What earns a chip
The safety panel under a parsed ingredient label chips exactly two things, and only for ingredients that actually appear on that label: a match against a government-maintained fragrance-allergen disclosure list, or a match against our pregnancy-caution rule set. Nothing else on this site currently earns a chip in that panel — a chip is a pointer to a specific, sourced list or rule, never a general impression of the product.
Allergen chips: EU and Korean MFDS lists
EU-listed allergenappears when an ingredient on the label is on the European Union's fragrance-allergen labeling list, expanded by Regulation (EU) 2023/1545. That regulation names the substances a fragrance ingredient must disclose on-pack when present above its threshold — it is a labeling rule regulators wrote for consumers with a known contact allergy, not a judgment on the ingredient or the finished product.
KMFDS-listed allergenappears when an ingredient matches South Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety list of 25 fragrance allergens that must be declared on Korean cosmetic packaging (see this summary of the KMFDS rule). When an ingredient sits on both lists we show the EU label, since it is the more specific, current regulation; a KMFDS-only match still gets its own distinct chip rather than being folded into the EU wording.
Either chip means the same thing: the ingredient is on a disclosure list a regulator maintains. It is not a measurement of how much of the ingredient is in this product, and it is not a statement that this product will cause a reaction for you.
Pregnancy chips
Often avoided in pregnancyand Used with caution in pregnancycome from a small, hand-curated rule set of 16 ingredient classes, matched by literal substring against each parsed ingredient name. The rule set is drawn from peer-reviewed review articles and dermatology- and pregnancy-authority guidance — ACOG-aligned MotherToBaby fact sheets, Canadian Family Physician, and journal reviews — and every rule links its own source. Each rule's evidence is graded honestly: strong means human or regulatory consensus, moderate means a supportive trial or mechanism, limited means the basis is mechanistic, in-vitro, or simply an absence of a contrary signal — not proof either way. The full rule set, with every citation, is on the sources page.
What a chip does not mean
- Not a grade. There is no letter, number, or star rating attached to a chip, and no overall grade for the product it sits on.
- Not a verdict on this product. A chip describes one ingredient against one list or rule — it is not a certification, positive or negative, of the finished formula as a whole.
- Not medical advice. This is an informational screen, not a diagnosis or a treatment recommendation. Pregnancy skincare decisions in particular depend on your history, your trimester, and the exact product — talk with your doctor, OB-GYN, or dermatologist about your situation.
- Not proof of harm, and absence of a chip is not proof of anything either. Sitting on a disclosure list does not mean an ingredient will cause a reaction in you specifically. Just as importantly, an ingredient with no chip has simply not matched our lists or rules — it may be well studied and reassuring, or it may just be one we have not written a rule for yet. An unflagged ingredient is never a guarantee.
No single score, no blanket label
We deliberately do not reduce an ingredient list to one overall score, letter grade, star rating, or badge word implying a product is entirely without risk. Skin chemistry, concentration, formulation, and individual history all matter too much for one number or one word to carry honestly. Every claim on this page and in the panel is scoped to a specific ingredient and a specific, linked source — never averaged into a single verdict about the product.
Why some labels show no chips at all
The panel only chips a label once we are confident enough in the parse to make a claim about specific ingredients. A partially read label could be hiding the exact ingredient a rule looks for, so below our coverage bar we suppress every chip and the fragrance-allergen advisory entirely, rather than guess. Ingredient lists can also vary by batch — always check your own packaging — and it is worth patch-testing any new product on a small area first.
The full bibliography
Every source cited above, plus every other citation across beautydew labs — ingredient guides, Learn articles, and the fungal-acne and baby-safety checkers — is indexed on the sources page, grouped by evidence type so it can be audited in one place.