The Beat the Microbead app is the fastest way to learn if your cosmetics and personal care products contain plastic ingredients. This app uses state-of-the-art text recognition technology. Just scan the ingredients of your products and check them for microplastics. Not only that, but you can also get to know microplastic-free brands certified by us.
How does it work?
It’s straightforward: you can scan products with four easy steps:
- Find the ingredients list on your product.
- Position the full list within your camera frame.
- Make sure the ingredients are clear to read.
- Take a picture to scan!
A traffic light rating system
- RED: Products that contain microplastics.
- ORANGE: Products that contain what we call “sceptical” microplastics. With this, we mean synthetic polymers for which there is not enough information available.
- GREEN: Products that do not contain microplastics.
Help us enrich our database!
Every time you add a product to our database, you help us build a case against microplastics. With every product information, we can create evidence and convince authorities about the extensive use of plastic ingredients. A bit of extra effort on your side makes you a part of the fight against microplastics in cosmetics and care products. So, go ahead, scan the barcode of your product and help us get some more information!
By adding the products to our database, you can also discover our certified microplastic-free brands. These brands have their entire range of products free of all known microplastic ingredients.
Why is it important?
Plastic in cosmetics is a global problem! Microplastics are hardly visible ingredients that pollute our planet & may pose health risks. These microplastics, hardly visible to the naked eye, flow straight from the bathroom drain into the sewer system. Microplastics are not biodegradable, and once they enter the (marine) environment, they are almost impossible to remove.
Sea animals absorb or eat microplastics; these particles are passed along the marine food chain. Since humans are ultimately at the top of this food chain, it is likely that we also ingest microplastics.
Using body washes or cosmetics that contain microplastics can put the ocean, ourselves, and our children at risk! With this app, you can get aware of this issue and make environmentally friendly choices.
Who is behind this app?
The collaborators behind this app include the following partners:
Plastic Soup Foundation: NGO based in Amsterdam, initiators of the worldwide campaign “Beat the Microbead”. Their mission: No plastic in our water or our bodies!
PINCH: a renowned mobile development agency from Amsterdam that is proud of their work for the Plastic Soup Foundation.
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User Rating
3.9 out of 5
10 ratings
in United Kingdom
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Reviews
Love the app but have a suggestion
So useful to scan products before buying them to make sure I only buy microplastic free products.
One thing that would be a useful feature to add would be a personal database within the app where you can save products that you’ve scanned to a database that is visible to you and categorised into the different colour categories. Then you would be able to come back to the app to see which products and brands to avoid and which to buy, without having to scan them again. I would love that as a feature.
Keep up the good work!
Appallingly innacurate
Anyone in the skincare industry and product development will be laughing at the appalling innacuracy and lack of understanding of ingredients. Shockingly misleading as scaremongering!
Quick and easy
I tested this against a product I knew to be plastic free and one I suspected wasn’t. Green light for the organic product, red light for the one I believed probably contained plastic. Very useful! Would like a way to send ingredients lists from online shops to the app so I can check before I buy.
Not off to a great start
I used to love this app, and still want to. Happy to add details and have the app use my camera, but I never have access to photo library and found it switched on. Turned it off and restarted, but the app STILL has access to my photo library. Please explain.
Also, I want to add details by products without barcodes but don’t seem to be able to.
EDIT: Had to change from 3-stars to 1-star as I’ve found products with microplastics in but the app says there aren’t due to not capturing a sufficiently focused photograph. It’s not good enough to just have a disclaimer no one will read
Terrible app
Does it recognise any products😂?
Useless
Totally useless. Scanner does not recognise any products.
Useless
Tried 6 products in the pharmacy (big name brands) not a single one was in the database.
Doesn't recognise any product
Scanned every single relevant product in my house and it didn't recognise a single one.
Out of date
What's the point of having this app? Just look on the website because the app list doesn't match it.
I looked at the ingredients list of the product I wanted to get (grapefruit face scrub by neutrogena), which didn't seem to have any of the plastics we are looking for, but had jojoba esters that I understand to be natural degradable replacements for microbeads. App tells me that it contains microbeads. Confused, I double-check on the beatthemicrobead website which has an updated list from may 2016 explicitly saying this scrub is microbead free! Waste of time to download the app.
Insufficient Contrast for easy reading
Seems like a good idea, but the white text on the light blue background makes it difficult to read, so much so I gave up. (Worse than white on black). Not used it yet.
