Ever wondered what is really in your shampoo or your snack? In this solo episode, Sarah shares her experience with the Yuka app, a free tool that lets you scan food and cosmetic products to get an instant health score. From ingredient safety to hidden additives, learn how this app could change how you shop (without the overwhelm). Think of it as your new wellness sidekick, just take it with a grain of salt… literally.

Yuka App- Available in the App Store

Well, hello and welcome to the lessons from your hairstylist podcast. I'm your host and hairstylist friend, Sarah Cruz. Have you ever gone to the store, read the label, read the ingredients and thought to yourself,

Okay, but I wonder what the company is really hiding from me. Is there something in here that could be harmful? If I could rate this product on a scale from one to a hundred, what would the score really be in terms of quality? Well, now there is a new app. It's been all over social media. I had to bring it to you. Even though this is going to be a short episode, I knew that you'd find it useful. If you haven't heard about it already, this mobile app is called Yuka.

you know, I'm a hairstylist, I work at a salon and half the people I work with are half my age or even younger. So they've always got their fingers on the pulse of what's going on. And I got a shout out to my girl, Julia at the salon because she was telling me about this app the other day and she was saying, I'm obsessed with this app.

And so then I downloaded it myself and I started trying it and I gotta tell you, I'm kind of obsessed with it myself. I do think you wanna take it with a grain of salt, but I'm gonna tell you about all of the features and how it might make your life and your health journey a little bit easier. So let's get into it. Okay, first of all, what is Yuca exactly? So Yuca is a mobile application designed to help users analyze food and cosmetic products.

by simply scanning their barcode. So it's really easy. It's just you take your phone out and if there's a barcode, you just scan it.

Yuka is pretty new, but it has

quickly gained popularity

and has millions of downloads worldwide. It focuses on transparency and it aims to empower users by providing easy access to nutritional information and an ingredient analysis.

So again, Yuca analyzes cosmetics and food. So once you scan the barcode of a food item, it gives you the nutritional score based on the product's ingredients. It also breaks down the nutritional components, highlighting any harmful additives. The intuitive design makes navigation seamless, ensuring that users can quickly find the information that they need.

It is pretty straightforward. After downloading the app, you just open it, you point your camera to the product on the barcode, and within seconds, you'll receive a detailed analysis. This includes the product's score and a breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses. So for daily use, you could consider scanning items grocery store shopping or checking your pantry to make healthier choices.

There is a free and a paid version. So it's my understanding with the free version, you can scan anything you like and you can get all of that information right there. But if you have the paid version, you can look up items without a barcode. That's my limited understanding right now. And premium may have some other features that I'm not aware of, but for me, I think that's like the primary difference. So that you could just go and search a product without a barcode.

That would make things a little more convenient, but there's also the free version as well.

Now when evaluating and giving a score to food, Yuka's food product scores are based on three criteria. Nutritional quality is 60 % of the score.

calculation method is based on NutriScore, which is a science-based nutritional label adopted by seven European countries that measures the nutritional balance of food products, taking into account the indicated quantity of sugar, sodium, saturated fat, calories, protein, fiber, as well as the fruits and vegetables content calculated or estimated.

Now the IARC, which is the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is a World Health Organization agency, supports this method, highlighting its effectiveness and guiding consumers toward healthier food choices, as well as its scientific relevance. Nutri-scores are translated into Yuka ratings,

as shown in the correspondence table on the website. So this is what I'm reading to you from. This information came right off the Yuka website and it does have a table there for you to visualize and you can see if you wanted to visit the site. So 60 % of the score is the nutritional quality. Then you have 30 % of the score is gonna be based on the presence of additives. Benchmarks are based on the latest scientific research.

Yuka says, we take into account the recommendations of the EFSA and the IARC in addition to numerous independent studies. Every additive is assigned a risk level based on the various existing studies. Risk-free means green. You'll have a green dot there. Limited risk, you'll see a yellow dot there. Moderate risk, you're gonna see an orange dot. And then high risk is gonna be a red dot. And you'll see that once you scan

the product barcode, you'll get a report there on your phone. So you'll be able to see what those risks are and what the scoring is. Information about the risks associated with each additive as well as the corresponding scientific sources are available in the application as well. When you're reading that little report that you get after you've scanned it, you'll be able to see all the information about the additives there.

So that's 30 % of the score, the presence of additives and then the breakdown of what those are and the risks. Then the next part, which is gonna be 10 % of the score is the organic dimension of the product.

Now this is just a bonus rating granted to products considered organic. So for example, those with an official national or international organic label, they avoid chemical pesticides, which can pose a health risk.

then you'll also see on the website the health benefits that an organic diet can provide. gives you a breakdown on the Yuka website. So you can look into that.

Now, how are cosmetic products

for cosmetics analyzes every ingredient that goes into the product according to the Yuka website. Based on the current state of science, each ingredient is assigned a risk level.

just like the ingredients in the food. Same thing with the cosmetics.

So each ingredient is assigned a risk level according to its potential effects on health or the environment. Endocrine disruption, carcinogenic, allergenic, irritant, or pollutant.

potential risks associated with each ingredient are displayed in the application with the relevant scientific sources.

Now the ingredients are classified into four risk categories. Just like it is with the food, you have risk free, which is you're gonna get a green dot, low risk, yellow dot, moderate risk, orange dot, hazardous risk is gonna be the red dot.

Now the score for cosmetics is going to be based on the level of the highest risk ingredient present in the product. If a hazardous ingredient, the red, is present in the product, the score will automatically lower to 25 out of 100. If the highest risk ingredient is a moderate risk ingredient, the product score will be lower than 50%.

The other ingredients will determine precisely which score the product receives within the defined range. The calculation of penalties based on potential health or environmental impacts is detailed on the website as well.

Now, where does Yuka get its information? Well, it has built its own database and to date contains over 5 million products.

And its database contains approximately 12,600 cosmetic ingredients.

Some may not be listed yet, but they're added after analysis by Yuka's

All of the data comes from either app users where users have uploaded information themselves or via the brands where brands email in their product data.

scientific sources, are also displayed in the application.

Now all that is well and good, but is you can actually trustworthy? Like can we really rely on it? So far from everything that I have found since I've started using it and the bit of research that I have done on it, it does seem like it's pretty reliable. It seems like they've done a really good job with being trustworthy, but that's just my own experience. I would encourage you to try it out yourself, see what you think.

and do some comparing and contrasting to your own research. I mean, we all have to obviously do our own homework on things, but this is just, I think, a really cool tool that you could possibly have to help you to make the best choices that you possibly can. What I really like about it too is that if I scan a product and say that the score is really low, it gives you, and this isn't the free version because I'm not paying for it. So in the free version, it will then give you

safer or more healthy alternatives and it gives you several. So that way you kind of know like what those other product scores are as well when you go to make a different choice if you should decide to do so. So I do love that part too because then you're not just left like okay now what do I do? You actually have some other ideas, some other options that you might decide to visit.

I will say that Yuka is best going to be used as a guide. It's not like the end all for making food decisions. I don't think you want to become obsessed with it. Although when I say the word obsessed, Julia was like, I'm obsessed with this. And I'm like, I am too, but not in a way where it's going to make me not buy something if it doesn't have a great score. Like I think you kind of have to take everything with a little bit of a grain of salt. No pun intended, but I do think that you've got to just

use moderation and use common sense. Like you're not gonna be able to make the healthiest choice all the time. Or maybe you are if that's what you wanna do. But I do think that you don't wanna allow it to give you anxiety because you are choosing a product now that you know that the quality may not be the highest. It's like you kinda have to live your life. That's where I am with this whole thing. So I have scanned a few things in my kitchen that I was not so pleasantly surprised that

the quality was not there. Am I going to discontinue use or maybe, but I'm going to probably use them up and then I may not buy them again. I might make a different choice. It's just information. It's just

Now what are some pros and cons? Well, for me, I don't think that there's a whole lot of

All in feedback has largely been positive from what I've been able to gather online.

anyway, this has been a short episode. And sometimes I just hop on and it's just me and you. And I like that too.

But I hope that you've liked this and that maybe you find it useful. Maybe you want to go and check out the Yuca app. It's Y-U-K-A and you just download it from the app store. That's what I did. I think it's pretty easy. I like it. Maybe check it out for yourself. until next time, I hope you have a great day. Thanks for coming to see me today. I appreciate you so much. Have a good one.