How we label every source, and why gold means what it means
Pink Popcorn reads 45 sources every day: research write-ups, cosmetic chemists, magazines, the beauty trade press and a handful of individual writers. Every story we pass on carries the name of who published it and a label saying what kind of source they are. This is what the labels mean.
The six labels
| Label | What it promises |
|---|---|
| Research | A report on a published study. ScienceDaily's topic feeds, NIH News in Health, and the like. It tells you a study exists and what it found; it does not tell you the study was good. |
| Expert | Written by a scientist or researcher. Lab Muffin Beauty Science, Greater Good at UC Berkeley, Psyche. One person's expertise, on the record. |
| Magazine | An edited beauty, wellness or health publication. Allure, Refinery29, Healthline, the BBC's and NPR's health desks. Edited, fact-checked in principle, and often carrying a product to sell. |
| Industry | The beauty business writing about itself. Glossy, Beauty Independent, Cosmetics Business. Excellent on what brands are doing; not a source on whether it works. |
| Personal | One writer's own experience. Tiny Buddha, Brené Brown, Nerd Fitness. Honest, unverified, and not a study of anyone but the author. |
| Web | Found through a news search rather than a feed we follow directly. The real publisher is always shown; the label means we know less about them. |
Research and Expert are marked in gold, because they are the two you can lean on. Everything else is worth reading; nothing else is worth quoting as evidence.
What a label is not
A label describes the source, not the story. A Magazine label on a story about a new sunscreen filter does not mean the filter doesn't work — it means an edited publication reported it, and the claim's strength depends on what they were reporting. When the story is about a study, we say so. When it is about a product, we say who is selling it.
Two things we changed after the first week, because the labels were overstating things:
- General health desks are Magazine, not Research. The BBC and NPR report studies well, but they also run features. A card once put a Research badge on a story about a 65-year-old deadlifting champion. True, and a good story, but not research. Research now means only sources that report published studies.
- Shopping round-ups show their products, or they don't appear. A magazine's "12 best serums" is useful if you can see the twelve and who chose them. Stripped to a headline, it reads as our recommendation, which it isn't. So a round-up appears only as that publication's picks, with the products named and the line not tested by us.
The "Talked about this week" panel
The panel on the feed counts how many different sources mentioned a term in the last seven days — not how many articles. One prolific site can publish six pieces on retinol; that counts once. When a term goes from two sources to seven in a week, several unrelated publications noticed the same thing, and that is worth a closer look.
What we don't do
We don't republish anyone's photograph. We don't summarise an article in a way that replaces reading it. We don't take products from brands, and we don't carry sponsorships. When we buy something to test it, we show the price we paid.
If a label ever looks wrong on a story, tell us on Instagram. The two changes above came from exactly that.
Every claim above is sourced in the text. Prices are what we paid, on the date shown. We buy what we test; nothing is gifted, and nothing is sponsored.