Ten questions, forty-five places, and one product out for every one in.
This is the standard we buy against. It is published so you can check our work, and so we cannot quietly relax it the moment something popular comes along.
The cap, and why it stays a cap
Forty-five is not the number of products we could sell. It is the number we can hold an opinion about. Past that we would be recommending things from a spreadsheet, and you would be able to tell.
The cap does something else that we value more: it makes every addition expensive. To bring in a new cleanser, we have to be willing to lose one we already sell. That argument is much harder to win than “add it and see”, which is how a shop ends up with two hundred products and no view.
One in, one out
When a product joins, another leaves the same week. We write up what left and why, so the catalogue has a history rather than just a state.
Products leave for four reasons: something else does the job better, the price stopped making sense, the formula changed, or supply became unreliable. The fourth is the most common and the least flattering, and we would rather say so than invent a nobler reason.
If something you rely on is delisted, ask us what to use instead. We will tell you even when the answer is a product we do not sell.
The ten questions
A product has to pass all ten. Nine out of ten is a no, and it is usually the tenth one that would have annoyed you six weeks in.
It has to fix something we can name
If we cannot write one plain sentence saying what changes and roughly how long it takes, the product is not ready to be sold. “Glow” is not a sentence.
The ingredient list has to match the claim
A hero ingredient sitting at the very bottom of the list, below the fragrance, is a marketing decision rather than a formulation one.
It has to fit a routine we already sell
Nothing enters if it only works alongside three products we do not stock. That is precisely how catalogues grow to two hundred.
The cheaper one gets the benefit of the doubt
If something already in the shop does the same job for less, the expensive product has to justify the gap in words we can say out loud. Most cannot.
Someone here has used it for eight weeks
Not a sachet and not a press kit. A full-size product, on one face, through one season, alongside the rest of a normal routine.
The claim has to be legal and supported
EU rules require cosmetic claims to be truthful, evidenced and fair. If a claim only survives with an asterisk under it, we will not repeat it.
The packaging has to be EU-compliant and obtainable
Responsible Person on the label, INCI list, batch code, and a durability date or period-after-opening symbol. No exception for a product that would sell well.
The supplier has to answer questions
Documentation in writing, within a working week. Silence is an answer, and it is a no.
The fragrance load has to suit the audience
For anything we would put in front of reactive skin, we read the declared fragrance allergens rather than the front of the box.
It has to survive the second order
Repurchase decides who stays. A product people buy once and never again is a good advertisement and a bad product.
What we reject on principle
These are not close calls. No margin, no demand and no supplier relationship buys past this list.
This is what survived it.
Forty-five products. Where one of them is wrong for you, the product page says so before you buy it.