Side by side
Where Think Dirty is stronger
- A long track record and a large catalogue. Think Dirty has been around since 2012 and reports 12.3K brands, 3.4 million products submitted and 66.9 million unique scans.
- Barcode scanning and search by name, so you can look up a product without the label in front of you. Subscribers can also search by ingredient.
- Shopping help: when a product rates poorly it points you to cleaner options, and it has a verified brands program.
- Environmental impact is part of each ingredient’s rating, including persistence, aquatic toxicity and microplastics.
- Dedicated categories for baby, pet care and women’s health products.
Where Sketchy Labels is different
- Food is covered too, so one app handles the pantry as well as the bathroom and the cleaning cupboard.
- It reads the label, not the barcode. New products, store brands and anything not in a database still get a score, as long as the ingredient list is printed.
- Ratings come from published regulation for that product type and we cite the rule, so you can see how the EU, Canada and the US each treat an ingredient. Compare them on the rules side by side page.
- The product score weighs ingredients by where they sit on the label, instead of taking the single worst ingredient as the floor.
- No brand partnerships of any kind, no sponsored results and no affiliate links.
- English and Canadian French, and a web scanner that works without an account.
Which should you use?
If you mainly shop for beauty and personal care, want quick barcode lookups and like a hazard-focused rating that also weighs environmental impact, Think Dirty has years of data behind it.
If you want food covered too, need to check products that aren’t in any database, or want to see which EU, Canadian or US rule is behind each rating, Sketchy Labels is built for that.
The scales run in opposite directions (a low Dirty Meter rating is good; a high Sketchy Labels score is good) and they measure different things, so don’t expect the numbers to line up.
Frequently asked
Are Think Dirty and Sketchy Labels both Canadian?
Yes. Think Dirty Inc. is headquartered in Toronto. Sketchy Labels is a product of DEFINEWEB INC., Ontario, and its database is hosted in Canada.
Why might the two apps rate the same product differently?
Think Dirty rates each ingredient on health-hazard and environmental evidence and, by default, gives the product a rating no lower than its highest-rated ingredient. Sketchy Labels rates each ingredient against EU, Canadian and US rules for that product type and weights it by its position on the label. Different inputs, different maths.
Does Think Dirty rate food?
Food isn’t among the categories Think Dirty lists: personal care, household, baby, pet care and women’s health products. Sketchy Labels covers food as well as cosmetics, cleaning, pet and home products.
Is either app available in French?
Sketchy Labels is available in English and Canadian French. Think Dirty’s App Store listing shows English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.
Sources
Competitor details come from the pages and store listings below, as they read when we checked them. Prices and features change; check the source for the current version. Spotted something out of date? Tell us through the contact page and we’ll fix it. Contact us
- Think Dirty home page: www.thinkdirtyapp.com/
- Think Dirty methodology: www.thinkdirtyapp.com/methodology/
- Think Dirty FAQs for brand partners: www.thinkdirtyapp.com/become-partner/faqs-partnerships/
- Think Dirty privacy policy: www.thinkdirtyapp.com/privacy-policy/
- Think Dirty on the Canadian App Store: apps.apple.com/ca/app/think-dirty-shop-clean/id687176839