Read what is actually on the label
LabelPeek checks an ingredient list against a published reference list and tells you three things: what matched, what did not, and what it could not read at all. The third answer is the one other checkers leave out, and it is the one that matters when a label is long.
Both checkers below are free, need no account, and run entirely in your browser. The ingredient list you paste is never uploaded anywhere.
Skincare
Check a routine against a published list of 86 pore-clogging ingredients, or against the fatty-acid rule that Malassezia feeds on.
Food
Check a food label against 74 markers of industrial processing — colours, sweeteners, emulsifiers, refined oils and the sugars that avoid the word sugar.
Why the third answer matters
Most ingredient checkers give a binary verdict. Paste a list of thirty-two ingredients, have four of them fail to match, and they will still print “no problem ingredients found”. That is a gap in their data being presented as a statement about your product.
LabelPeek shows the count first — how many of the ingredients it recognised out of how many it found — and then lists the names it could not place, under a line saying plainly that not recognised does not mean safe. Where the app helps is exactly there: its reference is larger than what a static web page can carry, and its camera reads the tube instead of you retyping it.
The lists are published, not hidden
Every ingredient a checker can flag is printed in full on the same page as the checker, with a version date — currently 2026-08-10 for the skincare list. You can scroll down and verify any result by eye. Nothing about the reference is a black box, because a checker whose list you cannot see is asking to be trusted rather than read.
Regulatory statements carry the document they come from. When a page says a colour is restricted, it names the regulation — how we handle food additive claims explains where each type of statement comes from and what we refuse to claim at all, and who publishes LabelPeek sets out the three kinds of statement this site is willing to make.
The two references are kept apart on purpose, because the questions are not the same one:the skincare side works from ingredient names printed on a tube, whilethe food side works from the markers of industrial processing on a packet.
Choosing a scanner app
If you are comparing scanners rather than checking a label, the comparisons cover what each one actually does: food scanner apps side by side,alternatives to Yuka andalternatives to Bobby Approved, including where LabelPeek is the wrong choice.