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7 Apps to Help You Check for Chemicals & Find Non-Toxic Alternatives 

7 Apps to Help You Check for Chemicals & Find Non-Toxic Alternatives 

Inside This Post: Mobile apps to help you check for chemicals in products and find non-toxic alternatives for cleaning products, cosmetics, personal care products and food. 

This post may contain affiliate links. You can see my disclosure policy here

 

How to Check if Products are Safe or Toxic 

We live in a toxic world, but that doesn’t mean you need to be bringing harmful chemicals into your home.

Yes, Chemicals are added to foods, cosmetics, and household products and its made difficult when a lot of them claim to be “green” or safe. Manufacturers often hide ingredients, or use meaningless branding such as “natural” or “all natural” to try to convince shoppers the product is safe.

Make-up, feminine care and personal care products are some of the worst offenders out there.

According to the law, cosmetics, including feminine care products, sold in the United States must be free of poisonous or deleterious substances that might harm users under conditions of normal use.

However, the FDA admits that it does not assess or pre-approve products before they are marketed or require cosmetic companies to share safety information with the FDA.

This means companies don’t have disclosure their entire list of ingredients and you may never know exactly what’s inside the product you’re using.

Here’s a startling fact:

Most people use 126 ingredients on their skin daily, and shockingly, nearly 85 percent of the ingredients approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in personal-care products had not been evaluated for safety by the agency, the industry’s Cosmetics Ingredient Review panel, or any other regulatory body.

Thankfully, there are some great apps for your mobile phone which have done the dirty work for you and help you identify harmful chemicals, toxic ingredients and find safe, non-toxic alternatives.

These are the apps I personally use, that help me make buying decisions about what comes into our house so I can keep the chemicals and toxins out.

 

7 Mobile Apps to Help You Reduce Your Exposure to Chemicals & Find Safe, Non-Toxic Alternatives to Bring Into your Home

Think Dirty App

think dirty app to check for chemicals in products

The Think Dirty App is extremely easy to use and one you should have in your arsenal against chemicals.

You can enter the name of the product or scan the barcode and it’ll give you a rating of 0 – 10, with 10 being the most toxic and 0 being toxin free. You’ll get the product info, list of ingredients, and even a suggestion of safe and cleaner alternatives.

When I first started switching and ditching products, Think Dirty was my go-to tool that helped me decide what to keep and what to toss. When I needed to find new products, I always checked here.

 

EWG Healthy Living 

Use the EWG’s Healthy Living app to scan a product, see it’s EWG rating, ingredients, and suggestions to help you pick something less toxic.

EWG Food Scores rate more than 120,000 foods, 5,000 ingredients, and 1,500 brands.

The ratings are scored are on a 1-10 scale and incorporate nutrition, ingredient concerns, and degree of processing. Use this app when you’re out and about and want to quickly scan a product to see an instant rating.

 

Dirty Dozen 

This is another free app that helps you determine which fruits and vegetables are safest to buy as organic, or are Ok to buy not being organic.

The dirty dozen app shows in the app are the 12 most unsafe because they contain the most pesticide residue. When you know which veggies and fruit to buy organic, you can lower  your pesticide intake significantly by eating less contaminated produce.

The dirty dozen app was created by the Environmental Working Group and is an easy way to help you find good produce when you’re grocery shopping.

 

EWG Skin Deep

EWG’s Skin Deep Guide to Cosmetics has ratings for 80,000 personal care products.

It has categories for sunscreen, make-up, skin care, hair, nails, fragrance, baby products and oral care.

It definitely helps you navigate this complicated world and make safer choices. .

 

Good Guide

GoodGuide makes it easy way to find safe, green and ethical products you feel good about bringing into your home.

Simply use the barcode scanner, see the product ratings and make clean living choices about home products while you’re on the go shopping.

This is a great app to have on your phone and use whenever you’re shopping to ensure you make the healthiest, safest choices.

 

Non-GMO Shopping Guide

The Non-GMO Shopping Guide app is designed to help customers understand what is in their food and beauty products as well as to help them avoid GMOs.

All brands and products are verified through the Non-GMO Project’s Product Verification Program. This is the only third party non-GMO verification program in North America.

The list of non-GMO products in the app is searchable by brand or product name, keywords and product type so you can always find what you’re looking for. You can also find supported Non-GMO retailers nearby where you live.

 

EWG Food Scores 

7 Apps to Help You Check for Chemicals & Find Non-Toxic Alternatives The Environmental Working Group’s new Food Scores app gives users information on nutrition, toxicity, and degree of processing for 5,000 ingredients, 80,000 products, and 1,500 brands.

 

To gain a full understanding of what harsh toxins are lurking in your home and what happens when you breathe, eat, touch or smell them,  Download Your Free Starter Guide to Environmental Toxins Hiding in Your Home

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The Comments

  • Michelle
    February 2, 2023

    this is amazing,as its gets harder these days to try and stay away from toxic stuff.This is a huge help

  • Terri
    March 31, 2023

    EWG is terrible. It never has any of my products. I’ve had this app for 4 years and it doesn’t seem any better.

    • Corinne
      Terri
      June 11, 2024

      They definitely aren’t complete, unfortunately. I prefer the ThinkDirty app to check things myself. After time, you start to recognize ingredients you want to avoid and it gets easier if you’re in the grocery aisle wondering…