Our methodology

There are no mystery scores here, and no weighted star ratings. Every product we recommend has been through the same four checks, applied to its ingredient list in the same order — so a recommendation always means the same thing.

It starts from a simple position: the front of a bottle isn’t the place to judge it. ‘Hypoallergenic’, ‘dermatologist-tested’ and ‘clean’ are real claims under UK rules, but they don’t mean what they appear to — ‘hypoallergenic’ doesn’t promise you won’t react, ‘dermatologist-tested’ only means a dermatologist was involved in the testing, and ‘clean’ has no agreed definition at all. None of them tells you, on its own, whether a formula suits a sensitive, reactive barrier. The ingredient list is the best place to start.

Step 1 — INCI-first audit

What’s actually in it?

We read the ingredient list before the marketing copy. We don’t judge a product by its packaging, its brand, or how often it appears on social media. The analysis begins and ends with the INCI list — the standardised International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients printed on the back — because it’s the regulated, standardised record of what a formula contains. With the marketing set aside, we can look plainly at how each ingredient is likely to behave on reactive skin.

Step 2 — Red List check

Does it contain anything we screen out?

Products are excluded for Red List ingredients or concentration thresholds. A single good ingredient can’t rescue a formula built on a trigger, so before anything else we screen the full list against our Red List and exclude any formula that contains one — or that uses an ingredient above a level we consider too high for reactive skin.

What we screen out:

• Added fragrance, whether it appears as Parfum/Fragrance or as essential oils (lavender, citrus, peppermint and the like). Fragrance components — the natural ones included — are among the most common causes of contact dermatitis.
• Drying alcohols such as Alcohol Denat., which strip the skin’s protective lipids. This does not include the fatty alcohols (cetyl, stearyl, cetearyl), which are gentle emollients and stay firmly on the Green List.
• Harsh primary surfactants such as SLS and SLES, which strip protective lipids and can leave reactive skin tight and irritated, even in a rinse-off cleanser.
• MI and MCI (methylisothiazolinone preservatives) — potent contact sensitisers, with no level we’d accept for a reactive-skin curation.
• Specific chemical UV filters — oxybenzone, octinoxate, and avobenzone — screened on reactive-skin tolerance and their individual profiles, not as a blanket verdict on chemical sunscreens. We prefer mineral filters (zinc oxide and titanium dioxide), which sit on the Green List.
• High-strength acids, screened by concentration rather than banned outright: glycolic above 5% and salicylic above 2%. Lower strengths aren’t automatically excluded.
• Parabens, which are a precautionary exclusion. The safety evidence is largely reassuring — and we say so plainly on the Parabens page — but we screen them out to match the expectations of the sensitive, reactive audience we curate for.

That last point matters: not every exclusion is the same. Most are evidence-driven; a couple are precautionary, and we’d rather be honest about which is which than imply everything on the list is dangerous.

See the full Red List →

Step 3 — Green List review

Does it actively support the barrier?

We look for barrier-supporting, hydrating, soothing, and gentle-active ingredients. Avoiding irritants is only half of it. To earn a place, a formula has to do something useful for a fragile barrier rather than simply avoid harming it — and the beneficial ingredients need to appear high enough in the list to be present in meaningful amounts.

We look for skin-identical lipids (ceramides, squalane), humectants that hold water in the skin (glycerin, hyaluronic acid), and well-evidenced calming ingredients (the Cica Family, the Oat Family, ectoin).

On ‘natural’ versus ‘synthetic’: we don’t treat that as the question. Natural doesn’t automatically mean gentle, and synthetic doesn’t automatically mean harsh — what matters is the evidence and how an ingredient behaves on reactive skin. Sometimes that points to a botanical (colloidal oatmeal and centella are among the ingredients we recommend most); sometimes it points to a lab-made version — a purified squalane, or bio-identical ceramides — because a consistent, well-characterised molecule avoids the batch-to-batch variability and stray allergens a raw plant extract can carry. We decide per ingredient, on the evidence, not by origin.

See the full Green List →

Step 4 — UK availability

Can you actually get it?

We prioritise skincare products available through trusted UK retailers. A recommendation is only useful if you can buy it without international shipping or customs charges, so we keep our selections to products stocked by established, reputable UK retailers.

This is an audit, not a one-off

Formulas change. Brands quietly reformulate products — sometimes called ‘stealth reformulations’ — without telling anyone, and an ingredient list that passed last year may not pass today. So we keep checking the INCI lists of the products we’ve recommended. If a formula is altered to include a Red List trigger, it loses its recommendation and comes off the site, however well it’s selling.

What this audit can’t tell you

An ingredient audit isn’t the whole picture, and we’d rather be clear about its limits. It can’t predict how your own skin will react, and it doesn’t replace patch testing, medical advice, or a dermatologist’s view during an active flare. It often can’t tell us exact concentrations, a formula’s pH, or how a product will feel in use. What it can do is screen out the formulas that are an obvious mismatch for reactive skin, and keep the reasoning behind every recommendation consistent and visible.

Editorial independence

The audit is firewalled from how the site makes money. We don’t take payment, sponsored placements, or free PR products to move a formula through screening, and we don’t adjust the Red List to accommodate a popular product. If something is recommended here, it’s because the ingredient list earned it.

(For how the site is funded, see our Affiliate Disclosure.)

See the screening system in action.