About Arin

What we do

The ingredient list on a cosmetic label is written in INCI names: "Phenoxyethanol", "Butylphenyl Methylpropional", "Sodium Laureth Sulfate". On their own those names tell a shopper nothing. Yet regulators have published decisions about those same substances, and those decisions are public.

Arin puts those decisions under the ingredient name: prohibition and restriction entries in the annexes of the EU Cosmetics Regulation (1223/2009), CIR and SCCS safety assessments, IARC carcinogenicity classifications, ECHA records. Every assessment is shown with the name of the source it rests on and, where available, a direct link to it.

We do not give products a safety score from 0 to 100. A label shows the order of ingredients, not their concentration; a single number calculated without that concentration would present data we do not have. Instead each ingredient is reported on its own, with its source.

Why it exists

These records are scattered and mostly in English. Finding out whether a substance sits on the EU Annex II list means opening the regulation and locating the right annex. Very few people will do that for each name on a label.

Arin does that lookup once and keeps the result in readable form. It produces no new findings; it makes an existing decision findable.

Who publishes it

Arin is founded and published by Ahmed Mert Toy. We claim no expertise in cosmetic chemistry, dermatology or toxicology, and no such title is used anywhere on the site.

The "Arin Editorial" byline under articles means this: the wording is ours, the assessment belongs to the regulatory body named on the page. If a cosmetic chemist or pharmacist ever starts reviewing the content, they will be named on this page, and not before.

How the content is prepared

Draft texts are prepared with AI assistance. Its job is to turn structured data from regulatory sources into readable prose, not to produce the assessments. It does not always do this flawlessly.

The source list, the role of AI and the limits of both are set out in detail on a separate page.

The app

Arin is mainly used through the phone app: photograph the ingredient list or scan the barcode and see where each ingredient stands, in the shop. The app is available for Android on Google Play today; the iOS version is not published yet.

The website is the same data, open and searchable.

Independence

This site carries no advertising and uses no third-party tracking (Google Analytics, Facebook pixel, and the like). Visit measurement runs on our own server. The app is free today.

No brand, manufacturer or retailer can pay to change an ingredient assessment, a product’s visibility, or its position in a list. If such an offer is ever made, we will write about it.

What we do not claim

Arin does not provide medical advice, diagnose, or recommend treatment. An ingredient appearing as "restricted" or "prohibited" in the records does not tell you how it will behave on your skin: dose, concentration in the product, how it is used and individual sensitivity decide that.

If you have a skin concern, see a clinician. Nothing on this site substitutes for that.