How this site produces a number

Where the facts come from

There is no public filing database for cosmetics the way there is for supplements. So the sourcing hierarchy is stated rather than assumed, and every ranking entry links the page it was read from.

1. The brand's own product page. The full INCI list, the stated concentration if the brand publishes one, the size, and the directions. This is the source of truth and it is always the linked reference.
2. INCIDecoder, for a structured cross-check of the same list. Where the two disagree, the brand page wins and the disagreement is printed in the entry.
3. A retailer listing, last, and flagged as such in the record. Retailer ingredient blocks go stale after a reformulation more often than brand pages do.

What we refuse to estimate

A cost per use needs a size and a dose. Plenty of brands publish a size and then write directions like "apply a small amount", which is not a dose. When that happens the cost per use reads Not computable and the product is scored down on the axis that asks whether its own instructions can be followed precisely. Filling that gap with an assumed dose would make the tidiest number on the page the only invented one.

The same rule applies to concentration. A brand that does not publish a percentage does not get a guessed one, and it scores zero on that axis. An unstated strength cannot be checked by a reader, which is the entire point of stating it.

How the scores are built

Each ranking carries its own rubric with weights that sum to 100, printed at the top of the page before any verdict. Five axes recur across categories:

• Published concentration. Does the brand tell you how much active is in the bottle.
• Form and stability. The derivative used, and packaging that suits it. An unstable active in a clear jar is a different product by month three.
• Cost per use. Computed from the label, not the size. A cheap large bottle used four pumps at a time is not cheap.
• Formulation support. What else is in the list that the active needs, and what is in there that works against it.
• Tolerance. What the strength and the vehicle imply for skin that reacts.

Scores are computed by the site from those axes and the product record. No editor types a total, and no total can include an axis the rubric did not disclose.

Who is not eligible

SkinHealthRanked is published by an operator who also does conversion work for consumer brands. Any brand in that portfolio is barred from every ranking, every article and every glossary entry, and the build fails if one appears. Paid placements are possible, they live under a separate advertorial path, and they say who paid before they say anything else. A paid page is never a ranking, and a ranking is never for sale.

Corrections

Prices and ingredient lists carry the date they were checked. A record older than 90 days is flagged on the page itself rather than quietly left to age. Where a product is reformulated the entry states the old and the new list rather than overwriting history.