About Actives & Acids
An independent site that reads skincare ingredient lists for a living — retinol, vitamin C, niacinamide and the exfoliating acids — and tells you plainly when a bottle doesn't earn its price.
Why this site exists
Skincare is one of the few categories where the marketing budget dwarfs the active ingredient. Serums are sold on adjectives, the concentration that actually matters is often left off the label, and the “we tried 40 products” roundups rarely tried anything you could check. Actives & Acidsexists to do the unglamorous, honest version of that job: read what is actually in the bottle, compare it against the published formulation science, work out what a milliliter really costs, and say which products earn their place — and which to skip.
The differentiator is the boring math most sites leave out. A 30 mL serum at one price and a 60 mL serum at a slightly higher price are not comparable until you divide, and the same 10% niacinamide can cost wildly different amounts per milliliter depending on the brand on the front. We do that division on every pick and print it, because “cheaper bottle” and “better value” are frequently not the same product.
Who writes it
Actives & Acids is written by Stephen V.. Stephen is an enthusiast who's genuinely into skincare ingredients — he reads the INCI lists, compiles the published concentrations, does the cost-per-mL math and checks the studies. No lab coat. He is not a dermatologist, and nothing on Actives & Acids is medical advice — for a diagnosis or a prescription active like tretinoin, see a professional. What he brings is a habit of checking the label against the published evidence, and saying so plainly when a product doesn't hold up.
That is a deliberate limit, and we would rather be straight about it than borrow authority we have not earned. We are not a dermatology practice and we run no test lab, so we do not claim clinical results, in-house trials, or hands-on testing. What we do instead is spelled out in full on our methodology page: formulas compared spec by spec, every ingredient claim cited to a published source, cost-per-mL computed, and honest verdicts that commission cannot buy.
The claims we withhold
The fastest way to understand this site is to look at what it refuses to say.
- 0
- Products we claim to have tested in a lab
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- Sponsored placements
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- Free products accepted from brands
In place of those claims, here is what we actually do on every product: read the full ingredient list (INCI), compile the stated concentration where the brand publishes one, check the pH range for an acid where it is disclosed, compute the cost per milliliter, and tie each efficacy claim to a primary source — a PubMed study, the FDA, or the American Academy of Dermatology. Where a brand will not state a figure, we print “Not published” rather than invent one.
What we do — and don’t
We do compare formulations and bases, compute value, cite studies, and rank picks in plain language with an occasional “skip this.” We do not accept payment for reviews, take free samples, or let a higher commission move a product up a list. We have never invented a review, a star rating, or a before-and-after photo — there are none anywhere on this site, and there never will be.
How we’re funded
The site is free to read because some product links are affiliate links: if you buy through one, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. It never changes which product we recommend. The full details — and how to spot the links — are on our affiliate disclosure page, and the standards behind every page are in our editorial policy.
A standing offer
If you spot a factual error — an ingredient note, a stated strength, a claim that doesn’t match its source — tell us. We check it against the listing, and if you’re right we fix it and say that we did. That’s the deal: get in touch and hold us to it.