Why Épure exists
It started with a kettle. Sold as BPA-free, and the body genuinely was — stainless steel, made in Italy. The lid was plastic. The part that sits directly over boiling water, every single time, was the part the claim quietly didn't cover.
Nothing about that was illegal, and nothing about it was a lie. It was just a claim written at the altitude where it stayed true, and a shopper with no practical way to get underneath it. That gap — between what a label says and what you'd find if you could read the whole spec — is the entire reason for this site.
So Épurelists things per component, cites a source for every claim, and tells you plainly what it hasn't checked.
What we mean by ethical
Three things, weighted equally, never averaged into one number.
Nature
What it's made of, how it was made, how long it lasts.
A product that needs replacing every eighteen months is an environmental cost however green its packaging reads. We look at materials, at certified organic and low-impact production, and at whether a thing is built to be repaired or built to be thrown away.
Animals
Testing, ingredients, and welfare.
Animal testing is banned for cosmetics in the EU, which makes “cruelty-free” a weaker signal here than marketing implies. What still distinguishes a brand is independent certification, and whether animal-derived ingredients appear at all.
What we refuse to do
No invented scores
We publish counts, never a composite rating. A number like 78/100 hides its own weightings, so it asserts an authority nobody granted us. You can audit a count.
No claim without a source
Every certification and every flagged substance carries a link to the body that issued or regulates it. This isn't a policy we try to remember — an entry without a source fails our build and never reaches you.
No ranking for money
Outbound links may be affiliate links, and that never affects whether a product is listed or where it appears. We hold no stock and process no payments.
We say when we don't know
An ingredient we haven't checked is marked “not assessed”, not quietly omitted. Silence would read as approval, and it isn't.
Where we fall short
These numbers are read from the directory itself, so they can't drift out of date. They are not flattering, which is the point.
- 16
- products listed, drawn from 8 recognised certifications
- 14/16
- have a published composition — the rest we haven't sourced yet
- 60%
- of listed components matched against our 68-entry reference table
- 6
- listed on editorial grounds with no formal certification
Every entry was found by searching certification directories and link-checked automatically, then curated by hand. It is machine-assisted research, not an audit — confirm anything that matters to you against the issuer before you rely on it.
For how the judgement is actually made, see the methodology.