Terms of Service

1. Agreement to These Terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a legal agreement between you and the operator of LuxSense ("LuxSense," "we," "us," or "our"). LuxSense is operated from Australia.

By downloading, installing, or using the LuxSense application or website (together, the "Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms in their entirety, including all disclaimers and limitations of liability. If you don't agree, please don't use the Service.

These Terms apply in addition to our Privacy Policy and Open Source Licenses, which are incorporated by reference.

2. How LuxSense Works

LuxSense is a cosmetic ingredient analysis tool. Understanding how it actually works is essential to understanding its limitations:

Barcode Scanning

1. The barcode is detected entirely on your device using Apple Vision; only the resulting number is sent to our server.
2. Our backend looks the barcode up in our product database. If the product is found and has an ingredient list, the analysis is returned.
3. If the barcode isn't in our database, we forward only the bare barcode number to a third-party catalogue (Go-UPC) to retrieve product name, brand, and image.
4. If we still don't have an ingredient list, you'll be prompted to photograph the label.

Ingredient Label Scanning

1. Image capture: You take one or more photos of an ingredient label (up to three per scan).
2. OCR via AI: Photos are sent to our server and forwarded to Anthropic's Claude with a prompt to extract the printed INCI ingredient list as text. Photos are discarded immediately after extraction and are not used to train any model.
3. Ingredient matching: Each extracted ingredient name is matched against our database (EU CosIng, PubChem, Open Beauty Facts and our own enrichment).
4. Safety scoring: Our proprietary algorithm computes a 0–100 safety score for every ingredient and an aggregate score for the product, based on regulatory status, published safety research, and ingredient function.

Why Results Can Vary Between Scans

3. Medical, Health & Safety Disclaimers

3.1 Not Medical Advice

LuxSense does not provide medical, dermatological, pharmaceutical, or healthcare advice. Specifically:

• Safety scores are mathematical outputs of our proprietary algorithm, not clinical assessments or health recommendations.
• Scores are not endorsed, certified, or approved by any regulatory body, medical institution, dermatological association, or government agency.
• Our methodology has not been peer-reviewed, clinically validated, or independently audited.
• No information in LuxSense should be interpreted as a recommendation to use or avoid any product.

3.2 Allergy Warning

3.3 Pregnancy & Breastfeeding

Pregnancy safety flags in LuxSense are informational only, based on general published data. They are not comprehensive, not medical advice, and not a substitute for consultation with your healthcare provider. If you are pregnant, planning to become pregnant, or breastfeeding, consult your healthcare provider before using any skincare product.

3.4 Consult a Professional

For any skin concerns, allergic reactions, or medical conditions, consult a qualified dermatologist or healthcare provider. Do not delay seeking medical advice because of anything you read in LuxSense.

4. Data Accuracy Disclaimers

AI-Extracted Ingredient Text

Ingredient text is extracted from your photo by AI optical character recognition (Anthropic's Claude). The model can misread characters, skip ingredients, or fabricate plausible-looking names when a label is partially obscured or illegible, even when reporting high confidence. Always verify against the printed label.

Pre-Existing Database Entries

For products already in our database, ingredient lists may have been added earlier (by us, by another user's scan, or sourced from open-data sources such as Open Beauty Facts or manufacturer-supplied data). Manufacturers may have reformulated the product since then, so the database entry may not match the bottle in your hand. The label on the physical product is always authoritative.

Third-Party Databases

Safety data comes from the EU CosIng Database (European Commission), PubChem (U.S. NIH), and Open Beauty Facts (community-contributed, ODbL). We do not independently verify the accuracy of these sources.

Scoring Algorithm

Our scoring algorithm is proprietary and uses general category-level assessments. It does not consider ingredient concentrations, formulation context, pH, individual factors, or interactions between ingredients. Scores may change as our algorithm is updated.

5. Subscriptions and In-App Purchases

5.1 Plans

Premium features are sold as auto-renewing subscriptions through the Apple App Store. Available plans, durations, and prices are shown on the in-app paywall and the App Store product page. We may also offer an introductory free trial; the trial duration is shown in-app before you confirm the purchase.

5.2 Billing, Renewal, and Cancellation

• Payment is charged to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase.
• Subscriptions automatically renew at the same price unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period.
• Your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period.
• You can manage or cancel subscriptions at any time in your iOS Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions, or in the App Store app.
• If a free trial is offered and you cancel before the trial ends, you will not be charged. Any unused portion of a free trial is forfeited if you subscribe before the trial ends.

5.3 Refunds

Subscription refunds are handled by Apple under their standard refund policy, not by LuxSense. Submit refund requests at reportaproblem.apple.com. Where applicable consumer protection law (including the Australian Consumer Law and EU consumer rights) entitles you to a remedy, you retain those rights regardless of Apple's policy.

5.4 Price Changes

We may change subscription prices for renewals. Apple will notify you of any price increase in advance and require your consent before charging the new price; if you do not consent, your subscription will not auto-renew at the new rate.

5.5 Free Tier

We offer a free tier with daily scan limits. The limit, currently three (3) ingredient-label scans per day, may change without notice. The free tier may be discontinued, modified, or further limited at any time. Server-side rate limits also apply to prevent abuse.

5.6 Apple App Store Terms

Because LuxSense is distributed through Apple's App Store:

• These Terms are entered into between you and LuxSense, not Apple. LuxSense alone is responsible for the Service and its content.
• Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the Service.
• If the Service fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, who will refund the purchase price (if any). To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation; any other claims, losses, or damages attributable to a failure to conform are LuxSense's responsibility, not Apple's.
• LuxSense (not Apple) is responsible for addressing any claims relating to the Service, including product liability, legal compliance, and consumer protection claims.
• LuxSense is responsible for investigating, defending, settling, and discharging any third-party intellectual property infringement claim relating to the Service.
• You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo or designated as "terrorist supporting," and that you are not on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

6. Eligibility

You must be at least 16 years old to use LuxSense. By using the Service, you represent that you meet this requirement.

7. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Rely on the Service as a substitute for reading physical product labels
• Rely on the Service for allergy, medical, or health decisions
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or extract source code or our scoring algorithm
• Scrape, crawl, or bulk-download data from the Service
• Submit intentionally false or misleading product data
• Interfere with or disrupt the Service's infrastructure
• Use the Service for any unlawful purpose

8. User-Contributed Content and Feedback

If you submit product data, ingredient corrections, photographs, or other content ("User Contributions"):

• License grant: You grant LuxSense a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, sub-licensable licence to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, distribute, publicly display, and create derivative works from your contributions for the purposes of operating, improving, and promoting the Service.
• Where contributions are incorporated into Open Beauty Facts–derived databases, they may also be subject to the ODbL.
• You warrant that your contributions are accurate to the best of your knowledge and do not infringe any third-party rights.
• We may review, edit, refuse, or remove contributions at our sole discretion, and there is no obligation to publish, retain, or attribute any contribution.

Feedback. If you send us suggestions, ideas, bug reports, or other feedback about the Service ("Feedback"), you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, sub-licensable licence to use the Feedback for any purpose, without compensation or attribution to you. You also confirm that your Feedback does not contain confidential information of any third party.

9. Intellectual Property

The LuxSense app, website, brand, scoring algorithm, and original content are owned by LuxSense and protected by copyright, trade-mark, and other intellectual-property laws. Our database incorporates open data (CosIng, PubChem, Open Beauty Facts) under their original licenses. See Licenses.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

11. Limitation of Liability

Health Outcomes

General Limitation

We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, including loss of data, profits, or goodwill. To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability for all claims arising out of or related to the Service, whether in contract, tort, or otherwise, shall not exceed the greater of (a) the total amount you paid us in the twelve (12) months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) fifty Australian dollars (AU$50).

Your Acknowledgment

By using the Service, you acknowledge that:

• You use the Service entirely at your own risk
• You are solely responsible for product use decisions
• Ingredient lists may be wrong: always check the physical label
• The absence of a warning doesn't mean a product is safe for you
• A favorable score doesn't mean a product is safe for you

Mandatory Consumer Rights

Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts, or modifies any consumer guarantee, right, or remedy that cannot lawfully be excluded, including:

• Consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)) for users in Australia;
• Mandatory statutory rights of consumers in the European Union, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland;
• Liability for fraud, wilful misconduct, gross negligence, death, or personal injury caused by negligence, where such exclusion is prohibited by law.

Where any provision of these Terms would otherwise exclude or limit a right or remedy that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, that provision applies to the maximum extent permitted by law and no further.

12. Indemnification

To the maximum extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless LuxSense and its operators, affiliates, contractors, and licensors from and against any and all claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to:

• your use of, or inability to use, the Service;
• your reliance on any information, score, ingredient list, or analysis provided by the Service;
• any health outcome, allergic reaction, or other consequence resulting from your use of any product identified, analysed, or referenced by the Service;
• your violation of these Terms or any applicable law;
• your User Contributions, including any claim that they infringe third-party rights.

13. Termination

By you: Stop using LuxSense at any time by deleting the app.

By us: We may suspend or discontinue the Service at any time.

Survival: Disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and governing law sections survive termination.

14. Governing Law & Disputes

These Terms are governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of New South Wales, Australia, without regard to its conflict-of-law principles.

Dispute resolution: Before commencing any formal proceedings, you agree to contact us first at [email protected] and attempt to resolve the dispute in good faith. If the dispute is not resolved within thirty (30) days of written notice, either party may pursue the matter in the courts of New South Wales, Australia, to whose exclusive jurisdiction the parties submit, subject to any non-excludable rights you may have to commence proceedings in your home jurisdiction.

Consumer rights preserved: Nothing in this section limits any non-excludable statutory right you have, including consumer protection rights under the Australian Consumer Law, mandatory consumer rights in the European Union, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland. EU/EEA consumers may also use the EU Online Dispute Resolution platform.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms. For material changes, we'll provide at least 30 days' notice. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

16. General Provisions

• Severability: If any provision of these Terms is held to be unenforceable, that provision shall be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, or, if not possible, severed; the remaining provisions remain in full effect.
• Entire agreement: These Terms, our Privacy Policy, and Licenses page constitute the entire agreement between you and LuxSense regarding the Service and supersede any prior or contemporaneous communications.
• No waiver: Failure to enforce any provision shall not waive that provision or any other.
• Assignment: We may assign or transfer these Terms (in whole or in part) at any time without restriction. You may not assign your rights or obligations under these Terms without our prior written consent; any attempted assignment in breach of this clause is void.
• Force majeure: Neither party will be liable for any failure or delay in performance to the extent caused by circumstances beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, natural disasters, pandemic, war, terrorism, civil disturbance, government action, labour disputes, internet or telecommunications failures, third-party service outages (including outages of Anthropic, Cloudflare, Apple, or Go-UPC), or denial-of-service attacks.
• No agency: No partnership, joint venture, employment, or agency relationship is created by these Terms.
• Headings: Section headings are for convenience only and do not affect interpretation.

17. Contact Us

Questions about these Terms?

• Email: [email protected]
• Subject line: "Terms of Service Inquiry"