Methodology
How the picks are chosen, how the scores are built, where the numbers come from - and an explicit statement of what the scores are not.
What our scores are not
Before anything else, plainly: the scores on this site are judgments derived from published specifications. They are not lab measurements. We have not handled, worn, weighed or tested any product on this site.
Where other sites lean on testing language they cannot support, we write what we actually did: read the material claim, checked it against the regulation, and computed what it implies. That is a smaller claim and it is a true one.
How products get onto the site at all
- Sourcing. Every product is resolved through a live retailer API query. Nothing is added from memory, and no ASIN, brand or product name on this site was written by hand.
- Material check. The listing has to say what the piece is made of, or we record that it does not - which is itself a finding, and it costs the product points.
- Honest renaming. If a listing says “18K gold” and means plating, our product name and material description say plated. Every time.
- Scoring. Against the dimensions below.
- Placement. A product appears in a roundup only where it is genuinely a reasonable answer to that page’s question.
The scoring dimensions
Products are scored out of 10 on four or five dimensions appropriate to their category, and the overall figure is the mean to one decimal place. There is no weighting and no adjustment - it is an arithmetic mean, so you can reconstruct it from the numbers shown on each product.
| Dimension | What it measures | What scores badly |
|---|---|---|
| Material transparency | Whether the listing states what the piece is actually made of | '18K gold' with no qualifier; no base metal named; 'hypoallergenic' with no standard |
| Durability for the price | Realistic lifespan of the material against what it costs | A plated piece priced like gold-filled |
| Skin safety | Nickel content and whether it is knowable from the listing | Unnamed alloys; plated pieces where the base will eventually be exposed |
| Value per year of wear | Price divided by realistic lifespan | Expensive short-lived materials |
| Everyday practicality | Whether it suits the placement it will be worn in | Plated rings; herringbone for someone who sleeps in jewelry |
Stone products swap in stone durability (Mohs hardness against the quartz in everyday dust) and setting quality. Care products are scored on build quality, capacity, protection or cleaning power, material safety, and value.
The wear model behind every lifespan figure
Every lifespan range on this site rests on the same stated model. If your habits differ, the numbers move - and you should move them.
- The piece is worn daily and not removed for showering.
- No perfume, hairspray or lotion contact at the point of wear.
- No swimming pools or sea water.
- Where no plating thickness is published, we assume it is at or near the FTC minimum of 0.175 microns - because a seller who had gone thicker would say so.
- “Worn out” means visible base metal at a friction point, not total loss of coating.
We publish ranges rather than point estimates. Skin chemistry, humidity and habits move these numbers by months, and a confident single figure would be false precision. A range with its assumptions written down is worth more.
Where the specifications come from
In order of authority:
- Published standards. The US FTC Jewelry Guides (16 CFR Part 23) for material naming and thresholds; ASTM F136 for implant-grade titanium. Every figure quoted from these was read at the source, which is linked on each page.
- Manufacturer and retailer listings. For what a specific product claims about itself, including what it declines to claim.
- Standard gemological reference data for hardness and stone properties.
Where we cannot source an input, the page says so. “Not published” appears throughout this site and it is deliberate. It is more useful than a guess, and a seller declining to publish a number is itself information.
Where prices come from
Every price on this site is pulled live from the retailer through an API, written to a data file, and rendered from that file with the date it was checked. Prices were last verified September 7, 2026.
There is no price field anywhere in our content, so a price cannot be typed into a page even by accident. And prices expire: if the data is more than 48 hours old, every number on the site disappears and the buttons fall back to “Check price”. The failure mode is silence, never a stale claim.
The registry currently holds 93 products.
Why every roundup names something to skip
Each roundup identifies at least one popular, well-reviewed product we recommend against, with the specific reason - usually a material that does not match its price, or an unnamed base metal on something worn against skin all day.
We can do this because we do not sell jewelry. A brand cannot write a negative recommendation about a category it competes in, and a retailer-owned publisher cannot write one about something it stocks. It is the one durable advantage this site has, so it appears on every page.
What we will not publish
- Reviews, ratings or testimonials. There are none anywhere on this site. We have no customers and no test results, so any would be invented.
- Review or AggregateRating structured data. Our on-page scores are editorial judgments and are deliberately not marked up as product review ratings, because they are not that.
- Claims of testing, wearing, weighing or owning. Not once.
- Manufactured urgency. No countdowns, no “only 3 left”, no “deal ends soon”. We do not know those things.
- Invented credentials. No gemologist, no appraiser, no expert panel, no medical review.
Corrections
If a specification here is wrong, we want to know and we will fix it. The editorial policy covers how corrections are handled, and the contact page is how to reach us.
For the commercial side - how the affiliate links work and what we do and do not earn from - see how we make money.