Fact-Checking Policy

Recommendations are only useful if the facts underneath them are right. This page explains how Sixated checks the claims in our guides, what standard of sourcing we hold ourselves to, and how we keep a published guide accurate as the world changes around it.

What we check

Before a guide is published, the editor responsible verifies the factual load-bearing details, including:

• Prices and availability — checked against the retailer or brand at the time of publishing, with the understanding that they move.
• Specifications — dimensions, capacities, materials, sizing ranges, compatibility and anything a reader would rely on before buying.
• Ingredients and formulations — key actives, concentrations where stated, and known allergens or common irritants for beauty products.
• Clinical and performance claims — SPF ratings, “clinically proven” statements, durability or efficacy claims. We report these as the manufacturer’s claims and separate them from what our editors observed in testing.
• Names, facts and history — people, brands, dates and background details in our Culture and feature writing.

Our sourcing standard

We prefer primary sources: the brand’s own specification sheet, the retailer’s live listing, the ingredient list on the actual packaging, official regulatory information, peer-reviewed research or an expert speaking on the record. For anything scientific or health-related in our Wellness coverage, we lean on credible, evidence-based sources and avoid presenting marketing claims as settled science. Where a claim cannot be substantiated, we either leave it out or attribute it clearly and flag the uncertainty. We do not launder a rumour into a fact by omitting where it came from.

First-hand versus reported

Sixated draws a hard line between two kinds of statement. “In six weeks of daily use, the cream absorbed quickly and did not pill under make-up” is a first-hand observation by a named editor. “The brand states the formula is clinically proven to improve hydration by 40%” is a reported claim. We write both kinds honestly and never dress a brand’s marketing up as our own test result. This distinction is central to how we test — see our Review Methodology.

Independence of the check

Fact-checking sits inside editorial and answers to no one else. Advertisers, sponsors and affiliate partners do not review our facts before publication and cannot alter a verdict by disputing a check. If a brand tells us a specification we published is wrong, we treat that as a tip to verify against primary sources — not an instruction to change the copy.

Keeping guides accurate over time

A guide published today can be wrong by next quarter: a product is discontinued, a formula is changed, a price jumps, a retailer folds. We monitor and update our most-used guides, refresh prices and availability, and revise the six picks when a better option emerges or a former favourite is reformulated or withdrawn. An update can change our recommendations, and that is a feature, not a failure.

When we still get it wrong

No process catches everything. When an error slips through, we fix it and note substantive corrections transparently, as described on our Corrections page. If you have spotted a factual error — a wrong price, an outdated spec, a mis-stated ingredient — please tell us at corrections@sixated.com with a link and the detail, and we will check it against primary sources and act.