Editorial Guidelines

Updated Jun 17, 2021

Our Principles

We maintain high-level editorial standards that are guided by a set of principles. Each member in our team is obliged to maintain these values;

  • Content accuracy earns trust: The source of information matters a lot and for that our editorial team vets every bit of information presented to ensure accuracy. Besides having beauty experts in our inner circle, we have connections with the industry’s leading dermatologists, makeup stylists, and beauty ambassadors, from which we draw the advice we give. You can rest assured that any product we recommend has earned its way up on our editorial checklist. If it works for Beyonce or Ramona and it is safe, then we give the credit where it is due. Our teams handle content related to health topics differently and these must be backed by scientific research. We are not brand associates and for that, product claims need to have enough direct scientific proof to hold water. Otherwise, if we have to cover a topic or product with minimal scientific backing, we make sure the same is well stated or ensure to quote expert opinions if available. All these help our readers in their journey to wellness.
  • Inclusivity and Diversity: Everybody in society deserves to feel beautiful and accepted. Our team ensures that every single visitor to our site feels welcomed and represented – regardless of the geographical region they came from, race, sexual orientation, gender, or age. However, we admit that most of our content is crafted to fit a U.S. audience, but from our experience, we know beauty knows no boun1daries. We take different points of view, conduct interviews with experts from different backgrounds, and hold conversations with people of all colors to ensure our content is as inclusive and as diverse as we can. Our diversity pledge is guaranteed to our readers, we want everybody to feel they are the reason Derm Spotlight exists for.
  • Curations over clickbait: The beauty world is enormous and filled with a lot of hype. We choose to focus on the real substance, simply the stuff that works for real ordinary people, not celebrities only. As in, you don’t have to be a millionaire, go for super expensive surgeries to keep your beauty as some marketing hype suggests. Beauty is a journey, and sometimes it is all about knowing what works for your skin type, hair type, or even race. Our purpose for setting this platform up is simply to share realistic, researched, and applicable stories that will help enhance your beauty routine and take your looks to the next level.
  • We prioritize our readers: As visit you our site regularly, you will come to realize that every piece of content we share is designed to boost your confidence and support your journey to beauty. We are devoted to helping our readers analyze what’s in for them in the latest beauty trends, breakthroughs, ingredient discoveries, and product trends. Do you like to suggest something, or, want us to look at something? Or, you have a question, let us know through our email via our contact us.

Editorial Ethics

At DermSpolight we treasure our ethical principles. We work with industry’s respected contributors that have a track record of working with renowned beauty brands, salons, and beauty companies. Our close bond with high rankings experts gives us access to industry breakthroughs as and when are first reported. Whether it is a new ingredient that has just hit the market, a new super promising product that is going to raise eyebrows in the industry, or newly shared work at home beauty tips, we are the go-to source you can trust.

However, we don’t cover or recommend products, services, tips, experiences, or treatments that we would not personally use. On the same note, we don’t offer space or accept coverage of the same from other interested parties. Our editors, writers, and staff at large are all obliged to follow the FTC disclosure guidelines without omission whatsoever.

For more insight on this, please read:

Guidelines

We strive to stay on top of our world – the beauty world. Our beauty foragers organize special interviews with top beauty and wellness experts, makeup artists, cosmetic dentists, approved skin specialists, colorists, nutritionists, and estheticians. This is to ensure our readers get the cream of everything as well as maintain our authority in our niche. Our ears are wide open to studies, ingredients innovations, scientific breakthroughs, as well as any other principals that help us maintain our expertise and editorial integrity.

Before engaging, we vet to ensure that any editor, writer, or beauty forager that joins our team is naturally passionate about beauty. For this, our team prides itself on the fact that they do what they love, which works even best for our audience. We are ever open to discussions. In case you have a different opinion, maybe an ethical concern, an issue with the authenticity of a piece of content we have shared, or something you feel has been misrepresented (given undue credit or understated), please write to us.

As is the norm in the beauty industry, DermSpotlight editors and the supporting teams sometimes receive free products from manufactures to view. Although we are delighted to see new complementary products, this does not change our principles. We believe and share full disclosure of every possible conflict of interest under every piece of content, as needed.

Our product review content follows a particular template that helps the writers and editors remain as independent as possible (not subjected). Besides, our content format and presentation style paves way for product testing and research reporting. In some cases, we may get a commission cut when our readers visit and purchase the product from the links in our content.

Our contributors are tasked to work within our editorial guidelines. Derm Spotlight’s staff doesn’t give special attention to outside resources (affiliate, publication, videos, or company) on the bases of connection.

The links in our content are exclusively meant to provide a reference to similar information within our website that might be of related interest. We also link to external sources, but the purpose is to refer to important scientific reports, that are often related to the ingredients or claims in the content. In precise, The National Center for Biotechnology Information is one example research source that we link to, for ingredient study reports. You may also see links to select outside pages that we think are reputable and believe they provide additional information, which our readers may benefit from.

Content Quality Standards

Every piece of content on DermSpotlight is crafted following a defined editorial guideline and must meet our quality standards to be approved for publication. As our quality check process, assign several reviewers on every article who check to ensure the content is authentic, easy to read, helpful to the reader, and is in line with the FTC guidelines.

After the content is published, our editorial team has a schedule that allows them to regularly review the articles to either update or check initially missed errors. Or, add something, be it a visual, videos, or tools to ensure they stay as required. If necessary, we pull down articles or product review content that no longer uphold our quality standards.

We let you know that an article or piece of content has been updated, either at the top of the content, at the specific point of an edit, or right after the last sentence when necessary. You can intentionally confirm these by looking at the “Last Updated date” in the content. Top on that, we ensure that all our sites are built and regularly maintained to uphold our quality standards and mission.

Our crew is comprised of:

  • Data scientists and content strategists who are ever keen on search trends to ensure we produce the content that matters to our readers.
  • Experienced content editors and writers who produce, curate and regularly update the content
  • Photo editors and visual experts who make sure the images we present properly reflect the topic at hand
  • Expert designers, analysts, and programmers who monitor to ensure our sites are responsive and accessible from different platforms, as well as work seamlessly.

Writers

Most of our content is crafted by our editors and we also feature other stories from outside our writers. Our team of writers extensively consists of beauty experts who are selected based on their knowledge and industry experience, along with there expertise to write about beauty in a clear, helpful way. We also feature various content from individuals who like to share their skincare story.

Right at the top of every article, we publish you will see the author’s name outlined and a link to their bio. This allows our readers to know the educational background, experience, and social exposure of the author. For clarity, every writer’s work must adhere to the above-mentioned editorial processes and guidelines.

Product Recommendations

There is no doubt that every member of our team is super passionate about beauty and the products that can enhance as well as make our readers feel and look their best. Besides being our line of work, we are always excited about our daily routine of researching and testing these products daily. Well, our experts are allowed to engage friends or relatives who help test these products when we cannot handle the bulk. You get the item free and give us honest feedback. As stated in our review procedure, we say exactly what it is according to our experience. We do not discriminate to benefit another brand, or give an overstatement to that appears to endorse a product. Whatever claim an item makes whether all-natural, a luxury item, or is a drugstore product, we think each needs a fair chance to be tested, after which we can report or state our opinion.

Our Process

Every industry has its special lingo, expectations, and process of rating what’s considered as the best, and the beauty world is not exceptional. Furthermore, each brand, beauty company, or product has its unique claims, characteristics, and potential benefits. Our review process considers different aspects that we think are worth focusing on. For this reason, our opinions about anything we publish are based on our procedure of rating. The style in which we present the content is shaped by our years of experience in the industry. If we are impressed with a certain trend, tip, a breakthrough ingredient, or are just curious to try something we tell it to the world.

Our review procedure for any products we list remains intact. However, as stated earlier, when a reader makes a purchase through a product link in the content, we might get an affiliate commission.

Feel free to check our review criteria here.