Skincare product scanner: check the ingredients, see if it fits your routine

How do you scan a product? Barcode, label, name or list

The scan screen has four tabs, and they all lead to the same place: the product's ingredient list. You see what was read first, and nothing is assessed until you confirm it.

• Barcode: Scan it and WisoCare looks it up in the catalog that ships inside the app. Barcode lookups work without an internet connection.
• Ingredients: Photograph the list on the label. If it doesn't fit in one frame, turn the bottle and take up to 3 shots; the pieces are merged. Your phone reads the label, and the photo is deleted once it has been read. It reads Korean labels too.
• Product name: Search the catalog by name, then confirm the ingredient list of the product you pick.
• Type list: Paste a list you copied from the product's page; comma-separated or one ingredient per line both work.

Ingredients it isn't sure about are marked with a question mark. Tap an unreadable one to fix it, look it up in the ingredient dictionary, or remove it from the list.

What does a scan result show you?

The result answers two questions at the ingredient level: “What's inside?” and “Does it fit your routine?” The assessment is rule-based and runs on your phone; the one exception is the Premium AI check described below. Here's what you see:

• Actives: the actives in the product, the ones related to your goals and, if you've done an analysis, the ones that overlap with the actives suggested for you.
• What sensitive skin tends to watch: fragrance (parfum), fragrance allergens from the EU label list, drying alcohol, essential oils, sulfates and certain preservatives.
• Pore-clogging tendency: ingredients near the top of the list that have been linked to clogged pores in some people.
• Profile notes: pregnancy, age and allergy flags, based on what you've told the app. If an ingredient you said you avoid is on the list, it's named.
• Clashes with your routine: whether the product carries an ingredient that WisoCare's clash table keeps out of the same session as something already in your routine. If the same active is already in your routine, it tells you that too.
• Reading coverage: how many of the listed ingredients it recognized.

When you add the product and your routine already has a similar step, you choose whether the new product replaces it or goes alongside it.

What doesn't the product scanner do?

WisoCare doesn't judge the product; it reads the ingredient list and compares it with your routine. Its limits:

• No scores, no “good or bad” verdicts, and no judgment of the product's quality or effectiveness.
• If part of the list went unread, it never says “no clashes”; it reports only what it found and suggests fixing the missing items.
• The assessment is based on the list you confirm, and the reading can be wrong. Always compare the list against the packaging; the scan does not replace the information on it.
• The list gives no amounts: an ingredient appearing on it says nothing about how much of it the product contains, and the order is only a rough guide.
• The information is based on individual ingredients, and a finished product behaves differently from its ingredients taken one by one. An ingredient not being mentioned doesn't mean the product is free of concerns for you.
• Allergy warnings come only from what you've declared and are not a substitute for an allergy test. Manufacturers can change a formula without notice.
• For makeup, the actives and routine-clash sections don't appear; it shows the flagged ingredients and allergy matches.

Which skincare ingredients shouldn't be mixed? The pairs WisoCare keeps apart

To work out whether two skincare products can be used together, WisoCare uses a table of 31 conflict rules. If two products in your routine form one of these pairs, it flags the clash, and in the routines it builds itself it never puts them in the same session. The table below sums up the rules by ingredient family. It describes how the app behaves; it is not a universal medical rulebook.

If you use a retinoid your doctor prescribed, such as tretinoin, follow their plan; WisoCare's scheduling doesn't replace it. If a scanned product already contains both ingredients of a pair that clashes with something in your routine, WisoCare points that out, but it doesn't change the timing for it, because splitting sessions can't separate the pair. A single product is not flagged for the ingredients it contains on its own.

For a pair that isn't in the table, Premium asks the AI about just the two ingredient names, as long as your AI permission is on. If that check couldn't run, WisoCare won't say “no clashes”.

How does WisoCare schedule products that clash?

WisoCare splits two clashing products between morning and evening or puts them on alternate days; if one of its own suggestions in the routine from your analysis can't fit into either session because of a clash, it leaves that step out and lists it separately. It doesn't move retinoids to the morning: when you add a product with a retinoid, it picks the evening on both plans.

• The routine from your analysis: WisoCare places its own suggested steps around clashes. The clash details (which product, which ingredient, why) are visible on the free plan too.
• Products you scanned or added yourself: On the free plan, WisoCare tells you there's a clash but doesn't change the timing to resolve it. Premium shows the details and offers a suggestion and an alternative; when you add a scanned product, the timing is preset and the reason is spelled out. Your own products never move silently: you decide.
• You can change a product's session and frequency by hand on either plan.

Is product scanning free, and what does Premium add?

Yes, you can scan products on the free plan. The only limit is on catalog scans; reading a label yourself or typing a list never uses one up.

Searching the web for a product that isn't in the catalog asks for a separate permission the first time; you can turn it off in Settings. The only thing sent is the product name, never your photo, barcode or skin data. Any list found is shown with its source, you confirm it too, and WisoCare doesn't make definitive “this ingredient isn't in it” claims from it. See the current price on the App Store.

Which products are in the catalog, and where does the data come from?

WisoCare ships with 17,868 product barcodes and an ingredient dictionary that recognizes 3,778 ingredients. Because the catalog lives on your phone, barcode lookups work offline, and so do label reading and the rule-based assessment. Web search for products and the AI pair check need a connection.

There are many times more products on the market, so a barcode not turning up is normal, and some products have a barcode on file but no ingredient list. Either way, photographing the label is the most reliable route.

Part of the product data comes from Open Beauty Facts contributors and is licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0. You can download the database we derived from it for free at wisocare.com/data. Ingredient function data comes from the European Commission's CosIng inventory (CC BY 4.0, modified).

When you fully confirm a list you read from the label yourself or typed in, details such as the product name and the recognized ingredient names are sent to a shared product database as a contribution, without being linked to your account; contributions are reviewed before they're used. This is on by default, and you can turn it off in Settings. Details are in the Privacy Policy.

Product scanning: common questions