Some shoppers won’t make a move without checking the Yuka app. With it, you can scan the barcodes on personal care and food packaging to discover their health and safety ratings on a scale of excellent (75 to 100 points) to bad (0 to 25 points). Created by French designers, the app is fully independent, meaning it operates without input or influence from the brands it analyzes. It considers all the ingredients in each product, with a strong focus on additives. Generally, Yuka tends to give products with additives and preservatives a poor rating, while organic ingredients receive excellent scores. Yuka, in a written statement to Air Mail Look, explains that it “does not advise against all products with additives, nor does it automatically favor organic products. Rather, products containing certain additives or controversial ingredients may receive lower ratings when independent scientific evidence indicates possible health risks. “But some experts believe these ratings oversimplify matters and lead consumers to reject perfectly good, safe products. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has endorsed it, calling it “invaluable,” which might not be entirely reassuring. We asked cosmetic chemist, Javon Ford, to scan and tell.—Linda Wells
The Yuka app treats products in a black-and-white way based on the ingredient list. But that list doesn’t tell you everything about a formula. It doesn’t tell you if the formula actually works or if it’s safe. It doesn’t give you the full picture.
Yuka looks at potential contaminants in the product, but it doesn’t take into account the concentration of that quote-unquote bad ingredient. Yuka objects to this portrayal, saying it does “indirectly take ingredient quantities into account by relying on the evaluations published by risk assessment agencies.”
Let’s look at something simple like Vaseline, which gets a zero rating on Yuka. The explanation is that the main ingredient, petrolatum, can be contaminated with PAHs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a known carcinogen. But petrolatum is only problematic if it’s unrefined and untreated. Vaseline, for example, refines its petrolatum three times to eliminate any risk. Any product with petrolatum, even if it’s EU-certified, gets a zero on Yuka.
Yuka also doesn’t take into account irritation. Essential oils usually get a positive rating, for example, but they can be irritants. Some of them, like lavender and tea tree oils, are known endocrine disruptors.
Another ingredient that’s maligned on Yuka is BHT, butylated hydroxytoluene, an antioxidant that keeps a product from spoiling or becoming rancid. It’s generally considered safe in low concentrations. The EU has a limit of 0.8% in a cosmetic product. And while the United States doesn’t have a limit, most companies follow the EU guidelines because they want their products to be sold internationally. On Yuka, though, any product containing BHT gets a low rating even when we don’t know the concentration of BHT in that product. It could be below 0.8%, but Yuka takes a worst-case-scenario approach. Yuka counters this, stating, “There’s a clear difference between that and a precautionary principle, which guides our evaluations. It’s not about assuming the worst, it’s about acknowledging credible, science-backed concerns and acting early to prevent potential harm.”
The app is helpful in providing a look at the overall ingredient list. Have you ever tried to read the ingredients panel on the back of a package? The type is usually so ridiculously small that you’d have to use a microscope to decipher it.
I don’t think Yuka is useful for making conclusions about the safety of a product because it doesn’t give the nuances of the ingredient’s concentration, its source, or whether the ingredient is refined.
Javon Ford is a Los Angeles–based cosmetic chemist. He posts highly informative lessons, reviews, and myth-busting content on TikTok and Instagram @javonford16
