Think Dirty App is Helping to Change My Life

You guys know that I’ve been slowly transitioning to a nontoxic/natural lifestyle. Part of that means being conscious of the ingredients of the products I’m using and switching to nontoxic alternatives. Thanks to Think Dirty, that task has become a lot easier. 

Finding safer alternatives for everyday items can be tricky. It’s not a simple as buying an item that marked “all-natural” or “organic”. The FDA lets a lot of things slide when it comes to labeling and transparency. So having an app that provides detailed information is handy. 

What is the Think Dirty App?

We live in an era where there’s literally an app for everything. Here’s one app that I’m frequenting a lot these days. 

Think Dirty is an app or database that helps users learn about the potentially toxic ingredients in their everyday products. It allows you to compare products as you shop and gives easy to understand info on the product. There’s even an option to purchase items directly from the app versus going to the store. 

Additionally, Think Dirty now also has a website where users can shop for their favorite nontoxic brands. 

How do you use the Think Dirty App?

Using the app is pretty simple. Simply sign up using email or Facebook account and start searching for products.

Maybe you’re in the market for a new face wash or maybe you want to see the rating of your current one. You can find ratings for products by scanning the product barcode, typing in the barcode, or searching our database by keyword (brand name or product name).

Think Dirty is beyond a database. You can use to app to actually shop if you want.

Oh and if you have staple products, you can scan what you’re already using and add them to your Bathroom Shelf” and Think Dirty will give you ratings and provide some cleaner alternatives. 

What do the Think Dirty Ratings Mean?

Think Dirty rates products based on the chemical content of the products using publicly available from a list of sources (more info on their site).  Each ingredient cited on the label or the manufacturer’s website is examined for evidence of carcinogenicity, developmental and reproductive toxicity, and/ or allergenicity and immunotoxicity.  

Yuck right?

The rating system gives an easy to digest method to understand how clean or dirty a product is based on their ingredients. The scale is from 0-10 with 0 being the cleanest and 10 being the dirtiest. 

If numbers aren’t your thing, the system is also color-coded. Green is clean. Yellow is neutral and red is dirty.

Sometimes you may come across a product that hasn’t been rated yet. Think Dirty keeps it real and will let you know that it doesn’t have the info. 

Here is a snapshot of ThinkDirty’s Dirty Meter rating system. 

Who Made the Think Dirty App?

Think Dirty started as a passion project for Lily Tse. After experiencing some severe reactions to products and with a known family history of cancer, she started researching causes behind breast cancer including toxic ingredients in everyday products. 

At the time, her focus was on finding safer alternatives for herself but she soon realized that others could benefit from this knowledge as well. 

In 2013, the Think Dirty app was launched with roughly 68,000 products in its database. Today there are over 1,600,000 products available to search.

Is the Think Dirty App Legit?

Think Dirty is focused on helping consumers make educated decisions when making purchases by identifying the potential risks associated with their daily products. 

As an independent company with no affiliates and a solid methodology, I believe that they are unbiased in their rankings. But there’s always room for improvement.

The app has been criticized for ratings due to the unfairness that some brands fully disclose their ingredients while others do not and the fact that it’s unknown how much of a toxic ingredient is in the product (arguing that in small amounts, it’s safe). 

I know that there are other databases like Think Dirty. However, from what I see, they all seem to have the same issues. 

How Much Does the Think Dirty App Cost?

Here’s the best part: Think Dirty is Free99. That’s right. Just download the app and start searching.

My Experience Using Think Dirty

Transitioning to nontoxic isn’t as easy as I thought. Not only do you want to monitor the ingredients but you want to make sure that the product gets the job done equal to if not better than it’s toxic competitor. 

I really like Think Dirty. I refer to it often during my shopping trips.  It’s easy to use and understand and has taken a lot of the stress I felt around transitioning to natural products.

I’m going to keep it real with you. Right now, a lot of my products are in the yellow. But as long as they are red, I feel comfortable using them until I find my perfect green match. The goal is to one day be all green. 

Check out this video of my using Think Dirty during my Target Run (pre-COVID of course).