How we research

Hypoallergenic Guide Editorial does not test products. We do not own them, use them or run laboratory tests. Everything on the site comes from documents we can read and cite, and every page says what kind of evidence it rests on.

What we read

• Maker pages. For products, we read the maker’s own ingredient list, materials list, certification statement or metal specification for the exact product and size. Some maker sites block automated reading. Where a page was captured in a browser instead, the product record says so and gives the date.
• Regulators and standards bodies. For example the US Food and Drug Administration, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, EU legislation published on EUR-Lex, and the OEKO-TEX and Asthma & Allergy Friendly programmes.
• Professional and public-health sources. For example DermNet and the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and peer-reviewed abstracts where we cite them.

We do not use retailer listings, reviews or seller claims on their own as evidence. Amazon links exist so you can check the current listing and price, not to establish a fact.

How evidence is labelled

Each product shows where its information comes from: “Researched from cited sources”, “Manufacturer data” or “Not independently tested”, plus a status line. The main status lines are:

• Stated by the maker, with the date. The maker’s page uses the word “hypoallergenic” and we report it as their claim.
• Meets our criteria; the maker doesn’t call it hypoallergenic, with the date and the reason. The product met every criterion for its category in our review criteria.

Where a record was captured in a browser from the maker’s page, the label says so. We read maker pages; we do not check certificate numbers with the certifier unless a page states that we did.

Dates, prices and what we leave out

Facts carry the date we retrieved them, and formulas and specifications change, so read the date. We show price bands only, never typed prices; the live price is on the retailer’s page. We do not score or grade products. A product we cannot verify is listed under what we do not know and is neither recommended nor rejected. Rejections cite a label, certification record, recall notice or published specification.

Corrections

When we find an error or a source changes, we correct the page, add a dated line to its changelog and log removals on the removals page. See the corrections policy. To report a problem, use the contact page.