# How we label every source, and why gold means what it means

> Every story on Pink Popcorn carries a label — Research, Expert, Magazine, Industry, Personal or Web. Here is what each one promises, and what it doesn't.

- Published: 2026-09-19
- Section: Popped Open
- Canonical: https://pinkpopcornworld.com/blog/how-we-label-sources
- Publisher: Pink Popcorn (https://pinkpopcornworld.com/)

Pink Popcorn reads dozens of 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.