Today: We investigated an app that gives beauty products safety ratings. Plus …
Millions of people use health apps to scan beauty products. But are they any good? |
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| Abbie Kozolchyk/NYT Wirecutter |
Some health apps — like the popular Yuka — aim to help shoppers make more informed decisions about the products they buy. They claim to be able to analyze the ingredients in everything from lip gloss to shampoo and assign each product a health score. But how do these apps determine the score? Are the recommendations accurate?
Our beauty expert spoke with cosmetic chemists, toxicologists, and a dermatologist to determine whether these product-scanning apps can really help shoppers. Ultimately, she found that the science used to determine a score is often oversimplified, and the recommendations are largely generalized. You should consider the ratings just one part of your shopping decision — not the be-all and end-all.
Everything you need to know before using Yuka→
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Plus: Is that beauty product you bought online a counterfeit? |
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| Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter and Dana Davis/NYT Wirecutter |
In certain corners of the internet, your chances of buying an item that isn’t what you think it is are shockingly high. We spent months researching and lab-testing 12 beauty products purchased from third-party sellers on Amazon, eBay, Shein, and Walmart — only to find that every single one had a problem.
The red flags to look for when shopping for beauty online→
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| Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter |
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Gift of the week: Chic mules |
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| Seavees |
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