What I Learned Standing in the Target Aisle: Building Probya’s Product Database

The beginnings of Probya probably looked a little bizarre to others passing by. Down the aisle, you would’ve seen a woman (me!) holding bottle after bottle, photographing the barcodes and ingredient lists one by one.

But I wasn’t comparing prices, which would be an easy assumption to make. I was closely reading all of the ingredient lists and comparing them to other products on the shelf. I was gathering intel.

I’d gone in for body wash and a few intimate care products. And once I started digging into what these products contained and how they were marketed, I couldn't unsee it. Some of the promises on the labels didn’t match what was in the product. Marketing claims were confusing and misleading. It was surprising, to say the least.

But this was where Probya started, and here’s how it grew from there.

The Beginning: Checking the Labels Myself

I could have saved myself a lot of time. There are existing ingredient databases out there, and early on, I considered just pulling from one of them to get Probya’s free scanner off the ground faster. But it didn’t really sit well. And the more I looked, the less comfortable I felt doing that.

Most of these pre-existing databases are built for general skincare, not for intimate care products. And I kept noticing gaps, outdated entries, and information that didn’t quite match the bottle in my hand. If I was asking people to trust what Probya told them, I wanted to know the data was right because I’d checked it, not because someone else said so.

So I opted for the slower route. I went through bottle by bottle.

What I Learned Along the Way

I didn’t actually expect so many products labeled “gentle” or “sensitive” to have fragrances listed right at the top of their ingredients’ lists. Often, these were above the ingredients that are responsible for actually cleaning your skin.

And when I looked even closer, fragrance wasn’t the only thing that gave me a moment’s pause.

Here are a few patterns I noticed:

• “Unscented” didn’t always mean fragrance-free. Plenty of products use a masking fragrance to cover up the smell of their other ingredients, meaning “unscented” still included fragrance.
• The front and the back rarely told the same story. The calming, reassuring language on the front of the bottle didn’t always line up with the ingredient list on the back.
• Even “gentle” washes contained sulfates. SLS and SLES (the ingredients behind that thick, foamy lather) turned up regularly in products marketed as mild or sensitive, even though they may strip away the skin’s natural oils.

In many cases (not all), the marketing and the formulation were telling two slightly different stories. And unless you knew to flip the bottle over, read closely, and maybe do a little research, you’d never know.

Why I Started With One Category

Checking products the way I wanted to, which means reading the formulations and cross-referencing ingredients against research on the intimate microbiome, takes time. And with Probya, I want to be deliberate and thorough. I didn’t want to leave room for any gaps or guesswork. Ultimately, I wanted to create a database that would be useful.

This is why we started with only one product category—washes and shower products. These products are frequently used every day, and many of us use them without a second thought. But Probya allows you to double-check and explore the full context of the exact products you use daily, helping you better align with your body and your needs.

Who is Probya For?

Probya is for the person who never knew any of this was worth thinking about—who reached for the same body wash for years because it smelled nice and the bottle was familiar, and never once flipped it over wondering what was really inside.

This used to be me. And there never used to be a simple way to check.

Probya makes this easy to do. You can scan a product yourself, and within minutes, you have all the information you need (verified against research) to determine if that particular product is right for you.