The app
An ingredient scanner that does not need the barcode
Point your phone at the label. Pura reads what is actually printed there, and tells you what it means for you specifically.
Most ingredient apps scan a barcode and look the product up. That works well right up until the product is not in the database, which happens constantly with local brands, imports, pharmacy own-label ranges and anything recently reformulated.
Pura reads the label instead. You photograph the ingredient list, and in about five seconds you get back what is in there and whether any of it matters for you.
What "for you" means
You tell Pura once what you and your household care about: allergies, conditions, the things you have decided to avoid. Every scan after that is measured against that profile. You can keep separate profiles for different people, because what matters for you and what matters for your child are not the same list.
This is why Pura does not give products a score. A number would have to mean the same thing for everyone, and the question people are actually asking is whether this particular jar is a problem for them.
Three categories, judged separately
Food, cosmetics and supplements get different criteria, because they are different things. A preservative in a moisturiser and a preservative in a drink are not the same question, and a supplement's dose disclosure has no equivalent on a shampoo bottle.
It checks the front against the back
"All natural." "No added sugar." "Free from nasties." Pura checks claims like these against what the ingredient list actually shows, which is a job the packaging is not going to do for you.
Then you can just ask
After a scan you can ask follow-up questions in plain words. Why was this flagged. Is this alright during pregnancy. What should I buy instead. The answers come back in plain words too.
What it cannot do
Pura reads what is printed on a label. It cannot tell you about cross-contamination or how a product was handled in a factory, it cannot detect adulteration, and it cannot tell you how much of an ingredient is in there when the label does not say. It is information, not medical advice. If an allergy is severe, treat Pura as a first filter and not as the decision.
We would rather tell you that here than have you discover it at the wrong moment.
Written for a situation
- Reading labels for a baby or a small child A short list of things that genuinely matter, and permission to stop worrying about the rest.
- Reading labels for acne-prone skin One of the few shelves where the concentration is printed, next to a scale of numbers that measures a rabbit's ear.
- Reading labels for curly and coily hair The most confidently repeated ingredient list on the internet, checked against what the dermatology literature actually says.
- Reading labels for eczema and atopic skin The most ordinary ingredients in a moisturiser turn into regulated drug actives the moment the product claims to protect skin.
- Reading labels for hair loss and thinning A category where the regulator has already written down what it thinks of the claims, in language nobody quotes.
- Reading labels for menopausal skin A change with a measured rate attached to it, which is more than most of the products aimed at it can say.
- Reading labels for teenage skin A category where the products being marketed hardest are the ones with the least reason to be on a young face.
- Reading labels when an ingredient is banned somewhere else The most repeated claim in food writing, applied to a set of ingredients where it is sometimes exactly right and often not.
- Reading labels when you are pregnant Nine months of checking labels. Here is what is worth checking, and what is not.
- Reading labels when you are watching blood sugar There are three places sugar shows up on a packet, and they answer three different questions. Most people read only one of them.
- Reading labels when you avoid animal ingredients "Vegan" is not a legally defined word. That single fact explains most of what makes this difficult.
- Reading labels when you avoid gluten One of the very few reassuring words on a package that means something exact. The gaps are elsewhere.
- Reading labels when you have a thyroid condition Three ordinary things on a supplement label that interact with a thyroid, none of which the label mentions.
- Reading labels when you keep halal or kosher An ingredient list is designed to tell you what a substance is. Your question is where it came from, and those are not the same question.
- Reading labels when you take a prescription A whole aisle of products that interact with common prescriptions, and not one of them mentions the medicine on the box.
- Reading labels when your skin reacts to everything Sensitive skin is not one thing, which is why generic sensitive-skin advice keeps failing you.
- Reading labels with a food allergy The ingredient list is the most trustworthy part of a package. It is also not the whole answer, and the gap is worth understanding precisely.
- Reading labels with a fragrance allergy The most common cause of cosmetic contact allergy, declared under a single word that names nothing.
Compared with the alternatives
- EWG or Pura: a hazard score or your own profile Two decades of nonprofit research, a hazard score, and a long-running argument about what that score can carry.
- Fooducate or Pura: a tracker or an ingredient reader A nutrition tracker with a grading system, against an ingredient reader with no grades at all.
- Open Food Facts or Pura: open data or a personal answer A free, open, nonprofit database against a paid app. This one is harder to argue than the others, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
- Think Dirty or Pura: cosmetics depth or reading the label One of the original cosmetics scanners, against an app that reads the label instead of looking it up.
- Yuka or Pura: a database or a photograph Two different bets about what an ingredient app should be. Here is where each one wins.