How I Test and Grade

Or: why you should believe a word I say.

Fair question. Let me answer it properly, because this page is the whole reason this website is different from the ads.

First, what I am not

I am not a dermatologist. I am not a scientist, a cosmetic chemist, or a beauty therapist. I have no letters after my name and no qualifications in skin whatsoever.

I know. Not the most confident sales pitch you have ever read. But stay with me, because it is exactly the point.

Every glowing review that ever conned me out of my money came from someone who looked qualified, or looked gorgeous, or got paid to look enthusiastic. What I am is the person on the other end of all that. A 46 year old woman who believed them, bought the stuff, and has the empty bottles and the credit card statements to prove it. I am not here to be the expert. I am here to be the customer who finally started reading the studies out loud.

So I do not ask you to trust me because I am clever. I ask you to trust me because I show my working, every single time.

What I actually do before I grade anything

Here is the process behind every verdict on this site. It is not glamorous, which is rather the idea.

I buy the thing myself, at full price. I do not accept free products from brands. Not one. The moment a company sends me something for nothing, they have bought a little piece of my opinion, and my opinion is the only thing I have to sell you. So everything I review, I paid for, like you would. I keep the receipts, and quite often I show them.

I read the actual evidence, not the label. The box will tell you a product is clinically proven to do wonders. My job is to go and find that clinical proof and see whether it exists, whether it was any good, and whether it actually says what the box implies. I look for real studies, ideally decent sized ones that were not paid for by the company selling the product. When the good evidence points to a cheap ingredient instead, I will tell you that too, even when it is annoying.

I use it for long enough to mean something. Skin does not change in three days, no matter what a before-and-after wants you to believe. Where a product needs weeks to show what it can do, I give it weeks.

I ask who it is actually for. A thing that is wonderful for dry mature skin can be useless or irritating for an oily teenager. So I do not just ask "does it work," I ask "who does it work for, and who should walk away." That is why everything here is sorted by age.

I tell you the cheaper version. If a $200 product and a $20 one are doing the same job, you deserve to know. I will always point you to the honest, affordable option, because saving you money is more useful than impressing you.

The four verdicts, explained

Every product, ingredient or trend I look at gets one of four grades. No hedging, no "it depends on your unique skin journey."

Actually works. The evidence is solid and independent. If it suits your age and skin, buy it with confidence. This is the rarest and most valuable grade, and I do not hand it out to be liked.

Worth a shot. There is real but partial evidence, or it does a genuine job but a smaller one than the marketing claims. Fine to try if it suits you, as long as your expectations are realistic. Snail mucin lives here.

Save your money. It is not dangerous, it is just not worth what they are charging, and usually something cheaper or simpler does the same thing better. The "Botox in a jar" serum lives here.

Absolutely not. Either the evidence says it does not work and the marketing is a con, or, more seriously, it is something that could actually harm your skin. This is also where I put things that are dodgy, counterfeit, or being aimed at children who should not be anywhere near them.

The honest limits, because you should know these too

I will get things wrong sometimes. The science on skincare shifts, new studies come out, and I will change a verdict when the evidence changes and tell you I have done it. A grade here is my honest read of the best evidence I can find today, not a commandment carved in stone.

I am also not your doctor. If you have a skin condition that is genuinely bothering you, acne that will not budge, a rash, anything painful or worrying, that is a job for a GP or a dermatologist, not a website and certainly not a serum. I will always say so.

The one rule underneath all of it

Write the verdict first. Add the link second.

I decide whether something is any good before I ever go looking for where to buy it. Yes, some links on this site earn me a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. But the grade is set before the link exists, and as you have probably noticed, a good number of my verdicts tell you to buy nothing at all. A commission has never once turned a "save your money" into a "worth a shot," and it never will. The day it does, this whole website is worthless, and I know it.

That is the deal. I stay honest, you stay reading, and neither of us gets scammed at 11pm ever again.

— Janelle