How we check brand claims
Every product page on this site quotes the lines a brand advertises and says how each one read. This page says what that means.
What we read
We work from what the brand itself publishes: the full ingredient list, the product page, and any test report or document the brand links from it. Each advertised line is quoted as published, and where a line is shown in translation the original wording stays next to it.
We do not test products and we do not run panels. Nothing on these pages is a measurement of ours.
How a line is labelled
Each line is read on its own against that published material. The labels say how far the published material carries the line. They do not say whether the product works, and they are not a statement about the brand.
A line labelled "no supporting source found" means the material we collected does not back it up. That is not the same as the line being false or the product not working. "Contradicted by sources" is different: there, the material says something other than the line.
What this is not
Each page is a reading of published material on the date shown on that page. Brands change formulas and rewrite pages, and documents that were public can move or disappear. This is not a safety assessment or a ranking of brands.
Fungal-acne-safe filter: how we decide
A product passes the "Fungal acne safe" filter only when we have its full ingredient list and nothing on it falls into the five groups below.
What counts as a trigger
- Polysorbates, such as polysorbate 20 and 80.
- Ferments: ingredients named as a ferment or fermentation filtrate. Snail mucin filtrate and fermented alcohol are not ferments here.
- Fatty acids with 11 to 24 carbons, such as lauric, palmitic, stearic, oleic and linoleic acid, and coconut or palm acid.
- Esters of those fatty acids, such as isopropyl myristate, glyceryl stearate and sorbitan oleate, plus coconut and palm glycerides.
- Plant oils and butters, such as olive, coconut and jojoba oil and shea butter.
Not counted as triggers
- Essential oils, such as lavender, tea tree and citrus peel oil.
- Mineral oil and silicones.
- Squalane.
- MCT and caprylic/capric triglyceride, whose fatty chains (C8 and C10) are shorter than the trigger range.
- Soaps and salts of fatty acids, such as sodium stearate.
Some ingredients sit on one reference list and not the other, such as lecithin and PEG or other ethoxylated ingredients. We don't count these as triggers on their own.
No full ingredient list, no pass: a product with only its key ingredients on file never shows up under this filter.
When our notes on a product flag a fungal-acne concern outside these five groups, that product is left out too.
This is a check of the full ingredient list the brand publishes. We do not test products on skin, and an ingredient missing from that list is one we cannot check.
Product photos
Product photos come from the brand’s own product page and are here to identify the product. If a brand wants its photo taken down, the photo goes and the page stays up without it.
Corrections and requests
If a line is quoted wrong, if a document we missed exists, or if you want a photo taken down, tell us and we will look at it.