Most labels are written for lawyers. Not for you.
You buy something off a shelf. You try to read what is in it. The print is small. The words are long. You pretend to understand. We all do this.
It is a small surrender.
Pura is what happens when you stop pretending.
You point your phone at the label. The app reads it. In about three seconds, you know what is in there. You also know whether any of it is a problem for you, specifically: your allergies, your conditions, the things you have decided to avoid.
Then you can ask it questions. Plain ones. Is this okay during pregnancy. Why is this rated low. What should I buy instead. It answers in plain words. Not lawyer words. Not influencer words. Your words.
Pura works on food. It works on cosmetics. It works on supplements.
It does not tell you what to do. It tells you what you are holding. The decision is still yours. At least now you have one to make.
Get Pura for iPhone. Free to try, iOS 17 or later.
Start where you are
The same ingredient list means something different depending on who is reading it. These pages start from the situation rather than the substance.
Or learn to do it without us
An app that only works while you are holding your phone has not taught you anything. These are the pieces worth reading once.
- Drug or cosmetic: which claims are regulated
- E numbers, decoded
- Hazard versus exposure
- How ingredient scores are calculated
- How the law decides a food is healthy
- How to check an ingredient claim yourself
- How to read a cosmetics label
- How to read a hair product label
- How to read a supplement label
- How to read an ingredient label
- Ingredients avoided for the wrong reason
- Ingredients whose source the label hides
- The INCI name is not the source
- What "natural", "clean" and "chemical-free" legally mean
- What an allergen label promises, and what it does not
- What comedogenic ratings actually measure
- Which cosmetic ingredients are actually drugs
Questions people actually ask
How we compare to the other apps
Every one of these names where the other app is better than Pura, because a comparison that does not is an advertisement.
Everything we have published is in the library, searchable in one place. If you are holding a label and the name on it is not one we use, the names index lists every alternative we know, including INCI names and E numbers. How all of this gets written, and what we refuse to do, is in our editorial policy.