The Good Guide is my FAVORITE do-good aid. It’s a website and an app, which I use every time I’m shopping. It is a database of products (I can almost always find what I’m looking for) with sustainability ratings. You just type in the product’s name (like my conditioner – Yes to Carrots), and it pulls up Health, Environment, and Social rankings. In this case, it’s pretty healthy, although all of the ingredients aren’t disclosed (yikes), they have a good environmental management program, and are doing just OK on the social side. You can also see further details at the bottom of the page (to get to this screen click on the red thumbs down or green thumbs up and then click ‘see full rating details‘). AND, you can see a list of similar products with higher ratings, to help you make the best choices.
I’ve been using this app for a while and friends in grad school know the Harvard team who started it. I’m vouching for the science behind it because when I’ve researched the same product, I come up with similar conclusions. It basically does the research for you to make sustainable purchasing EASY! And that’s what it is all about, making sustainability easy and accessible for everyone!
Guder Goes Green 
Ok, I know you told us about this a while ago but I didn’t use it until I got the app. Now I’m running around my house scanning everything! Haha. I really like it for beauty and cleaning products but a little confused by the health – my cereal got a 10 for being organic but when I clicked on “top products in category” Wheaties came up for most nutrition. A little confusing…
Great! I know I mostly use it with beauty things too- ok so it is a bit confusing (I think probably due to funding the received or something stupid), but it makes guesses about what you might like/buy so if you go to Best Cold Cereals- you’ll see a selection of things they pick out (I see Millet Puffs at an 8.0, then Total and Fiber one at 7.5 each on the main screen), BUT if you click ‘All top rated cereals’ at the bottom of the column, it will actually give you the list by rank, so you shouldn’t see Fiber One or Wheaties on that list until further down the line. Try this link: http://www.goodguide.com/products?category_id=282984-cold-cereals&sort_order=DESC.
You didn’t used to have to do this extra step which makes me think General Mills might have made an investment or something annoying 😦