How It Works

For a quick guide, read this.
‍
How it works
Clearya is activated when you visit supported shopping websites (currently: Amazon, Target, Sephora, iHerb and Walmart). When you browse a webpage in a supported product category (beauty products, personal care, baby care and cleaning products), Clearya "wakes up" and automatically searches the webpage for the product's ingredient list. Clearya then checks if any of the listed ingredients is identified as a substance of concern according to several authoritative chemical hazard lists (see which ones below). Many ingredients have tens of different trade names and synonyms, so Clearya checks if the listed ingredients may be identified as toxicants under different names. In addition to flagging products based on their ingredient lists, Clearya may flag other types of products based on reports from product testing labs which inspect products for undisclosed contaminants. Click the Clearya button at the top of the product page to review the results.

In addition to using the Clearya mobile app and Chrome/Edge extension while shopping online, you may use the "Capture Ingredients" feature on the Clearya mobile app when shopping in-store, as well as for checking products at home. Simply use your device's camera to snap a photo of the product label. Alternatively, select a product image from your photo gallery. Clearya will extract the ingredient list text from the photo and analyze it for you. For best results, ensure the image is clear and focused, and crop it to include only the ingredient list.

Note that Clearya does not analyze labels of food products, dietary supplements or drugs.

‍Clearya alerts
Clearya's alerts provide information about chemicals included in the product's ingredient list that are recognized by authoritative chemical hazard lists as chemicals of concern. Review the alert details to decide what alerts are relevant to your situation. When you click an alert you can see the following details:

• Source: the agency or database that classified the ingredient as a substance of concern, e.g. the Government of California, the European Union, etc. The date the information was last updated by that source is indicated as well.
• Hazard: a classification such as "may cause birth defect", "toxic to reproduction", etc. The certainty of the classification, as determined by the source, is mentioned when indicated. For example, some substances are defined as known carcinogens (may cause cancer) while other substances are only suspected carcinogens.
• Conditions: in some cases concerns are restricted by their source to certain daily exposure (e.g. "no significant risk level up to 30 microgram per day"), or specific uses (e.g. "prohibited in hair dye"). Since Clearya can't assess whether general conditions apply to the specific product, such alerts are displayed along with their restrictions, so you can consider whether the alert is relevant to your case.

You can personalize the type of alerts you'd like Clearya to display to you by modifying the default Alert Settings. For example, you can choose not to be shown alerts on allergens, or on ingredients that are only potentially toxic.

When Clearya displays an "Ingredients Not Listed" status it means that a proper Ingredients section wasn't found in the product page. In this case, Clearya cannot assess whether the product includes ingredients of concern or not. Likewise, Clearya may flag generic terms, such as "fragrance" which do not disclose the actual substances being used.

Product discovery
When you browse a product Clearya may display a list of related products for which Clearya did not identify unsafe ingredients, carried by the same shop. The collection of related products will be growing over time: when Clearya users browse new products Clearya automatically assesses their ingredient safety and adds relevant products to the alternatives collection, for the benefit of the rest of the users. Clearya is not paid by brands or retailers for including their products.

Limitations
Our goal is to provide accurate and relevant information to help you decide which products are right for you. However, it's important to know that our analysis is limited by several factors:

• We only analyze the product's ingredients as published online by shopping websites. This means that if an ingredient is missing from the ingredient list, we cannot assess it.
• Likewise, in case the ingredient list published online by a shopping website is outdated, we can't tell that the formulation of the actual product sold is different than published, for better or worse.
• We rely on selected chemical hazard lists (see below) to classify ingredients. These sources do not encompass all possible health risks. Moreover, the third parties that maintain them update them periodically, so they may not be up to the minute with every scientific and regulatory development.
• Clearya's algorithms aren't perfect. We sometimes struggle with interpreting ingredient names. When we can't recognize the chemical substance behind a certain ingredient name we'll leave it unmarked. This indicates that the ingredient name was misspelled in the ingredient list, or processed incorrectly by us. The good news is that Clearya is a learning system which means it's getting better every day.

Please help us improve: let us know if you think something isn't right.

Hazard vs. Risk
Note that the potential health risk posed by a chemical hazard depends on the actual exposure (which is a function of concentration, frequency of exposures, route of exposure and more), and on individual factors. Clearya does not assess potential health risks posed by products. It informs consumers of hazardous ingredients, so that they may apply the precautionary principle and reduce their exposure to toxic chemicals.
‍
Supported shopping websites
Clearya currently supports Amazon, Target, Sephora, iHerb, and Walmart. We're busy adding additional online shopping websites, so stay tuned.

Chemical hazard lists used
‍Here are some of the sources that we use in classifying ingredients as ingredients of concern:

• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Toxicology Program, Report on Carcinogens, 14th Edition.
• The California Environmental Protection Agency, Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 ("Proposition 65").
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's PFAS Master List of PFAS Substances (Version 2)
• The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), http://echa.europa.eu.
• The European Commission, Substances prohibited or restricted in cosmetic products (CosIng annexes II and III).
• The European Commission, Preservatives allowed in cosmetic products (CosIng annex V).
• The European Commission, BKH report on endocrine disruptors (2000).
• The European Commission, BKH-RPS report on endocrine disruptors (2002).
• The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), IPCP report on endocrine disruptors (2017).
• The Government of Canada, ingredients prohibited or restricted in cosmetics (Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist).
• The European Commission's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety, fragrance allergens in cosmetic products (2012), and other reports.
• The U.S. FDA, Code of Federal Regulations (Title 21, Part 700).
• The U.S. FDA, Potential contaminants in cosmetics.
• The California Safe Cosmetics Product Database, California Department of Public Health.
• Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare, Standards for Cosmetics.
• ChemSec, the International Chemical Secretariat, SIN List.
  
• Product testing labs, as detailed for specific products.
  

We update our chemical and toxicology sources periodically.

More questions? Check out the Frequently Asked Questions,
or send us an email: hello@clearya.com