Every name on the label, and who published what about it.
Emollient reads the ingredient list on the back of a cosmetic and states what the EU annexes, the SCCS, IARC and other named bodies have concluded about each name, with the document and the date behind every line. It does not score the product.
iOS. In review for the App Store.
A real label, read
- Aqua
- Magnesium Laureth Sulfate
- Cocamidopropyl Betaine
- Glycerin
- Niacinamide
- Allantoin
- Benzyl Alcohol A labelled fragrance allergen, and an EU annex sets a condition on it. Its presence here is the labelling law working.
- Parfum An undisclosed mixture. The law lets a fragrance be declared under one word, so what is inside it is not on this label.
- Tetrasodium EDTA
- Propylene Glycol
- Methylchloroisothiazolinone Annex V, preservatives. The EU sets a maximum concentration and a ratio for this one.
- Methylisothiazolinone Annex V, and the SCCS has published on it. The dossier gives the opinion reference and the date.
Twelve of the twenty four ingredients on one real shampoo label, from the held out reference set. Four carry something to say.
Five marks, and each one is a fact
- A
- An individually labelled EU fragrance allergen
- §
- An EU annex sets a condition on this substance
- ?
- A mixture the label need not itemise
- ◷
- An adopted change with a date still ahead
- ×
- On the list you told the app you avoid
There is no sixth mark for "bad". No traffic light, no score out of a hundred, no colour scale on any count. Two colours carry meaning on the whole surface, and both of them are either a date or your own judgement.
What it will not tell you
It will not tell you a product is safe, unsafe, toxic or clean. That is not modesty, it is arithmetic. An ingredient list gives you the order of ingredients and nothing about the amount, and above one per cent the order is fixed while below it the order means nothing at all. Concentration decides nearly every real effect, so a verdict built from a list is a guess wearing a number.
What Emollient does instead is narrower and checkable. It counts four things it can prove from the label, names the body and the document behind every statement, and places the product against real labels it has measured rather than grading it against an opinion.
Where the facts come from
- Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, Annexes II to VI, consolidated
- Commission Decision (EU) 2019/701, the glossary of common ingredient names
- The SCCS opinion index, titles and references, never a paraphrased conclusion
- IARC monographs, the NTP Report on Carcinogens, California Proposition 65
- ECHA REACH Annexes XIV and XVII, and the SVHC candidate list
- Health Canada, South Korea, ASEAN, Japan, the United States and Great Britain
Every line the app prints carries the instrument it came from and the date it was retrieved. Where a source could not be reached it says so rather than approximating, and where two sources disagree about what a substance even is, it shows the disagreement.
Price
Scanning with the camera is the part that needs Plus. Paying does not change a single fact the app shows you.
Questions
Does it tell me if a product is safe?
No, and it will not. See above: a list gives order, not amount. The app counts what is declared, names who published what, and shows where the product sits among the labels it measured.
Do my photos leave my phone?
No. The label is read on the device by Apple's Vision framework. There is no account, no server that receives images, and no analytics. The ingredient data ships inside the app, so a scan needs no network at all.
Why restricted rather than banned?
Because a restriction is a condition. Hundreds of EU annex entries set a maximum concentration, a product type or a purity grade rather than a flat prohibition. A product legally on sale is within those conditions, so the presence of a restricted ingredient tells you the EU set a condition on the substance, not that the product broke one.
What happens if it cannot read the label?
It says so. Fewer than three recognised names is not a label, and the app refuses to place a product using two names rather than guessing. You can pick a photo you already took, or paste the list as text.
What does it know about an ingredient it has never researched?
It says that too. An ingredient can be recognised as a real name from the Commission's glossary and still have nothing published about it, and the dossier says exactly that rather than filling the space.