Judging by everything written on the packaging or the product web page, you could easily get the impression that a product is going to work miracles.

But more often than not, we quickly realize that it doesn't, and there can be several reasons for that: a lack of effectiveness, a product that doesn't suit our skin or our hair, a misunderstanding of what the product actually offers…

In short, between marketing messages and what a product really does, it's easy to get lost! In this article, LAO shares 3 foolproof ways to find out whether a cosmetic is truly effective and right for you. After reading it, you won't be fooled again!

Is the product good for your health? Scanning apps are your friends!

Before buying a cosmetic product, more and more of us wonder whether it will be good for us, or for our children. But it's often very hard to decipher the INCI list (the list of ingredients) unless you're a cosmetics pro or look up the ingredients one by one on Google. So how can you tell whether a cosmetic is good for your health or your children's?

To easily understand what's in your cosmetics, the simplest solution is to use a scanning app!

Among the scanning apps, there are, for example, INCI Beauty, Yuka and Mireille. All 3 apps work the same way: just open the app and scan the product's barcode with your phone. However, each one has its own specific features:

• The Yuka app is mainly focused on food products but can also be used for cosmetics. It rates products from 0 to 100 based on their composition and gives a breakdown of the ingredients, pointing out which ones are risky and which are not. The app explains why certain ingredients are considered a health risk.
• INCI Beauty is an app created to analyze the composition of cosmetic products. It gives products a score out of 20 based on their ingredients and sorts the ingredients into 4 categories: controversial or risky, not great, satisfactory, and good.
• The Mireille app is also designed to scan cosmetic products and analyze their composition so you can recognize which ingredients are good or less good for our health. With this app, you can also read expert advice.

It's up to you to choose the one that works best for decoding your cosmetic products and guiding your purchases!

The best proof of effectiveness: tests and patents

The most important thing to know about cosmetics is that everything a brand says has to be proven beforehand. For example, you can't say that a shampoo makes hair softer if that hasn't been tested and proven. So the best way to know whether a product is as effective as the brand claims is to look at the tests the brand has carried out, or to ask for the test results if they aren't highlighted on the website.

In cosmetics, there are two types of efficacy tests: clinical tests and usage tests.

Clinical tests, or instrumental tests, are carried out by scientists in specialized laboratories. In the case of cosmetics, the experts who run the tests are often dermatologists.

Usage tests are carried out with people who have volunteered to become testers. These tests are therefore not run by scientists but by typical consumers who test the product under normal conditions of use. The condition of each person's skin or hair is assessed, depending on the cosmetic product being tested, before and after the test period. This makes it possible to see how things have changed and to find out how effective the product is.

Something else worth knowing about hair care cosmetics is that some claims are not permitted, yet they are often used anyway. For example, bringing hair back to life or rebuilding hair are not permitted phrases for describing a product's benefits, because hair is dead matter. It therefore can't be revived or repaired.

Ultimately, the best way to spot truly effective cosmetics is first to educate yourself and read up on the subject, just as you've done by reading this article.

Thanks to the internet, we're lucky to have access to a huge amount of information, so don't hesitate to do a bit of digging before deciding to buy a product. It's often quite complicated to decipher product labels and to know whether a product suits our needs, which is why scanning apps can be very handy.

Finally, if you can't find the information you're looking for, the best way to get it is to ask the brand directly, on social media or by email.