SKIN DEEP from the Environmental Working Group for both i-Phones and Androids.

The description:

EWG’s Skin Deep® Cosmetics Database is the world's largest safety reference tool for personal-care products. EWG has launched this app to provide you with easy-to-navigate safety ratings at your fingertips for a wide range of products and ingredients on the market.

This Skin Deep® app has information and online safety assessments for more than 72,000 personal care products, 2,500 brands and 9,000 ingredients, culled from product labels and from the scientific and industry literature.

To calculate a product score, we tally the hazards of each ingredient and evaluate every product in relation to all the others in Skin Deep®. The safest products score well by both measures: a low hazard rating AND fair or better data availability. EWG’s ratings are the best available information you can find on the safety of personal-care product ingredients.

Download for  i-Phone. Download for Android on GooglePlay.  I have downloaded the Skin Deep app, and will update after I have a chance to see how it works.