About SaliCheck

Why SaliCheck exists

Salicylic acid and other salicylate compounds are used in many cosmetics and personal-care products, including shampoos, skincare, sunscreens and fragranced products, often under several different ingredient names. Checking ingredient lists by hand is slow. SaliCheck checks a product's ingredient list against a defined, documented list of salicylate ingredients in one step.

The reformulation problem

Product formulas can change. A shampoo with no listed salicylates last year may contain salicylic acid today — same bottle, same brand, different ingredients. Database records can lag behind these changes, so SaliCheck lets you photograph the current label and compare it with the database record.

What SaliCheck does

Scan a product barcode and SaliCheck searches three open ingredient databases — Open Food Facts, Open Beauty Facts, and Open Products Facts — for the current ingredient list. If the database doesn't have your product, use the ingredient scanner to photograph the label directly. SaliCheck reads the text and checks the captured text against its list of salicylate ingredients.

What SaliCheck does not do

SaliCheck is not a medical device. A "no salicylates found" result does not confirm a product is safe for you — ingredient databases may be incomplete, and reformulations may not yet be recorded. Always read the physical product label and speak with your pharmacist or allergy specialist about your specific situation.

SaliCheck identifies listed ingredients; it does not assess their clinical relevance. It does not diagnose allergies or sensitivities, predict how you will react, or tell you whether a product is safe for you. It does not check medicines or detect NSAID drugs, and it does not assess foods or dietary salicylates. It can only check the ingredient text it has — it can't confirm that a database record or a photo contains the complete ingredient list. Individual tolerance varies.

Who it's for

SaliCheck is for anyone who wants to check cosmetic and personal-care products for salicylate ingredients, for themselves or for someone in their household. If you have been given medical advice about salicylates or NSAIDs, follow that advice.

Contributing to open data

When you photograph an ingredient list that isn't in the database, SaliCheck gives you the option to contribute it anonymously to Open Beauty Facts — the open ingredient database that SaliCheck depends on. Every contribution improves coverage for everyone who checks ingredient lists.

Data and privacy

SaliCheck stores your scan history locally on your device. Ingredient contributions to Open Beauty Facts are submitted anonymously under the SaliCheck contributor account and are publicly visible under the Open Database Licence.

When you photograph a product, each photo (the ingredient list, and the front of the pack if you take one) is sent through SaliCheck's server to Google Cloud Vision to read the text. SaliCheck's server passes the photo on and does not save it. Google states that it processes these images in memory without storing them, does not use them to train its models, and temporarily logs basic details about each request, such as its time and size. Please photograph only the product label — anything else in the frame is sent too. Full details are in our privacy policy.