Editorial Policy

Who writes this

AcneTracker is written and maintained by one named person, Olav Sie Rotvær, whose background and public profiles are on the author page. He is a software developer, not a clinician, and the site says so on every page rather than implying otherwise.

There is no medical reviewer. Rather than assert a review process that does not exist, we tell you exactly where each fact came from and let you check it — which is why every ingredient page carries its references.

Sourcing

Factual claims on ingredient and condition pages are based on peer-reviewed research (PubMed-indexed studies and reviews), public regulatory databases (the European Commission's CosIng, FDA OTC monographs) and established dermatology references. Each ingredient page lists its key sources.

How a page is built

Pages are not written one at a time as free prose. Each one is generated from a structured database entry with a fixed schema — comedogenic rating, pH range, irritation risk, pregnancy status, sources — so the same fields are answered for every ingredient and nothing quietly goes missing. The explanatory text around that data is written by us.

Before anything publishes, automated checks run over the whole database: that every cross-reference resolves, that no two pages share sentences, that required safety sections are present, and that every page meets its length and structure contract. A separate check fetches each cited PubMed and PubChem record and compares its real title against the one we printed — a link that merely resolves is not proof it says what we claim, and that check has caught citations pointing at the wrong paper.

Comedogenic ratings are traced back to their original published source instead of copied from other sites. Doing that surfaced seven values the web has been reproducing incorrectly from a single 1989 table; those corrections and the method behind them are published in full.

Where AI is used, and where it is not

AI assists in drafting the explanatory text on these pages. It does not decide what is true. The structured data — comedogenic ratings, pH ranges, irritation risk, pregnancy status — and every source cited are compiled and checked by a person against the original record, and a claim with no source behind it does not go on the page regardless of how well it reads.

We say this plainly because the alternative is worse. Undisclosed AI on health-adjacent content is exactly the pattern that should make a reader suspicious, and the honest answer is more useful than silence: the risk with AI-drafted text is confident, well-formed wording around a fact nobody verified, so the verification is where the effort goes. Every page passes the automated gates described above before it publishes, and the citation check compares each cited record's real title against the one we printed — which is how we found citations that resolved perfectly while pointing at an unrelated paper.

Corrections are the backstop, and we would rather hear about an error than not. If something here is wrong, send it to [email protected] with a source and it gets fixed.

Structure over storytelling

Because skincare is a health-adjacent topic, we deliberately prefer structured, verifiable data — ratings, tables, pH ranges, dosage windows — over persuasive prose. Where evidence is weak or mixed, the page says so instead of overstating.

Independence

We do not accept payment for coverage, placement or verdicts. Buying guides evaluate ingredient profiles, not brands, and contain no affiliate product picks. Advertising on the site is clearly distinguishable from content and has no influence on what pages say.

Review and corrections

Pages carry a 'last reviewed' practice: the database is versioned, and entries are re-checked when regulations or significant research change. Errors reported to [email protected] with a source are corrected with priority.