You simply won’t believe what’s in your beauty products – but this app can tell you

Having lived through five decades, it astounds me how differently we interact with food, drink, and beauty products than we did years ago. When I was a teenager, I never questioned what I was putting into my body or onto my skin. The thought never crossed my mind that, other than the risk of some heart disease much later down the line, these products might actually cause me some serious damage.

Along with millions of others, I’ve been on the health train these past few years, trying to cut out ultra-processed food, and now my attention is turning to other products that I regularly use. These include personal care products such as shampoos and conditioners, as well as creams, sunscreen, and deodorant. Having kids has also made me much more conscious of how my buying choices will affect them in the future, so I have a lot of skin in the game, if you’ll pardon the pun.

The question for me has been, where do you start?’ I’ve spent too much time staring at the back of bottles, scanning through ingredient lists, and Googling the ones that look the most concerning. It’s a minefield that hasn’t produced any results. That’s why I’m indebted to the Think Dirty app that has helped me navigate an increasingly complex world with relative ease.

Scanning products

The Think Dirty journey begins by scanning all the products in your bathroom, bedroom, and cleaning cupboard. Through a dedicated barcode scanner tab, it is possible to quickly and easily make a record of everything you currently own. Having scanned a number of products, I was amazed at how reliable the technology is, especially when it comes to reflective bottles and crumpled-up tubes.

There were also very few times that the app didn’t recognise a product. With a database of over 2.6 million products, Think Dirty has you covered. On the odd occasion that a product is missing, users can also submit new products through a simple manual process.

The first step of this involves entering a few basic details, such as the product and brand name. The second requires you to take two photos, one of the front of the packaging and one of the back. The final step is to add the ingredients. This can be entered manually, but I much prefer the capture tool that can transcribe a list of ingredients from a photo. Genius.

Cutting out dirty products

After scanning items or entering them manually, the next step is to add them to lists. This makes it much easier to keep track of your products and move towards making healthier choices. The Think Dirty app begins by giving you three pre-created lists: ‘My Bathroom Shelf’, ‘Dirty Products’, and ‘Clean Products’. It’s also possible to create other lists and name them whatever you want.

I like these lists as I’m a sucker for organization but one feature that I think the app is missing is ‘smart’ functionality that would automatically populate your dirty and clean product lists from the items you’ve scanned. Given that the app knows exactly what ingredients are in each product, this wouldn’t be too difficult. It would also let users identify and cut out dirty products more quickly.

After doing all the hard work upfront, you’re now ready to make some decisions about whether you want to keep a particular product or not. I decided to only throw away the dirtiest and choose to work my way through the rest of a partially dirty bottle. Over time, I’ve been able to gradually transform my itinerary of products with the hope that my future self will thank me for it.

Go premium for the full experience

The full Think Dirty app experience requires a premium subscription, which can be purchased for $59.99/£49.99, although there are regular discounts. If you’d like lifetime access, then you can opt for a one-time $99/£167 payment.

Full access unlocks a number of features that will enhance your shopping experience and provide deeper insights into the safety of products. You’ll also get access to curated safe product lists, an ingredient lookup tool, personalized ingredient preferences, and user-submitted products.

If you’ve been thinking about making better choices when it comes to personal care products, then Think Dirty will help you on the journey.

You can download the Think Dirty app on iOS or Android.