Beat the Microbead

Name: Beat the Microbead
Rating: 4.5 (27 reviews)
Author: Plastic Soup Foundation

By: Plastic Soup Foundation

Fight plastics in cosmetics!

Features & Capabilities

The Beat the Microbead app is the fastest way to learn if your cosmetics and personal care products contain plastic ingredients. This app uses state-of-the-art text recognition technology. Just scan the ingredients of your products and check them for microplastics. Not only that, but you can also get to know microplastic-free brands certified by us.

How does it work?

It’s straightforward: you can scan products with four easy steps:

Find the ingredients list on your product.
Position the full list within your camera frame.
Make sure the ingredients are clear to read.
Take a picture to scan!

A traffic light rating system

RED: Products that contain microplastics.
ORANGE: Products that contain what we call “sceptical” microplastics. With this, we mean synthetic polymers for which there is not enough information available.
GREEN: Products that do not contain microplastics.

Help us enrich our database!

Every time you add a product to our database, you help us build a case against microplastics. With every product information, we can create evidence and convince authorities about the extensive use of plastic ingredients. A bit of extra effort on your side makes you a part of the fight against microplastics in cosmetics and care products. So, go ahead, scan the barcode of your product and help us get some more information!

By adding the products to our database, you can also discover our certified microplastic-free brands. These brands have their entire range of products free of all known microplastic ingredients.

Why is it important?

Plastic in cosmetics is a global problem! Microplastics are hardly visible ingredients that pollute our planet & may pose health risks. These microplastics, hardly visible to the naked eye, flow straight from the bathroom drain into the sewer system. Microplastics are not biodegradable, and once they enter the (marine) environment, they are almost impossible to remove.

Sea animals absorb or eat microplastics; these particles are passed along the marine food chain. Since humans are ultimately at the top of this food chain, it is likely that we also ingest microplastics.

Using body washes or cosmetics that contain microplastics can put the ocean, ourselves, and our children at risk! With this app, you can get aware of this issue and make environmentally friendly choices.

Who is behind this app?

The collaborators behind this app include the following partners:

Plastic Soup Foundation: NGO based in Amsterdam, initiators of the worldwide campaign “Beat the Microbead”. Their mission: No plastic in our water or our bodies!

PINCH: a renowned mobile development agency from Amsterdam that is proud of their work for the Plastic Soup Foundation.

User Growth & Download Statistics

App

By:

Plastic Soup Foundation

Rating:

4.50

(27)

Version:

3.1.1 Last updated: 2024-04-02

Version code:

864452573

Creation date:

2012-11-03

Compatible devices:

Size:

51.59MB

URLs:

Full description:

Source:

Apple Apps Store

Data ingested on:

2026-06-07

Compare stats and ranking:

Ranking

# 251,054 ▲ 1,001

Other rankings

#22 in plastic bottles keyword 23 ▲ #25 in plastic waste keyword 21 ▲

For Developers

Monetize with App Pass Boost with Extension Booster

Contact the developer

Chrome-Stats does not own this Apple app. Please use these information below to contact the Apple app developer.

Developed by:

Plastic Soup Foundation

Apple Apps Store

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beat-the-microbead/id573546717

User Reviews

Users largely praise the app for its mission to educate about microbeads and microplastics and for its community-driven goal of expanding a product database. However, the reviews consistently cite reliability problems: a sparse, hard-to-navigate database; a finicky scanner; and frequent submission errors that hinder adding new products. These consistency issues—database coverage, scanning reliability, and data submission—drive most of the negative feedback, underscoring the need for better data coverage and a smoother user workflow to realize the app’s educational potential.

Pros

Clear concept/mission to educate users about microbeads and microplastics and to reduce exposure.
Educational value highlighting the harms of microplastics and microbeads across products.
Community-driven feature allowing users to scan and submit products to help expand the database.

Cons

Sparse and frequently incomplete database with many products shown as unknown.
Scanner is unreliable and often fails to recognize barcodes or read images.
Submission/upload flow has errors, preventing users from adding data to the database.
Search/navigation is confusing with duplicates and inaccurate results.

Recent reviews

While the app does flag products with micro beads, and user provides app w data, that is literally all it does. There is not database for me to search for a safe product. Kind of a dead end

by fi*****, 2025-01-19

An app like this is truly amazing and revolutionary in a world full of cancer causing toxins and microplastics in literally anything and everything. Now whenever I want to buy a new product but I’m skeptical about it I’ll just scan it! So easy and simple and it’s free! I’ll be using this app for everything now🫶🫶🫶🫶

by Sp*****, 2024-06-28

Having used this app for scanning product over a few years now I’ve found it really hasn’t progressed. Instead of just live scanning or library pic scanning which means users collecting pics or screenshots they don’t need the app should allow for cut and paste text abilities from a list of ingredients. This text feature should also be included in the webpage. I’ve scanned and submitted many products to the app for inclusion to the database but, they never really end up there! The database search feature is also very poor and inaccurate or simply doesn’t work. It feels at times like the app is pushing to towards ‘green’ or microplastic free brands only and not the info the user seeks regarding a product of interest.