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Cessie Cerrato, a New York City-based publicist, was shopping with a friend in Sephora when she came across a mineral sunscreen from a well-known brand. Before dropping it into her basket, she was urged to “scan it on Yuka.” For the uninitiated, Yuka is a product analysis app that provides ingredient transparency in the food and beauty sectors. After scanning the product, Cerrato was shocked to see the poor ingredient ratings from a company she had previously deemed trustworthy. Now, she is embarking on a new health journey to be extra mindful of what she’s putting in and on her body, and an app like Yuka can help her parse through dense information to find easy answers.
Yuka was founded by Benoit Martin, François Martin, and Julie Chapon in 2017 with the goal to “bring more transparency to the composition of cosmetic products,” Chapon says. The back of a product label can be nearly impossible to decipher for the average person, but with Yuka, “consumers now have access to detailed information about a product’s composition and are informed if the products contain any risky ingredients like BHT, BHA, methylisothiazolinone, propylparaben, octocrylene, or oyclomethicone,” she explains. Some common “risks” the app identifies have to do with irritation potential, allergies, and endocrine disruption, which are chemical molecules present in our environment that disrupt the functioning of our hormones. When Yuka deems an ingredient “risky,” users can tap the ingredient to learn more and assess whether it’s necessary to abandon the product altogether. The brand’s in-house toxicologist, Zoé Kerlo, thoroughly studies each ingredient and food additive.
The way the app works is fairly simple: Scan the product’s barcode through your phone’s camera and a results page populates that breaks down the good and bad ingredients, revealing a score out of 100. Anything over 50 is considered good. Yuka’s database contains over five million products and is sourced from both users uploading information and brands emailing in product data. For an independent app with no funding from brands or manufacturers, Yuka has an impressive user base of over 56 million, including 14 million in the U.S. alone.
Cerrato isn’t alone in treating Yuka’s verdicts as final. In March, the app conducted a major impact study involving 20,000 users that evaluated how increased access to product information influenced shopping choices. According to Chapon, 56 percent of these users reported that they always put products back that have bad ratings in the app, while 38 percent said they often do the same.
While the app offers a convenient way to make healthier choices, it’s not without issues. “Any time we enumerate something, we increase the risk of addiction,” cautions Dr. Lembke, MD, a professor and medical director of addiction medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the author of Dopamine Nation. “Dopamine is very sensitive to numbers and rankings, so giving a behavior or, in this case, a product a number seems to increase the risk of focusing on that number and using it as a benchmark against some ideal number we’re working toward.”
When focusing on numbers daily, users may start to equate their worth with the success of achieving the perfect routine. It becomes more problematic when apps “don’t take into account ingredient percentage, how the product was formulated, or how the product is meant to be used,” explains Ron Robinson, a cosmetic chemist and the founder of BeautyStat. Consumers can assume that if a product contains a certain ingredient, that ingredient is either good or bad. But in reality, and to make a truly informed decision, “percentage amount and how the product is formulated can greatly determine whether or not the product is safe,” he adds.
Despite this, apps like Yuka offer an easy, low-effort way for consumers to feel more educated and empowered to make their own choices. For someone without a background in cosmetic science, it acts as a simple solution for staying informed about purchases.
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This is a goal that Biba de Sousa, a licensed esthetician and the CEO of Biba de Sousa Skin Care, believes in. “Since roughly 2015, the beauty industry has undergone a transformation driven by increased consumer awareness, prompting much-needed changes such as transparency in manufacturing methods, supply chain, and marketing strategies,” she says. This led her to create the Pore Clogger Checker, a pioneer tool in showcasing users’ product ingredient lists for comedogenic products that could potentially cause acne. Her lifelong mission has always been to empower anyone interested in mastering the art of professional skin care, and she’s noticed a true change in consumer awareness, too. “I’m continually amazed and humbled by the insightful questions about product ingredients that my customers pose. I believe they are now using skin care more effectively, adopting healthier lifestyle habits, and experiencing greater self-esteem as a result of the Pore Clogger Checker.”
Similarly, Yuka has a demonstrated success rate. In fact, 56 percent of users reported that they’ve stopped purchasing over 10 products since joining the app, while 34 percent have stopped buying between five and 10 products that they would typically purchase. The information reported by Yuka has also had a direct impact on the health of the app’s users. In terms of beauty, 80 percent of users revealed that they believe the health of their skin and hair has improved thanks to Yuka. “Among the positive changes noted were enhanced skin hydration, better-looking hair, increased skin radiance, reduced allergic reactions, and diminished redness and irritation,” Chapon says. For her part, Cerrato has “made it a point to check with her doctor and derm (after using Yuka) about what toxins are truthfully disruptive and what levels they have to be consumed at to be harmful.”
One thing is clear: consumers want to be healthier and know that their products play a crucial role in their lifestyle. For now, as the app further develops and expands its reach, they will need to follow Cerrato’s lead and tap multiple resources when selecting a product to be sure of its efficacy. And of course, relying solely on tools like Yuka or the Pore Clogger Checker doesn’t give the full picture, and may potentially assign a product an unfair score.
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For example, consumers still have quite a bit of fear associated with fragrance and synthetics. “A scented product that has the word ‘fragrance’ on the label might automatically receive a lower score and [be] labeled as harmful, but as fragrance becomes more transparent, and ingredient knowledge is more widespread, consumers will no longer need to avoid it,” explains Ashlee Posner, founder of Lucent Laboratories, a transparent fragrance house and manufacturer.
All things considered, we’re still in the early stages of companies making improvements toward more visibility. However, tools that allow consumers to check ingredients are true catalysts in providing clarity and helping people establish trust from brands. Historically, companies have focused on what they put in, and not necessarily why they include it. Most buyers cannot speak to safety risks by simply reading an ingredient list.
Sure, everyone has differing health goals, and apps like Yuka can’t account for every variable. But its ability to increase consumer awareness and intelligence renders the app useful for curating a values-oriented beauty and wellness regimen. It’s safe to say with this resource literally at your fingertips, the iPhone is your new beauty advisor.
