Editorial Standards — How We Test, Earn & Stay Independent

The short version, before you read a single review: we test things with our own hands, on our own faces, in our own lives. A real, named human puts her name at the top of every piece and stands behind it. When we make money, we tell you exactly how — and we still tell you when the expensive thing is worse than the £14 one. We'd rather lose a sale than lose your trust, because your trust is the only thing we're actually building here.

That's the whole promise. The rest of this page is us showing our work.

Why this page exists

You've been marketed at your entire adult life, and it has gotten worse, not better, since you turned fifty. The menopause and midlife-wellness industry is worth somewhere north of £15 billion, and a startling amount of it is ordinary products with a lavender label and a 40% markup. You've been sold "miracle" serums, "clinically proven" supplements that were proven to do very little, and gadgets that now live in a drawer. You've learned, sensibly, to trust almost no one.

Good. Stay sceptical. We're not here to talk you out of it — we're here to be sceptical with you, and to do the tedious testing and label-reading so you don't have to.

But scepticism cuts both ways: if we're going to ask you to believe us, we owe you a look under the bonnet. So here it is — every rule we hold ourselves to, in plain English, with nothing hidden in a footnote.

How we test things

We don't rank products from a spreadsheet or a press release. If a review says we tested it, a real woman used it, for real, for long enough to have an actual opinion.

What "tested" means here:

Real hands, real time. Skincare gets used daily for a minimum of four weeks (most active ingredients need three to twelve to show anything honest — anyone promising overnight miracles is selling you the overnight, not the miracle). Supplements and devices get tested across a span that makes sense for the claim on the box. Clothing gets worn, washed, and worn again. We note exactly how long we tested when it matters.
Tested by the people it's actually for. Our testers are women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond — the same skin, the same symptoms, the same lives as the readers a product is aimed at. A retinol "for mature skin" gets tested on mature skin, not on a 24-year-old in a studio. Where a product is meant for a specific concern — thinning hair, night sweats, dryness that arrived uninvited at 52 — we put it in front of women living that concern.
We buy most of what we test. Our default is to buy products ourselves, at full price, like you would. When a brand sends something for free, we say so, in that review, plainly. A free sample buys a brand a fair test and nothing else — not a kinder verdict, not a guaranteed spot on the list, not a heads-up before we publish.
We test the alternatives too. A recommendation only means something next to what it beat. We test the cult favourite against the quiet drugstore option, the £90 cream against the £14 one, the thing everyone's posting about against the thing that actually works. Sometimes the cheap one wins. When it does, we say so — loudly.
We write down the bad and the boring. Cons, irritations, faff, the ways a thing let us down — those go in the review. A product with no downsides listed is a product no one really used.

What we will never do: rewrite a roundup from other people's reviews and call it "tested," accept a ranking a brand asks (or pays) for, quietly swap in a higher-commission product as our "top pick," or leave a bad experience out because it's awkward. If we haven't genuinely tested something and are instead rounding up options for you to consider, we label it clearly as a guide, not a tested review — you'll always know which one you're reading.

How we pick what makes the list

Making a "best of" list is where most review sites quietly sell you out. Here's our order of operations, and money is nowhere near the top of it.

We rank on, in this order:

Does it actually work? Measured against real use by real testers, over real time.
Is it worth the money? Not cheapest — best value. A brilliant £40 serum beats a mediocre £120 one every time, and we'll tell you when the premium is just perfume and packaging.
Is it honest about itself? Realistic claims, readable ingredient lists, no "clinically proven" doing a lot of undefined heavy lifting.
Is it right for a specific woman? We sort by "Best for…" — sensitive skin, tight budget, first-timers, the deepest wrinkles, the worst night sweats — because there is rarely one winner for everyone, and pretending otherwise is a marketing trick.

Whether we earn a commission is not a ranking factor. Ever. It doesn't move a product up a list, onto a list, or into the "top pick" slot. Plenty of things we recommend earn us nothing at all, and we recommend them anyway because they're the right answer. If the honest top pick happens to pay us and the runner-up doesn't, the top pick still wins on merit — and if it were the other way around, the order wouldn't change.

We also keep a standing rule we call "say the sold-out, say the drugstore": if the best answer to your question is a cheap thing, a discontinued thing we can't earn from, a competitor's thing, or "honestly, save your money and do nothing" — that's the answer we give you.

How we make money (the affiliate bit, said plainly)

We have to keep the lights on, and we'd rather be upfront about it than pretend we're a charity.

Some — not all — of our links are affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, we may earn a small commission from the retailer. It costs you nothing extra — not a penny, not a worse price. The brand's margin shrinks a little; your bill doesn't change.

Here's what that money does and doesn't buy:

It does pay our testers, our writers, and our experts, and it lets us buy products at full price so we owe no one a favour.
It does not buy a good review, a spot on a list, a higher ranking, or a softer verdict. See the section above — commission is not a ranking factor, full stop.
We only ever put an affiliate link on something we genuinely recommend. If we didn't like it, there's no "buy" button, because we're not going to earn a commission steering you toward something we wouldn't use ourselves.
We take no payment to review, rank, or recommend. Brands cannot pay us for coverage, pay to be tested, or pay to place a product on a list. If a piece is ever sponsored — a brand paid for the space — it will be labelled "Sponsored" or "Paid partnership" at the very top, in plain sight, and it will never be dressed up as an independent review.

You will see, on relevant pages, a short line like: "We may earn a commission from links on this page — it never costs you more, and it never buys a better review. [Here's exactly how that works.]" — linking back here. We'd rather over-explain this a hundred times than have you wonder about it once.

Who writes this — the named-byline promise

There is no "Staff" and no "Admin" here. Every piece we publish carries the name of a real, accountable human being who wrote or edited it, with a one-line credential telling you why they get to have an opinion on the subject. No hiding behind a logo. If someone's name is on it, they're standing behind it.

You'll meet, among others:

These are illustrative placeholder bylines for our launch — clearly fictional examples of the format and standard we hold. Real contributor names and verified credentials replace them as each writer and reviewer comes on board, and every credential we publish will be one we can substantiate.

Margaret Ellison — health writer, 54, fifteen years covering women's health; perimenopause survivor and full-time note-taker.
Dr. Priya Nair, MRCGP — practising GP with a special interest in menopause care; our medical reviewer for health and hormone content.
Dr. Helena Frost, Consultant Dermatologist — 20 years in clinical dermatology; reviews our skincare and mature-skin claims.
Susan Whitfield — beauty editor, 58, three decades testing skincare on her own increasingly-opinionated face.
Joan Merrick — our lead product tester, 61, who has never met a "miracle cream" she couldn't out-stubborn.

Every one of them can be reached, questioned, and held to account. That's the point of a name.

Our medical-review policy

Some of what we cover — HRT, hormones, supplements, symptoms, anything touching your health — carries real stakes. We treat it that way.

Health, hormone, and medical-adjacent content is reviewed by a qualified clinician (a GP, specialist, or relevant registered professional) before it publishes, and the piece names who reviewed it and when.
We report the evidence honestly — including the deflating truth that many menopause-branded supplements are unproven for the thing they're sold for, and that a lot of "menopause" products are the ordinary product with a markup. If the science says "we don't really know," we say "we don't really know." We will never inflate a shaky study into a headline.
We are journalists and testers, not your doctor, and this is the one place we're not cheeky about it: nothing on Her Honest Review is medical advice or a substitute for a consultation. It's here to help you ask your clinician better questions and walk in less easily dismissed — because being "fobbed off" is a thing that happens to women our age, and a well-informed woman is a lot harder to wave away. Always talk to a professional before starting, stopping, or changing any treatment.

When we get it wrong — our corrections policy

We will get things wrong. A product will change its formula, a price will move, a study will be superseded, or we'll simply make a mistake. What separates an honest publication from a marketing one is what happens next.

We fix errors quickly and we say we fixed them. Correct a fact that changes a review's meaning, and we add a dated correction note to the piece — we don't quietly edit and pretend it was always right.
We keep reviews alive. When a product is reformulated, discontinued, or overtaken by something better, we go back and update the review, and we date the update. A recommendation from three years ago that we haven't re-checked isn't an honest recommendation.
You can call us out. Spotted a mistake, disagree with a verdict, or think we missed something? Email corrections@herhonestreview.com and a real person — one of the named ones — will read it and reply. Some of our best updates started as a sharp email from a reader who knew better than we did. We love those.
We show the date. Every review and guide carries a "last updated" date so you always know how fresh the advice is.

Why you can trust us — the plain-English version

No jargon, no mission-statement fog. Here's the whole thing on one hand:

We use it before we recommend it. Real women, real testing, real time. If we didn't try it, we tell you it's a guide, not a verdict.
Money never buys a ranking. Some links earn us a small commission at no cost to you — and it doesn't move a single product up a single list. We'll happily point you to the cheap thing, the free thing, or the do-nothing option when that's the honest answer.
A real, named human signs every piece — with a credential you can check — and stands behind it. Health content is reviewed by a qualified clinician.
We fix our mistakes in daylight and give you a way to hold us to it.

We're building exactly one thing here, and it isn't a supplement empire or a serum funnel. It's your trust — earned slowly, the boring honest way, and far too hard-won to ever spend on a product that doesn't deserve you.

That's the deal. Hold us to it.

Questions about how we work? Write to hello@herhonestreview.com. Corrections and challenges go to corrections@herhonestreview.com — a named human reads every one.

This page is reviewed and refreshed every six months. Last updated 13 July 2026.