Beauty

Premium skincare is the category where claims outrun evidence most reliably. A cream can be genuinely well formulated and still be described in language that no regulator would let a drug use, and the two are easy to confuse at the point of sale.

Our approach here is narrow on purpose. We report the ingredient list a listing publishes — noting whether it is a full INCI or a short highlight reel, because that difference is meaningful — and we attribute every efficacy claim to the listing that makes it rather than restating it in our own voice. Where a brand names an active, we name it as the brand does and stop there.

The guides cover individual houses in depth as well as luxury skincare across brands. Several of the houses on this storefront are unfamiliar even to people who follow the category closely, so each guide states what the range is organised around, who the seller of record is, and what the returns terms say.