EditorialPolicy

Content is researched and drafted by a small editorial function working to this policy, and every clinical page is reviewed and signed by a named dermatologist, Dr. Amit Agarkar. We do not employ a newsroom of medical writers and we do not publish a page of stock portraits implying that we do.

Because only one clinician is genuinely accountable for this content, and a grid of anonymous experts is where accountability tends to hide. One name means one person you can check, question and hold responsible. When additional reviewers join they will be listed by name, credential and joining date.

A substantial page takes weeks rather than days, and the research stage is usually longer than the writing stage. Medical review is the bottleneck, because it is one person reading whole pages properly rather than a queue of approvals.

Primary sources wherever possible: regulatory documents, peer-reviewed literature, clinical guidelines, manufacturer labels and safety data sheets, read at source. Where we rely on a secondary source because the primary is unavailable, the page says so.

Yes, on every page making clinical or safety claims. References are re-opened and verified before publication, and any reference we cannot verify is removed rather than kept because it looks authoritative.

From questions people actually ask — in consultations, in search, and through the contact form. We do not commission pages because a keyword has volume and a product to sell against it.

Occasionally, and it is labelled as such. Our reviewer's clinical position on a treatment is opinion informed by practice, and it appears under his name in a section that says so rather than being blended into the factual body of the page.

We publish figures we can source and refuse to publish ones we cannot. That is why you will not find engagement counters, satisfaction percentages or product scores on this site — no verified figures exist behind them, and a number in a gold circle reads as a measurement whatever the caption says.

That a named dermatologist has read the whole page against current evidence and clinical reality, cut claims that outran their evidence, added omitted contraindications, and signed it with a date. It is not a glance at a headline.

Dr. Amit Agarkar, MBBS, MD Dermatology, FCPS, DDV — consultant dermatologist, trichologist and hair transplant surgeon, practising in Mumbai. His credentials are checkable and his name appears on every page he has reviewed.

Every page making a clinical, safety or treatment claim is. Purely procedural pages such as shipping terms are not, and are not badged as though they were.

Yes, and pages have. Sections have also been cut from otherwise finished work — a product scoring system nobody could substantiate, before-and-after images we could not verify, a nutrient claim the underlying paper did not support. A review process that has never rejected anything is not a review process.

Clinical and safety pages at least annually, and immediately when a regulator moves, a safety signal appears, or new high-quality evidence changes the weight of a claim. Regulatory positions in cosmetics move more than readers expect.

'Published' is when the page first appeared. 'Last reviewed' is when a human being read the whole page against current evidence — that is the date we display. 'Last updated' is the most recent substantive content change. We do not move a review date because a typo was fixed.

Yes, and it is stated on the pages it affects. He performs hair transplants, so pages about surgical options set out the non-surgical alternatives and the reasons someone is not a candidate before any mention of surgery.

Yes, through the editorial contact route. Clinical disagreements from readers and from other clinicians are treated as reports worth investigating rather than complaints to be managed.

The eight-level scheme we grade claims against, from systematic reviews at the top through to clinical experience and traditional use at the bottom. A claim may only be stated as strongly as its rung allows, which is the single rule that most often changes what a page is able to say.

Because on some questions nobody does, and choosing a side would be a fabrication. Stating uncertainty is more useful than false confidence, and it is the honest description of the underlying literature on several hair topics.

We describe the conflict rather than resolving it by citing the convenient study. Where the weight of evidence genuinely favours one side, we say so and say why; where it does not, we say that instead.

Yes, for what they can establish — that something can happen. They cannot establish how often it happens, and our pages are written to maintain that distinction. Several published case reports of a rare adverse effect is a real signal and a poor frequency estimate.

No. A mechanism demonstrated in vitro is written as a mechanism, not as a benefit you will experience. The gap between what an ingredient does in a dish and what it does on a head is where most cosmetic marketing lives.

Respectfully and honestly. Traditional use tells you something has been used widely and tolerated, which is worth knowing. It does not establish efficacy, and we do not present it as though it did.

The page is revised and the review date moves. Where the change is material — particularly if it weakens something we previously wrote — it goes into the corrections register with a dated note.

We publish uncertainty; we do not publish guesses. If we cannot establish something well enough to describe its evidence level honestly, the sentence does not go in.

Yes. We sell haircare products and our founder runs hair clinics. Pretending otherwise would be the first dishonest thing on this page. What matters is that those interests are disclosed at the point they apply and are not permitted to move an editorial judgement.

No. We do not sell placement in editorial content, rankings, comparisons or recommendation lists. There is no rate card because there is no product to sell.

There is no third-party display advertising on this site, and no advertiser has any influence over editorial content. Where we promote our own products, that is disclosed as our own commercial interest in the relevant section.

Presently there is none. If it is ever published it will be labelled at the top of the page and in the title, will not appear in comparison or recommendation contexts, and will carry no medical claim.

Where a link earns us a commission, that is disclosed in the section containing it. Commission rates never determine which product is recommended, and pages do recommend products we earn nothing from where the evidence favours them.

No. Correction requests from brands go through exactly the same investigation as anyone else's, and a brand disagreeing with a characterisation is not by itself a reason to change it. Commercial pressure is recorded as such.

No manufacturer, distributor or brand has pre-publication sight of any page, approval over any wording, or a route to influence it. This has no exceptions.

Receiving a sample creates no obligation to write about it, favourably or at all. Where a sample informed a page, the page says so.

Because no such score exists. A 0–100 rating implies a measurement behind it, and inventing one would be a fabrication with a decimal point. We publish the criteria a product passed or failed instead, which is the honest version of the same idea.

They affect what is commercially comfortable to publish, and we have published it anyway — the section of this page titled 'what this policy costs us' sets out eight specific examples. Whether we have got that balance right is a fair thing for readers to judge.

AI tools assist with research, drafting, structure and auditing. Every factual claim produced that way is verified against the primary source by a human before it survives, because these tools state false things fluently and confidently.

No. No page is cleared for publication by a model. Medical review is performed by a named dermatologist who is professionally accountable, and accountability is exactly the thing a model cannot hold.

No. Language models invent plausible references complete with authors and journals that do not exist. Every citation here is opened and read before publication, and any we cannot verify is removed.

For diagrams, still life and interiors, yes, and they are described as illustrations. Never for before-and-after results, never for patients, and never for a portrait of a clinician. The photograph of our reviewer is a photograph of our reviewer.

They are front-end tools that run in your browser using published logic. They store nothing, transmit nothing, diagnose nothing, and are labelled as educational. Several are built to end in 'have this looked at' where that is the honest output.

Through the editorial contact route. You do not need to be a clinician and you do not need to be certain — 'this does not match what my dermatologist told me' is a report worth investigating.

Acknowledgement within five working days, then investigation against the primary source rather than against the page. If the content is clinical, the reviewer assesses it. Material corrections are published with a date and listed in the corrections register.

Because no material correction has been published yet, and we would rather show you a working mechanism with nothing in it than imply we are never wrong. It exists so the first entry has somewhere to go and cannot quietly not happen.

No. Entries in the register are permanent. A record you can delete from is not a record.

An update reflects changed evidence or a changed regulatory position. A correction means we published something that was wrong at the time. Both are dated; corrections additionally say what was wrong rather than merely that something changed.

No. Everything here is educational information about hair, scalp and haircare. It does not diagnose, does not replace an examination, and does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Pages state this where it matters rather than only in a footer.

Sudden or rapid shedding, patchy loss, any loss with scalp pain, redness, scaling or scarring, hair loss in a child, suspected medication side effects, and anything that has changed quickly. Our pages are checked for whether they name this boundary clearly.

Because dosing is a prescribing decision that depends on your test results and your clinical picture, and we are a website. We describe what nutrients do and what the evidence supports, and we defer the numbers to whoever is examining you.

Because for a meaningful proportion of readers that is the correct answer. Every treatment page on this site tells some of its readers to decline, and on bleached or fragile hair several of them say so emphatically.

No. Our before-and-after framework ships deliberately empty with a published imagery standard, because transformation imagery we cannot verify is the single most misleading device in this industry — and lighting alone can manufacture any result.

Yes, extensively, including options that compete with our own services. A guide that only covers what the publisher sells is a catalogue.

It is a published commitment rather than a contract, and it sits alongside our terms and privacy policy rather than replacing them. Its force comes from being specific enough that you can point at a sentence we failed to honour.

Run the twelve-question checklist above against any page on this site. Check whether it names its reviewer and review date, whether it discloses commercial interest where it recommends something, and whether it tells you when to see a doctor. Then tell us where we fell short.