HOPPD Plus · Skin check
How HOPPD checks
For shampoo, conditioner, body wash, soap and hand wash, HOPPD reads the ingredient list on the shop's website and gives it one of three levels. Each level is a rule, so you can check it against the pack yourself.
The three levels
- Gentle: nothing in it that commonly irritates skin: no fragrance, no essential oils, and none of the ingredients listed below. Only a few products on each shelf are Gentle.
- Fine for most: it has fragrance or essential oils, and nothing on the list below. Most products land here. At Woolworths, 114 of the 118 body washes with an ingredient list have fragrance.
- Check if sensitive: it has an ingredient the EU restricts in cosmetics, usually a preservative that often causes skin allergies. HOPPD names the ingredient, says why it's there, and gives the source.
What makes it Check if sensitive
- Methylisothiazolinone and methylchloroisothiazolinone: preservatives that often cause skin allergies. The EU bans them in products you leave on, and limits them in ones you rinse off, like shampoo.
- Benzisothiazolinone: a preservative that often causes skin allergies. The EU doesn't allow it in cosmetics.
- Preservatives that release formaldehyde: DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl urea, quaternium-15, sodium hydroxymethylglycinate and bronopol. Formaldehyde is a common skin allergen. The EU limits these, and wants a warning on the pack when enough is released.
- Methyldibromo glutaronitrile and Lyral (hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene carboxaldehyde): a preservative and a fragrance ingredient, both common skin allergens, both banned in EU cosmetics.
- Lilial (butylphenyl methylpropional): a fragrance ingredient the EU banned in cosmetics from 2022.
- Triclosan: an antibacterial the EU allows only in a few kinds of product, in small amounts.
- Propylparaben and butylparaben, which the EU limits to small amounts, and isopropyl-, isobutyl-, phenyl-, benzyl- and pentylparaben, which it banned in 2014.
Sources: the EU Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009 (Annexes II, III and V) and the opinions of the EU Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety.
What counts as fragrance
Fragrance, parfum or perfume on the list; any of the fragrance ingredients the EU makes a pack name, like linalool, limonene and citronellol; and essential oils, by the plant's name on the list, like Lavandula Angustifolia Oil (lavender) or Backhousia Citriodora Leaf Oil (lemon myrtle). Benzyl alcohol is on the EU's list too, but in a wash it's almost always there as a preservative, so HOPPD doesn't count it. Oils pressed from seeds and nuts, like almond, sunflower or argan, aren't fragrance.
What it isn't
The Skin check reads the ingredient list. It isn't a safety rating, so you won't see a score out of 100, or words like safe or toxic. Most people use products with fragrance every day without trouble. If your skin reacts to something, stop using it and ask a pharmacist or your GP.
Where the list comes from
- The ingredient list on the shop's product page. When a shop doesn't show one, HOPPD uses the list for the same barcode at another shop, and says whose page it's from.
- Makers change their recipes, so check the pack before you buy.
- A product with no list online gets no Skin check.
- Sunscreen, toothpaste and medicines, like a medicated dandruff shampoo, are never checked.
HOPPD Plus
The Skin check is part of HOPPD Plus. Without Plus, a product that's Check if sensitive shows that a skin tip is waiting, so you know there's something to look at.