Independent breakdown
Think Dirty
Limited valueTechnology: Ingredient safety scanner — proprietary 0–10 "dirty" hazard score
Plain English verdict
Think Dirty assigns every ingredient a "dirty" score from 0–10 based on hazard classification data. The methodology conflates hazard with risk: an ingredient flagged as harmful at high doses in an animal study receives a high dirty score regardless of the trace concentration it appears in at in a face cream. This is the same logical error as rating water dangerous because humans can drown in it. The scores are not peer-reviewed, and the app operates a product marketplace that benefits commercially from high dirty scores on competitor ingredients. An ingredient lookup tool; not an accurate safety-assessment tool.
Worth it if you want
- +Looking up what an ingredient is called and what it does
- +As a starting point before cross-referencing with CosIng or PubMed
Not worth it if
- −Making purchasing or safety decisions based on the numerical score alone
- −Assessing ingredient safety at the concentrations actually used in the product