We work for you.
Not for brands.
We built onlyonlywholefood because reading ingredient lists is hard, and trusting brands is harder. "Natural," "clean," and "pure" are marketing words — they mean nothing legally. We score every product ourselves, using published toxicology research and regulatory flags, and we show you exactly why.
We make money through affiliate links. When you click through to buy a product we recommend, we may earn a commission at no cost to you.
We're telling you this upfront — not in footnote 47 — because you deserve to know how this works.
Our ranking and recommendation engine is completely independent of whether we have an affiliate deal. A product with no affiliate link gets treated exactly the same as one that earns us 15%. The score is the score.
- Every safety claim is backed by literature. If we flag an ingredient, there's a peer-reviewed source behind it — visible on every product page. No junk science, no influencer opinion.
- We will never bury a bad score. If a bestselling product scores 34/100, it scores 34/100 — whether we have an affiliate deal or not. You'll see it.
- Your Specialist works for you. When our Specialist recommends something, the only criterion is what's genuinely best for your needs. Affiliate status doesn't touch the recommendations.
- Your data stays yours. We don't sell your scan history, preferences, or cabinet contents. Ever. We use it only to make your experience better.
- The methodology is open. Every scoring factor, every hazard weight, every data source is documented and available. If you disagree with something, tell us — we'll look at it.
Products start at 100. We deduct points based on flagged ingredients — HIGH concern ingredients cost 25 points each, MEDIUM cost 10, LOW cost 5. Scores can't go below 0.
Our hazard classifications draw from: EWG Skin Deep, Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, the EU Cosmetics Regulation Annex II/III banned/restricted lists, and peer-reviewed studies indexed in PubMed. We link the specific papers on every product page.
Here is exactly how it works: some product pages have a "Buy cleaner alternative" link. If you click it and buy, we earn a commission — typically 4–15% depending on the retailer. The products shown as alternatives are chosen because they score higher, not because they pay us more.
If a cleaner alternative has no affiliate program, we link it anyway. A lot of the best-scoring products are small brands that don't run affiliate programs at all. We show them because they're good, not because they're profitable for us.
That's the model. There's nothing else.
Questions, disagreements, or want to submit a product for scoring? Reach us at hello@onlyonlywholefood.com.