Editorial standards & medical review
Five gates. Named responsibility. Corrections in the open.
Our editorial foundation puts a writer, medical reviewer, and editor behind each completed article. Here is the process we require before publication.
Version 1.0 · September 2026. This is our intended operating standard. Team assignments, credential checks, and medical reviews are still pending.
1. Commission
Topics come from reader questions, search demand, and medical expertise. Under our editorial policy, brands cannot commission editorial coverage, preview it, or pay for it.
2. Research and draft
Writers assemble an evidence file with peer-reviewed sources, relevant regulatory material, full ingredient lists, and current pricing. Factual claims require inline sources. We distinguish human trials, systematic reviews and clinical guidelines, regulatory monographs, mechanistic or laboratory data, and attributed expert opinion. Funding and limitations must be disclosed. AI-assisted drafting or compilation must be identified on the page.
3. Medical review
A named, board-certified dermatologist reviews clinical accuracy, evidence interpretation, safety flags, and the point at which professional care is appropriate. The reviewer can block publication. The byline links to a profile with verified credentials. Any financial relationship with a mentioned brand requires recusal.
4. Edit for the reader
An editor checks clarity, skin-type and budget context, and our “fewer, better” principle. We aim for roughly an eighth-grade reading level without losing necessary nuance.
5. Publish, date, maintain
Published articles must show the author, medical reviewer, published date, last-reviewed date, and sources. Condition, ingredient, and product guides are scheduled for re-verification every 12 months or when significant evidence changes. A reformulation triggers a new product score; score changes trigger review of related rankings.
Where product advice ends
Condition guides and relevant reviews must explain when symptoms, severity, or duration call for professional care instead of another purchase. Cosmetic products are evaluated for suitability; they are not credited with treating disease. Drug claims must follow applicable labeling.
Corrections, in the open
Our policy calls for factual errors to be corrected within 48 hours of verification, with a visible correction note. Substantive changes cannot be made silently. The current preview has no working corrections inbox; a contact route must be configured before publication.
Current review status
These are the standards we are building toward, not a claim that the preview has completed them. Starter articles were created with AI assistance. No human writer or medical reviewer has approved them for publication. The cleanser advertorial retains historical source ratings and has not been scored under our methodology.