What is EWG?
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit organization that's been around for decades. They're the ones behind the Skin Deep database, the annual Dirty Dozen list, and EWG Verified™ certifications. If you're researching a skincare ingredient, there's a good chance you'll end up on their site.
What it does well:
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Gives you in-depth ingredient info and product scores
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Flags potential hormone disruptors, carcinogens, and allergens
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Backs everything up with peer-reviewed scientific research
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Covers everything from tap water safety to sunscreen effectiveness
A few things to know:
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Scores can be confusing without context. For example, EWG flags essential oils as an "ingredient concern" — but that only matters if you're allergic to that specific oil. It's not a blanket danger signal. Click through the rating to see why a product scored the way it did before drawing conclusions.
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EWG also lists essential oils under "fragrance," which is genuinely misleading. Fragrance and essential oils are not the same thing — fragrance is a catch-all term that can hide hundreds of undisclosed chemicals, while essential oils are single-ingredient plant extracts. We never use synthetic fragrance at Simple Body. Ever.
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EWG Verified™ is wonderful — but expensive. The evaluation fee is $250 per product, plus an annual licensing fee based on your revenue and how many products you want to certify. In practice, it's mostly large brands that carry the badge. We'd love to be verified someday, but we're being honest with you: our formulas are clean whether or not we have the logo.
What is Yuka?
Yuka is a free app that lets you scan food and cosmetic products with your phone. It returns an instant score from 0–100 with a color-coded rating — green means go, red means reconsider — and it explains why a product scored the way it did.
What it does well:
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Incredibly fast and easy to use while you're actually shopping
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Explains ingredients in plain language, not scientific jargon
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Suggests cleaner alternatives when something scores poorly
A few things to know:
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It doesn't go as deep on ingredient research as EWG
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It uses AI, which occasionally gets things wrong
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If you search "Simple Body" in the app, we don't come up — you need to scan the barcode directly to pull up our products. (Our oil-based products score 100/100 on Yuka, for what it's worth.)
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It can oversimplify complex ingredient safety the same way EWG can — context always matters
Why We Recommend Using Both
Here's the thing: Yuka is your shopping best friend. It helps you make smarter decisions on the fly. EWG is like your wise older sister — she's going to give you the long story, the context, and the scientific footnotes.
Using them together is where the real power is. Say you scan a moisturizer with Yuka and it scores poorly. Pop over to EWG's Skin Deep to find out why. Is it a known allergen? A controversial preservative still under study? An essential oil that only matters if you have a specific sensitivity? Now you're deciding with the full picture.
That's exactly the standard we hold ourselves to when we formulate. Every Simple Body product is built around ingredients that hold up to that kind of scrutiny — you can scan our Chamomile Foaming Face Wash, our Face Cream for Dry & Sensitive Skin, or any of our face serums and we want you to look everything up. That transparency is the whole point.
Bottom Line: Your Health Is Worth the Extra Step
Neither app is perfect. But they're empowering, transparent, and genuinely helpful — and using them together makes you a much more informed consumer than you'd be flying blind.
If you haven't tried them yet, download Yuka and bookmark EWG Skin Deep. Start scanning, start learning, and start choosing what goes on your body with real confidence.
And if you ever want to know how a Simple Body product rates — just ask. We're an open book.
xoxo Jewels