Not every product we review earns the seal.
Almost every new product arrives with a big promise, a beautiful campaign, and a long list of benefits. We’d rather start somewhere else: what happens when you actually use it?
THE LOREN STANDARD is the testing and recommendation standard behind LOREN STANDARD. We created it to mark the products that didn’t just look interesting or show up with a good marketing story, but the ones we tested, used, and decided we can genuinely recommend.
A product that clears our criteria can earn the seal:
The seal goes to a product, never to a brand. Loving one product from a company is no guarantee we’ll recommend its next one.
What THE LOREN STANDARD APPROVED means
When you see the THE LOREN STANDARD APPROVED seal in a review, the product went through the testing process for its category and cleared the bar that, in our view, justifies a recommendation.
We’re not looking for a perfect product. Almost every product has strengths and drawbacks.
We’re looking for a product that does its job well, whose advantages are meaningful, whose limits are clear, and that we’d be comfortable recommending to the person it actually suits.
That last part matters. APPROVED doesn’t mean “right for everyone.”
It means this is a product we stand behind recommending, under the conditions, for the uses, and for the types of users we spell out in the review.
How we test a product
No single test fits every product. You can’t judge a mascara by the standard you’d hold a moisturizer to, and testing a foundation the way you test a shampoo would tell you nothing. Every category comes with its own demands.
A few questions do follow us into almost every test.
01. Does the product keep its promise?
This is always where we start.
If a foundation promises long wear, we test the wear. If a mascara promises volume, we look at the volume it actually builds. If a skincare product is meant to improve the look of dryness, we want to see what happens to skin in real use.
We don’t expect a product to do things it never claimed to do. We do expect it to live up to the promises it chose to make.
02. How does it perform in real life?
A product can look wonderful the minute it goes on and behave completely differently four hours later. So depending on the category, we also watch how it holds up over time.
Does it stay put?
Does it break down?
Does the texture shift?
Is it comfortable?
Does it still look good hours in?
Most of us don’t wear a product for five minutes and a photo. We wear it through a day.
03. How good is the formula, and how does it feel to use?
An ingredient list tells you a lot. It doesn’t tell you everything.
We also look at how the formula performs as a whole: the texture, how it spreads, how it feels, the finish, the packaging, and how the product fits into a routine.
And we don’t start from the assumption that “natural” is automatically better or that a synthetic ingredient is automatically worse. We test the product, not the slogan on the box.
04. Who is it actually right for?
This is one of the questions we care about most.
A foundation that’s excellent on oily skin can be a poor choice on dry skin. A very long-wearing lipstick might be exactly what you want for an event, and the wrong call if you have dry lips and want something you can’t feel.
So our reviews don’t stop at whether a product is good.
We want to answer who it’s good for. And sometimes: who we’d steer toward something else.
05. Does it earn a real place in a routine?
The market is full of good products. Good isn’t always enough.
We want to know whether a product brings something that makes it a smart choice within its category. Sometimes that’s an exceptional formula. Sometimes it’s longevity. Sometimes it’s a genuinely good shade range. And sometimes it’s simply that the product does an excellent job, consistently, without trying to reinvent anything.
Innovation is a plus. A product doesn’t have to be innovative to be excellent.
The professional point of view
LOREN STANDARD came out of the beauty industry, so a lot of our testing comes from a professional point of view.
I’ve been a professional makeup artist for years, and I’ve worked with more formulas, textures, and skin types than I could count. A makeup product isn’t judged by how it looks on the back of a hand or in the first minute after application.
I want to know how it works on real skin.
How it settles.
How it photographs.
How it layers.
How it plays with other products.
And what it looks like as the hours go by.
That experience shows up in how I test skincare, too. With anything used as skin prep, I’m interested not only in how skin feels, but in how makeup behaves on top of it.
This isn’t the only way to test a product. It’s the point of view we bring to LOREN STANDARD.
Not every product gets APPROVED
That’s deliberate.
A positive review isn’t automatically a seal. A product can have things we love alongside limits that are too significant to wave off. A product can be good and still not stand out enough in its category to earn the seal. And a product can simply fall short of what we expected.
Appearing on LOREN STANDARD is not a recommendation. To carry the seal, a product has to clear the bar we set.
So what happens when a product doesn’t pass?
Nothing dramatic. It doesn’t get the seal.
We don’t believe in issuing failing grades. In the review itself we explain what we liked, what worked less well, where the limits are, and who the product could still be right for, if anyone.
A product that isn’t right for us can be exactly right for someone else.
A good review isn’t there to tell you what to buy. It’s there to give you enough to decide whether it’s worth buying.
What about products we receive from brands?
A product cannot buy THE LOREN STANDARD.
Products reach us through our own purchases, as PR, for trial, or as part of a commercial partnership. How a product got to us doesn’t change the bar it has to clear.
Getting a product for free doesn’t guarantee a recommendation. A paid partnership doesn’t guarantee a recommendation. And having worked with a brand doesn’t hand its products the seal.
When a relevant commercial relationship exists, we say so plainly in the review. A recommendation has to be earned.
The seal belongs to the product, not the brand
This is one of the core principles of THE LOREN STANDARD.
We can give the THE LOREN STANDARD APPROVED seal to one product from a brand and pass on another product from the same brand.
We don’t believe in “good brands” and “bad brands.” Brands make products. We test them one at a time.
That’s also why our brand pages sometimes hold products we love right next to products we’d swap for something else.
Does APPROVED mean it’s the best product in its category?
No.
THE LOREN STANDARD isn’t a competition with one winner. There can be several excellent foundations built for different skin types, several excellent mascaras that create different results, and several good skincare products that answer different needs.
APPROVED means the product cleared our bar for a recommendation. Not that it’s the only or the best choice for everyone.
Does the seal last forever?
Not necessarily.
Beauty moves. Formulas change, products get reformulated, and every so often something new raises the bar for a whole category.
So a recommendation refers to the version we tested when the review was published or updated. If a product goes through a substantial reformulation, we may need to test it again.
Our standard has to stay current too.
How to spot a product that passed THE LOREN STANDARD
Look for the seal:
In the reviews where it appears, we also explain why the product earned it. A seal without an explanation isn’t worth much.
We want you to know what worked, what worked less well, who the product suits, and what finally made us say yes, we’ll put our name on this one.
THE LOREN STANDARD
We’re not looking for the product with the biggest campaign. Or the prettiest packaging. Or the one everyone is talking about this week. Or the most expensive one.
We’re looking for products that do their job really well. The ones we’ll keep using. The ones we’ll still recommend once the launch stops being news.
The ones that, if a friend asked whether they’re worth buying, we could answer from experience instead of from an ad.
Tested. Examined. Worth recommending.
Editorial note: THE LOREN STANDARD is an editorial evaluation and recommendation standard operated by LOREN STANDARD. It is not an official, governmental, or regulatory standard, and it is not a certification by any outside body. The seal reflects the magazine’s editorial assessment of a product according to the testing methodology described on this page.