EDITORIAL STANDARDS
How the Board earns trust.
Our conclusions are never sold. Our process should always be visible enough to question.
Our ranking lens
Vanity Board considers five dimensions when they are relevant: review quality, creator velocity, price and value, consumer sentiment, and cultural momentum. Ingredient evidence informs product context, but an ingredient list alone cannot prove how a finished formula will perform for every person.
Evidence before hype
We prioritize original product information, regulator guidance, peer-reviewed research, recognized medical organizations, retailer availability, and clearly attributed market data. We distinguish documented facts from editorial analysis and do not turn correlation into a product claim.
Testing and experience labels
Articles must state whether a product was personally tested, researched from available evidence, supplied by a brand, or assessed from catalog data. Ranked lists must explain the products considered, the criteria used, and meaningful tradeoffs. A product we have not used will never be presented as personally tested.
Commercial separation
Paid placement does not determine rankings. Advertising, affiliate links, gifted products, and sponsored content are labeled clearly. Editors may consider products connected to a commercial relationship, but the relationship must be disclosed where the recommendation appears.
AI-assisted, never auto-published
Technology may help organize research notes, compare catalog fields, transcribe source material, or identify questions worth investigating. No article is published directly from an automated draft. A human editor chooses the angle, verifies the product identity and current availability, checks every factual and ingredient claim, reviews routine logic and disclosures, and rewrites the final story in Vanity Board's editorial voice.
What makes a recommendation useful
A recommendation should explain who it is for, why it earned a place, how it fits into a routine, what tradeoffs it carries, and who may want to skip it. We avoid interchangeable summaries, inflated promises, and conclusions that simply repeat a product description. When personal testing is part of the story, the article should include concrete observations rather than implying that research and firsthand experience are the same thing.
Corrections and updates
We date articles and note material updates. When a product is reformulated, renamed, or discontinued, the affected page should be reviewed. Substantive errors are corrected promptly and can be reported through our Contact page.