01Independence
No advertising network operates on this site. We run no sponsored articles, no advertorial and no guest posts. We do not accept product samples in exchange for coverage, and we do not accept payment, gifts, hospitality or trips from any company whose category we cover.
The three revenue lines are a category sponsor slot, a labelled newsletter placement and a declared affiliate layer on assessed categories. Each is described on the sponsorship page and each is labelled wherever it appears. A sponsor cannot see an assessment before publication and cannot change one.
02Evidence standards
Every article rests on institution level sources: regulators, national health bodies, professional associations, systematic review libraries and government guidance. We name them and link to them.
We never fabricate a study, an author, a journal, a sample size, an effect size or a statistic. Where an evidence base is thin, we describe it as thin. Where we are describing a proposed mechanism rather than a demonstrated outcome, we say which. Where we do not know, we say so, which is the sentence that most often gets edited out of commercial writing.
03The no invention rule
Nothing on this site invents a clinic, a venue, an address, a telephone number, a practitioner, a price, a review or a customer. Where an organisation is named, it exists and the description of it is limited to what can be stated accurately.
Where a piece could only be written by inventing something, we change the piece rather than the truth. In practice that means a ranked list of businesses we have not assessed becomes a guide to assessment criteria instead, which is less clickable and more useful.
04Medical boundaries
Nothing on this site is medical advice. We write consumer journalism about cosmetic products, ingredients, regulation and the market around clinical treatment. We are not diagnosing, prescribing or substituting for a consultation.
Where a subject crosses into clinical territory, we say so and point to the relevant UK body. Persistent skin conditions, sudden or patchy hair loss, painful or scarring lesions, changing moles and reactions to products are matters for a pharmacist, a GP or a dermatologist.
05Disclosure, on every article
Every article on this site carries a disclosure block. Articles with no commercial link carry a block saying exactly that. The four archive articles that carry a single editorial link each carry a publisher disclosure block naming Northbank Media, stating that the link was placed editorially, was never sold and was not paid for, commissioned, requested or previewed by the organisation named.
We think putting this on the page is better than putting it in a policy nobody reads, which is why it appears in both places.
06Corrections
We correct on the page and note what changed. We do not delete articles to make a problem disappear, and we do not quietly edit a claim out of a piece that has already been read.
If you believe something here is wrong, tell us through the contact page. Corrections are answered first. Evidence we have missed is genuinely welcome, particularly where it moves a position we have taken confidently.
07Language and accessibility
We write British English. We avoid the marketing register of the industry we cover, including the words that sound like evidence and are not. We use plain terms where plain terms exist, and where a technical term is unavoidable we explain it once and then use it.
Pages are built to work without JavaScript, to be readable at 390 pixels wide, and to carry proper heading structure and alternative text. That is a standard we hold ourselves to rather than a feature.
08Machine readers
We maintain an llms.txt file describing what this publication is, what our statuses mean and how to quote us accurately. Answer engines and assistants are welcome to use this material provided the qualification travels with the claim.
The specific request is that a category status is never quoted without the criterion it attaches to. A category can be Strong on claim substantiation and Poor on packaging recoverability, and reporting an overall verdict destroys the information a reader needed.