ComfiSkin vs Yuka
Yuka gives every cream, cleanser and serum a score out of 100, and millions of people shop by it. That number can scare you off a perfectly good product, push you towards a worse one, and it never once asks about your skin.
- Water
- Glycerin
- Ceramide NP
- Niacinamide
- Panthenol
- Hyaluronic acid
- Cholesterol
- Allantoin
- Xanthan gum
- Citric acid
- Preservative
The short answer
Yuka’s score isn’t a safety rating. It’s set by the single most worrying-sounding ingredient in the bottle, and the amount doesn’t count. A cleanser can be almost entirely harmless and still be branded “poor” because of the preservative that stops it going mouldy. Then brands chase the score, shoppers panic, and good products end up in the bin.
What that means: the number is often grading the wrong thing, and acting on it can cost you money and your skin’s comfort. If a product works for you, ignore the score. Before you bin anything or buy a “better-scoring” swap, scan both in ComfiSkin.
Side by side
| ComfiSkin | Yuka | |
|---|---|---|
| What you see after scanning | What each ingredient does, in plain words, and whether the product suits your skin | One number out of 100, the same for everybody, whatever your skin |
| Can one tiny ingredient sink the whole product? | No. It’s pointed out and explained, in proportion | Yes. One orange ingredient caps the score under 50, one red under 251 |
| Does it know your skin? | Yes: your skin type, your concerns and what you avoid | No. A dry, sensitive face and an oily one get the same verdict |
| Does it check your products work together? | Yes, night by night across your week | No. Clashes are your problem |
| Searching by product name | Free | Paywalled, $10 to $20 a year2 |
| Scans food as well | No | Yes |
One ingredient decides the whole score
Yuka explains its method on its own help pages. Every ingredient gets a coloured dot, green to red, for possible effects such as irritation, allergies or hormone disruption. The product’s score then comes from its single worst dot. One red ingredient means under 25, labelled “bad”. One orange ingredient means under 50, labelled “poor”.1 Nowhere does it say the amount of that ingredient makes any difference.
That’s like calling a whole cake unhealthy because it contains a pinch of salt, without asking how much. It’s not how safety works, and chemists know it. As Medik8’s director of research told Marie Claire: “In science, the dose makes the poison.”3 Yuka throws the dose away, then hands you a confident-looking number anyway.
ComfiSkin keeps the whole picture. It explains what every ingredient is doing in the formula, flags the ones you’ve told it you avoid, and gives you a verdict for your skin rather than a worst-case guess.
What that means for you: a red or orange score doesn’t tell you a product is dangerous. Very often, it only tells you the bottle contains a preservative.
Preservatives get the blame, and you pay for it
This is where the score does real damage. Most creams and cleansers contain water, and you dip into them every day, so they need a preservative to stop bacteria and mould growing inside. Yuka gives phenoxyethanol, one of the most widely used preservatives, an orange dot. The European Commission considers it safe at up to 1%, yet any product containing it is pinned under 50.3
Marie Claire saw the fallout in August 2026. CeraVe’s Foaming Cleanser scored a “poor” 39 on Yuka while another app rated the same cleanser green. A plastic surgeon found a tiny, legal amount of phenoxyethanol was enough to mark products from his clinic “poor”. And the magazine’s writer watched a shopper put her favourite serum back on the shelf because it “only scored 33”.3 Bacterial contamination, meanwhile, caused 76% of US cosmetic recalls between 2002 and 2016.5 Preservatives are there to protect you.
Brands feel the pressure too. One founder told Marie Claire that showing Yuka scores on her product pages lifted sales by 88%.3 When a green dot sells that well, formulas get tuned to please the algorithm instead of your skin. ComfiSkin has no score to chase and no reason to scare you, so it can simply tell you what the preservative does and that it’s there for a reason.
What that means for you: chasing a higher score can steer you away from tried-and-tested preservatives, towards formulas made to please an app, and it can talk you out of products that were doing your skin good.
The same score for every skin is wrong for most of them
Everyone who scans a product sees the same number. A rich cream with shea butter might be perfect for dry, sensitive skin and clog the pores of someone with an oily T-zone, yet both get the same score. The only question that matters, “is this right for me?”, never gets asked, let alone answered. One cosmetic chemist told Hypebae she treats these scores as “screening tools, not verdicts”.4
The cost isn’t just confusion. It’s worry. One Reddit user was “so bummed” that most of their shelf scored under 20,6 and on Mumsnet, one person switched sunscreen for a better score and found the new one worked less well.7 Marie Claire calls it ingredient anxiety, and a red dot is very good at causing it.3
ComfiSkin starts from the skin profile you give it. The same cream can be a great match for one person and a poor one for another, and it tells you why in plain words. It also checks the product against everything else you use that week, which a score can never do.
What that means for you: two people with opposite skin get exactly the same answer from Yuka, so for at least one of them it’s wrong. ComfiSkin gives each of them their own.
What to do if you use Yuka
- Don’t throw out a product because of its score. If it works and your skin is happy, a low number is no reason to stop. That was the advice of the experts Marie Claire spoke to.3
- Find out which ingredient caused the score. Ingredients are listed from most to least, so a preservative near the end of the list is usually a tiny part of the product.
- Check the product against your own skin. Scan it in ComfiSkin to see what each ingredient does and whether it suits your skin and the things you avoid. If you’ve had a real reaction to something, see a dermatologist.
Sources
- Yuka Help Center, “Evaluation of cosmetic products”. help.yuka.io
- Yuka on the US App Store, in-app purchases; Yuka Help Center, “Why are there different tariffs?”. apps.apple.com, help.yuka.io
- Marie Claire UK, “The rise of ingredient anxiety: why our obsession with scanning beauty products is becoming toxic”, 5 August 2026. marieclaire.co.uk
- Hypebae, “This app says your favorite beauty products are toxic: is it legit?”, 6 November 2025. hypebae.com
- The Hospitalist, “Bacterial contamination behind most cosmetics recalls”, on Janetos et al., Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology. the-hospitalist.org
- r/SkincareAddiction, “Does anyone use the Yuka app to rate their products?”, 2020. reddit.com
- Mumsnet, “Yuka app: I wish I hadn’t found it (only slightly joking)”. mumsnet.com
More comparisons
Check a product against your skin
No scary scores, just what’s in it and whether it suits you.
- Free, all of itNo plans, trials or paywalls. Every feature, for everyone.
- No sign-upNo account, no email, no password to lose.
- No ads, no trackingNothing about you is sold, shared or followed around the web.
- Your notes stay on your phoneWith a password-protected backup that only you control.
- Never asks for your faceIt reads the label, not you.
- Answers for your skinYour skin type, concerns, avoid list and routine, every time.