Ranked on chemistry alone.
See moisturizer rankings →Scan the first one and it lands here, ranked against every other product of its type on the same rubric.
Scan one →What do you want your skincare to fix?
Breaking out? Check any product with the acne & pore-clogging ingredient checker or the fungal acne checker.
Safety is the easy question. We ask if your skincare actually works.
A product can be perfectly safe and still do nothing for your skin. That's the gap most cosmetic ingredient checkers leave open. DemythSkin grades every active on its clinical evidence, weighs it by where it sits in the list, and judges the formula as a whole, so a sprinkle of peptide near the end of the list doesn't get credit for the whole bottle.
| What it checks | DemythSkin | Yuka | EWG Skin Deep | INCIDecoder |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What the score answersThe question behind the number | Does it work? Is it safe? | Is it risky for health & planet? | How hazardous? | No product score |
| Only on DemythSkinEfficacy scoreDoes the formula do what it claims? | ✓1.0–5.0 | |||
| Safety flagsIrritants & sensitisers | ✓ | ✓0–100 | ✓1–10 | Per ingredient |
| Evidence-graded activesEach active rated by clinical proof | ✓S–D tiers | Superstar tags | ||
| Judged against its own jobA cleanser isn't graded like a serum | ✓ | |||
| Barcode scanPoint the camera, get a result | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Better alternativesHigher-scoring swaps for the same job | ✓Matched by concern | ✓ | Compare (Premium) | |
| Finding dupesSame key actives, lower price | ✓By formula overlap |
We don't read labels. We audit them.
You type a skincare product name and our skincare ingredient analyzer reads the full INCI list and grades the formula against clinical evidence. Brand name, price and packaging claims are ignored.
Find the real formula
Type the product name. The analyzer retrieves its exact INCI list.
Judge the chemistry, not the brand
What actives are in the formula, how much of it, and what does the published evidence say it does?
Run the fixed rubric
Every ingredient is mapped against 3,000+ compounds. A deterministic rubric — not an AI's opinion — computes efficacy and safety.
No brand pays us. Only you support DemythSkin.
DemythSkin is funded by its users and by disclosed affiliate links that are added only after a product is scored. Free and Pro see identical scores; Pro adds unlimited scans and shows exactly what in a formula matters for your skin.
Follow the deinfluencing.
Brand teardowns, "is it worth it?" verdicts and the cheaper formula that scored higher — every week on Instagram and TikTok.
What the marketing claimed, what the formula said, and the cheaper product that scored higher.
How the scoring works
What the scores mean, how the tiers work, and why we leave your preservatives alone.
What is a skincare ingredient checker?
A skincare ingredient checker reads a product's full ingredient list and tells you what's in it. DemythSkin goes one step further and tells you whether the formula works: every product gets a DemythSkin efficacy score and a safety score, each from 1.0 to 5.0.
How is this different from Yuka, EWG or INCIDecoder?
Those tools are built to answer “is this safe?” DemythSkin also answers the question you're asking when you buy a serum: will it work? A product can be perfectly safe and completely useless, and only an efficacy score tells you which one you're holding.
How do the efficacy and safety scores work?
Both run from 1.0 to 5.0. Efficacy comes from evidence-graded actives, how high they sit in the ingredient list and how well they work together; actives used at token amounts are penalised. Safety deductions scale with the strength of the evidence, not with how many scary-sounding names are on the label.
What do the S, A, B, C and D tiers mean?
S is gold standard, like retinoids, vitamin C and proven UV filters. A is reliable, like ceramides, niacinamide and glycerin. B is potent but unproven: actives that may work very well, but the evidence is still developing, so we can’t say for sure yet. C is overhyped: heavily marketed, thin evidence for the headline claim. D is documented irritants. Preservatives, thickeners and other base ingredients aren't tiered; they keep the product stable, they don't make it work.
Will it flag my preservatives as dangerous?
No, on purpose. Preservatives stop your products growing bacteria and mould. Treating them as hazards is fear-mongering, not science.
Can it find cheaper dupes?
Yes. Alternatives are matched by mechanism and skin concern, with a formula-overlap percentage, and ranked by score. No brand can pay to appear there.
Who decides the scores, AI or humans?
AI finds the formula and writes the plain-English explanation. The numbers come from a fixed rubric anchored in published research, so the same formula always gets the same score. AI explains; the rubric decides.
Is DemythSkin free?
Yes. Scan 5 products a week without an account, 5 a day with a free account, or as many as you like with Pro. The scores are identical either way.