How the natural origin score works

1. What the score shows

The natural origin score shows how much of a product is of natural origin, on a scale from 1 to 10. Unlike the processing level for food, a higher number here means more natural: 10 is the most natural.

• Mostly natural origin (8 to 10): 80% or more of the product is of natural origin, not counting water. A 10 means every ingredient is natural or mineral.
• Mixed origin (4 to 7): 40% to 80% is of natural origin.
• Mostly synthetic (1 to 3): less than 40% is of natural origin.

Natural origin means that an ingredient comes from plants, animals, micro-organisms or minerals, also when it has been changed by the kinds of chemistry that the natural cosmetics standards allow. With one scale for every product, you can compare products and brands, and choose what suits you.

2. How we work it out

We follow the published criteria of COSMOS (version 4.2) and NATRUE (version 3.9), two standards for natural and organic cosmetics. They are free to read and stricter than the ISO 16128 guidelines. First, every ingredient gets a class, each with a source:

• Natural: plant, animal or microbial material that has only been physically processed, such as a plant oil, butter, extract or juice, or beeswax.
• Mineral: minerals and ingredients made from them, such as zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, iron oxides, mica, silica or salt.
• Derived natural: natural material changed by chemistry that COSMOS allows, or by fermentation, such as glucosides, soap, xanthan gum or citric acid.
• Partly natural: ingredients with a natural and a petrochemical part, such as cocamidopropyl betaine. They count for their natural part, at the middle of the range their makers publish.
• Permitted preservatives: benzoic, sorbic, dehydroacetic and salicylic acid and their salts, and benzyl alcohol. They count as synthetic, and the reason says that COSMOS and NATRUE allow them.
• Synthetic: ingredients from fossil sources or made with chemistry the standards don't allow, such as silicones, synthetic polymers, ingredients made with ethylene or propylene oxide (PEG-, -eth, PPG-, polysorbate), parabens, phenoxyethanol, isothiazolinones, EDTA, synthetic dyes and organic UV filters.
• Either: glycerin, fatty alcohols, tocopherol, squalane, sodium lauryl sulfate, propanediol and butylene glycol can come from natural or from synthetic sources. They count as natural when the product has COSMOS, NATRUE or Ecocert certification. Otherwise we count them as uncertain, which widens the estimate.
• Fragrance: "parfum" and the fragrance allergens listed with it, together at most 1% of the product. It counts as natural only on NATRUE-certified products, because NATRUE allows natural fragrance only.

Water is left out, because many products are mostly water, and counting it would say little about the other ingredients.

Then we estimate the amounts. A label gives the order of the ingredients, not the amounts:

• Ingredients above 1% are listed from most to least.
• Ingredients at 1% or less can be listed in any order. We place that line at the first ingredient that EU law limits to 1% or less, such as most preservatives, or at the fragrance.
• Colours listed after "+/-" or "may contain" count as 1% or less.
• On US products with a Drug Facts panel, such as sunscreen, the active ingredients keep their printed percentage, and the inactive ingredients count in any order.

Your phone then works out 2,000 possible recipes that fit the label and uses the middle value of their natural share, with the likely range around it. The same ingredient list always gives the same result.

The score follows from that share:

• 10: every ingredient is natural or mineral, with nothing derived, synthetic, uncertain, unknown or fragrance
• 9: 90% or more of natural origin
• 8 down to 2: one step for every 10 points, so 80 to 90% is 8 and 20 to 30% is 2
• 1: less than 20%

The rules are the same for every product and every brand. Your phone works out the score, and the app shows the reasons: how many ingredients are of natural origin, each synthetic or uncertain ingredient with the rule behind it, any certification, and where the data came from.

3. Each type of product

• Personal care, such as skincare, hair care, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, sunscreen, make-up, baby and intimate care: the method above, from the ingredient list.
• Household cleaning and laundry: the same method, but only with the full ingredient list, from Open Products Facts or the maker's ingredient data sheet. The pack itself only gives groups such as "5-15% anionic surfactants", which don't say where they come from, so a pack label alone gives Not enough information yet, unless it shows Ecocert's certification for detergents, which gives 9. The reasons always say whether the surfactants, the main washing ingredients, come from petrochemicals or from plants.
• Menstrual products: from the materials of each part, because packs give no weights. The applicator and the wrapper are left out. All natural fibres give 10. A cotton or viscose core with a synthetic cover, back sheet or string gives 6 or 7. Pulp with superabsorbent polymer and plastic layers gives 4 or 5, as an estimate. A silicone or TPE cup gives 1. If the pack only gives general names, you see Not enough information yet.
• Clothing and textiles, including period underwear: the exact share from the fibre percentages on the sewn-in label. Natural fibres, and fibres made from wood pulp such as viscose, modal, lyocell and cupro, count as natural origin, and the reasons show the split. Recycled synthetic fibres count as synthetic. A 10 needs 100% natural fibres, such as cotton, linen, wool or silk, so 100% viscose gets 9. Fibre labels can be up to 3% off, so the score says within 3%.

4. How sure we are

The score is an estimate, so every score comes with how sure we are:

• Based on the full ingredient list: we recognised at least 95% of the ingredients, and the likely range stays within one level.
• Some ingredients we couldn't read: we recognised 85% to 95% of the ingredients, or the likely range spans two or three levels. The app then says the score is estimated from the ingredient order.
• Not enough information yet. Scan the ingredient list. You see this instead of a number when there is no ingredient list, when we recognised fewer than 85% of the ingredients, when we don't know one of the first three ingredients (not counting water), or when the likely range spans more than three levels.

5. Where the data comes from

The score needs the ingredient list, the materials or the fibre label. FemNote gets them in one of two ways:

• Barcode: your phone looks the product up in Open Food Facts, which passes the lookup on to Open Beauty Facts for personal care or to Open Products Facts for other products. All three are open databases built by volunteers and run by Open Food Facts, an independent non-profit, under the Open Database License (ODbL). Only the barcode number leaves your phone, without an account, ID or cookies. The result shows when the product was last edited there.
• Label: many body & home products aren't in these databases yet, or have no ingredient list there. Then you can photograph the ingredient list, the materials or the fibre label. Your phone reads the label itself, and the result shows that the data comes from your label scan. If your phone can't read it, the photo or text can be sent to be recognised, as our privacy policy explains, and it is not stored.

Your scans and their scores are stored on your phone, not on our servers.

6. What the score is not

The score is about where ingredients come from. It is not about safety, quality or how well a product works, and it doesn't tell you whether a product is right for you.

Synthetic does not mean unsafe. The ingredients are legal, and EU and UK law require a safety assessment before a cosmetic is sold.

Natural is not the same as gentler either: many natural ingredients, such as some essential oils, are common allergens.

Sunscreen: UV filters protect your skin. The score only describes where they come from.

Fluoride in toothpaste counts as mineral, so leaving it out never raises a score.

The score is not a certification or a label. When a product has COSMOS, NATRUE or Ecocert certification, the app shows it as a separate fact.

It is not a judgement of a brand: it describes one product as it was in the data when you scanned it. It is also separate from your personal verdict, such as Good match for you, which depends on your own watch list.

FemNote is a wellness app, not a medical device. It doesn't diagnose, treat or prevent any condition.

7. Brands can't pay

No brand can pay for a score, for a better place when you compare or rank your scans, or to change a product's data in FemNote. Brands can't use the score on their products or in their advertising, and there is no FemNote seal. We earn from subscriptions.

FemNote has no ads. If we ever show a sponsored product, it will be clearly labelled Ad, and it will never change a score.

8. Wrong data?

If a product's details are wrong or out of date in Open Beauty Facts or Open Products Facts, you can correct them there. Anyone can, including the brand. FemNote uses the corrected data the next time it looks the product up.

You can also scan the label on your product: a label scan uses what is printed on it.

Think we applied a rule wrongly? Tell us through the support page. A real person replies within 2 working days.

9. Version and changes

This is version 1 of the method, from 14 October 2026.

We announce every change to the classes, rules or thresholds on this page, with the new version number, the date and what changed. When the app gets a new version, your phone works out the scores of your saved scans again.

10. Sources

• COSMOS-standard AISBL (2025). COSMOS-standard: Cosmetics Organic and Natural Standard, version 4.2.
• NATRUE (2025). NATRUE Label requirements for natural and organic cosmetics, version 3.9.
• ISO 16128-1:2016 and ISO 16128-2:2017, guidelines on technical definitions and criteria for natural and organic cosmetic ingredients and products (paid standards).
• Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 on cosmetic products: Article 19 (labelling) and Annex V (preservatives).
• Regulation (EC) No 648/2004 on detergents, Annex VII (ingredient labelling).
• Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 on textile fibre names and labelling.
• Isaacs KK, Phillips KA, Biryol D and others (2018). Consumer product chemical weight fractions from ingredient lists. Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology 28(3), 216-222.
• Open Beauty Facts and Open Products Facts, open databases run by Open Food Facts. Their data is available under the Open Database License (ODbL).

Product data in FemNote: © Open Food Facts, Open Beauty Facts and Open Products Facts contributors, under the Open Database License (ODbL).