Most buying guides tell you a product is good. Very few tell you how much of the active you are actually getting, or whether the brand will even publish its formula. Our Health Score measures the things that decide whether a product can be trusted — and it is computed from facts, so two products with the same formula always score the same.
Formula transparency — 25 points
Full ingredient list published and screened scores 25. A brand that publishes only its hero ingredients scores 10. A product that puts marketing copy where the ingredient list belongs scores zero — and in practice we don’t rank it at all, because a formula nobody publishes is a formula nobody can check.
Restricted substances — 30 points
We screen against the EU Cosmetics Regulation Annex II (banned) and Annex III (restricted), the EU’s 26 declarable fragrance allergens, and common contact sensitizers such as methylisothiazolinone and formaldehyde releasers. Nothing found scores 30. An ingredient restricted in the EU but legal where the product is sold scores 15, and we name it on the product. A substance under significant restriction scores zero.
Fragrance & allergens — 20 points
Fragrance is the most common cause of cosmetic contact reactions, and it is added for pleasantness rather than performance. No fragrance listed scores 20; unconfirmed scores 8; fragrance present scores zero. For supplements, where fragrance is meaningless, this band measures independent verification of the contents instead — programmes like NSF Certified for Sport.
Dose disclosure — 25 points
This is the band that separates a real product from an expensive gesture. A brand that states its active concentration scores 25 — rare enough that it is worth rewarding heavily. If the concentration is unstated but ingredient order tells you roughly where the actives sit, that scores 14. If there is no way at all to tell how much you are getting, it scores zero.
We have seen this matter in the real world: one popular peptide mist we screened discloses its peptides at 0.1 parts per billion. It is legal, it is honest labelling, and it is roughly a million times below a dose that could do anything.
Why it is not a toxicity score
We deliberately don’t publish a toxicity rating, and we don’t use consumer hazard databases that assign one. Those tools score an ingredient by whether a hazard has ever been associated with it at any dose, rather than at the concentration used in a finished product — which produces frightening scores for ingredients that are well characterised and safe as formulated.
The honest picture is less dramatic and more useful: the large majority of these products are not dangerous. They are opaque, or they are under-dosed. That is the problem you actually face when shopping, and it is what this score measures. Calling a named product “toxic” would require laboratory analysis we do not perform.
What the grades mean
85 and above is Excellent — a published formula, a clean screen, and disclosed dosing. 70 to 84 is Good. 50 to 69 is Fair, usually meaning something is unverifiable rather than something is wrong. Below 50 is Poor, and we will normally tell you why rather than list the product at all.
Limits
We screen published formulas. We do not run laboratory analysis, we cannot verify a product matches its stated ingredients, and brands reformulate without changing packaging. If you have a known allergy, read the label on the product you receive.