How every entry earns its place.
A repeatable process stands behind each ingredient page: read the published research, grade it conservatively, and be explicit about what is still unsettled. Here's exactly what happens — and what doesn't.
- 01
Literature review
We start from the published research on an ingredient — what it does, at what concentration, and in whom — and write from that rather than from a brand's product page. Where the literature is limited to in-vitro work or small studies, the entry says so instead of borrowing confidence it hasn't earned.
- 02
Conservative grading
Effective and maximum-safe concentrations, comedogenicity and pregnancy guidance are all reported at the cautious end of what the evidence supports. Where sources disagree we take the more careful number, not the more flattering one.
- 03
Explicit uncertainty
Thin, conflicting or absent evidence is stated plainly on the page. We would rather write “not established” than round a weak signal up into a recommendation — an honest gap is more useful to you than a confident guess.
- 04
INCI-level sourcing
Entries are written against the INCI name, so what you read here maps to what is printed on your label — not to a marketing name that may cover several different materials at very different strengths.
The metrics on every page
Revelika safety grade
Our own 1–10 indicator (lower is safer), surfaced on every entry as a relative ordering rather than a verdict. It is our grade, not a rating issued by any third party.
Comedogenic rating
A 0–5 pore-clogging likelihood, important for acne-prone readers and often misunderstood.
Effective vs. max-safe %
The concentration where an ingredient starts working, and the ceiling beyond which risk rises without added benefit.
Pregnancy safety
Reported conservatively: yes / with caution / avoid / not established — defaulting to caution whenever evidence is unsettled.
Revelika is educational, not medical advice. Skin is individual — what the research supports in aggregate may not hold for you. When evidence is uncertain we say so, we default to caution on safety, and we cite the primary research so you can weigh the source yourself.
Revelika runs no patch tests, no clinical or real-world trials, and no independent science review. What stands behind an entry is published research, read and summarised conservatively — we would rather say that plainly than imply a lab we do not have.