Editorial standards
These are the rules we hold ourselves to, written so that you can check whether a specific page meets them. If you find one that does not, that is a correction worth sending.
1. Sources, and what counts as one
Where a page states a fact that could be wrong in a way that costs you money, it should be traceable to a primary source: a customs authority, a tax administration, a standards body, a statute or regulation, a published fee schedule, or a manufacturer's own documentation.
Secondary sources — trade press, consultancy blogs, forum posts — are useful for finding out what questions to ask. They are not treated as evidence for a rate, a deadline or a legal requirement.
Three things we do not do:
- We do not publish invented statistics. No round-number market sizes, no unattributed percentages, no “studies show” without a named study.
- We do not present a number without its arithmetic. If a figure matters, the page shows how it was calculated so you can substitute your own inputs.
- We do not launder uncertainty. Where rules vary by country or change often, the page says so plainly rather than picking one jurisdiction and writing as if it were universal.
2. Review before publishing
Every page is checked against a short list before it goes live: are the figures traceable; is the arithmetic correct; does it answer the question in the title; is there anything a reader could reasonably act on that we have left ambiguous; and does the page say clearly where its limits are?
Pages that touch money, law or safety carry an explicit note about scope. That is not legal boilerplate — it is a boundary, and it is better that you know where it sits before you rely on the page.
3. Software in the drafting process
We use software to help draft, structure and check material. We do not use it to generate facts. Concretely:
- Figures, rates, deadlines and legal requirements are checked against primary sources by a human editor before publication.
- Examples are constructed so the arithmetic is visible, and they are labelled as examples rather than presented as observed data.
- No quotes, testimonials, case studies or reader stories are invented.
- Where a page's content may not reflect the latest rule change, the page says when it was last reviewed so you can judge the risk.
4. Health, ingredient and product content
Because this site covers supplements, teas, skincare and health devices, extra rules apply to anything that touches health:
- No treatment claims. We do not tell readers that a supplement, tea or device diagnoses, treats, cures or prevents a condition. Where an ingredient has been studied, the page says what the evidence is and how strong it is.
- Reference values are labelled as reference values. The EU NRV and US Daily Value figures we publish exist for labelling. They are never presented as personal targets or dose recommendations, and pages that use them say so in the same paragraph.
- Cautions travel with the ingredient. Selenium and zinc upper limits, biotin's interference with laboratory tests, vitamin K and anticoagulants, senna as a laxative, licorice and blood pressure, comfrey and pyrrolizidine alkaloids — if we publish the ingredient, we publish the caution.
- Market restrictions are stated, not glossed. Where a botanical or ingredient is restricted, needs a novel-food authorisation or is treated as a medicine in a market, the page says so and names the authority.
- No invented studies, no borrowed evidence. Ingredient-level research is never presented as finished-product evidence, and we do not repeat a claim simply because a supplier's brochure uses it.
- A visible boundary. Every health-related page carries a plain statement that the content is not medical advice and that anyone pregnant, feeding, taking medication or managing a condition should consult a professional.
5. Commercial content
Editorial and commercial content are kept apart, and the distinction is visible on the page rather than buried in a policy document.
- No paid placements inside guides. Recommendations, rankings and conclusions are never influenced by a payment, a partnership or a supplier relationship.
- No affiliate links inside editorial pages. If that ever changes for a specific page, the page will disclose it at the top in plain language before the first such link.
- Sponsorship is disclosed where it appears. The site currently has one sponsor, Herborigen. Their links appear only in a labelled block on the home page and in the footer — never inside a guide, a ranking or a reference page — and they carry
rel="sponsored nofollow"so they cannot pass ranking signals. - Advertising, if introduced, will be visually separated from editorial content and will not appear within the body of a guide.
6. Corrections and updates
Corrections are treated as a normal part of publishing, not an admission of failure. The process:
- Send the correction to [email protected] with the page, the specific sentence and, if you have one, the source that contradicts it.
- We check the claim against a primary source. If the source is behind a paywall or a national register we cannot access, we will say so rather than guessing.
- Material corrections are described in a note on the page, with the date and what changed. Minor typographical fixes are made without a note.
- If a page is more wrong than right, it is rewritten or withdrawn. A withdrawn page redirects to the most relevant surviving page rather than returning an error.
7. Independence
No third party has editorial approval over any page on this site. No supplier, manufacturer or platform has been given the right to review a page before publication, and none has been offered the right to remove or soften a criticism — including manufacturers we work with, who are held to the published standard like anyone else.
If you are a company mentioned on the site and you believe something is inaccurate, the correction route above is open to you exactly as it is to any reader. Being mentioned does not give you a say over the content.
8. Dates and review cycles
- Each page shows a published date and a last reviewed date.
- Trade, tax and consumer-rights pages are reviewed on a scheduled cycle because rules change fastest there.
- Playbooks and calculators are revised when a method improves or when readers show that a step is unclear.
- A “last reviewed” date means a human re-read the page against current rules, not that the file was touched by a build process.