What skincare product could you never look up? I built an app that reads the label, not the barcode.

I'm the maker of Ingrelo. Rather than a pitch, here is what it does, what it deliberately does not do, and one question I would like your help with.

What it is: Ingrelo reads the ingredient list printed on a skincare label from a photo. No barcode. You set your skin profile in three steps, photograph the list, and get an overall match score, three risk indicators kept separate (acne triggers, irritation, pregnancy cautions), and every ingredient explained in plain language — what it does, what to watch for, and whether it matters for you.

Why no barcode: barcode apps look your product up in a database, so they only answer for products someone has already catalogued. The products people actually struggle with never get catalogued — imports, refills, decanted samples, travel sizes, house brands, and anything reformulated last season. Ingrelo reads the text that is actually printed on the pack.

Two things I want to be straight about.

First, the scoring. The ingredient bands and their weights are my own design, informed by public toxicology references. They are not a validated clinical model and I will not claim they are. This is an explanation layer, not a diagnosis. If you have a skin condition, an allergy, or you are pregnant, please talk to a dermatologist or pharmacist.

Second, privacy, precisely. Text recognition runs on your device, so your photo never leaves your phone. The recognised ingredient text and your skin profile are sent to our AI service to generate the explanation, and they are not stored on our servers.

Free is 3 scans a day. Pro is unlimited scans with full scan history, and the weekly plan carries a 3-day free trial. Prices are whatever the App Store and Google Play show in your region. Labels come in Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean and more; the app itself is in English, Japanese and Chinese.

My question: what product have you tried to look up and simply could not find — an import, a refill, a sample, something reformulated? Those are the cases this approach exists for, and I would rather hear the ones it still misses.

And if you have given Ingrelo a try, an honest review here helps more than you would think. A specific complaint is worth more to me than a compliment.

Email: support@ingrelo.com