How we research, and what we refuse to claim

The claim we will not make

We have not tested these products. There is no lab, no test bench, no drawer of units, and no free samples. Saying otherwise would be the single easiest thing on this site for a competitor to disprove, and it is the claim the category is built on.

That is not an apology. A published, reproducible method beats a testing claim nobody can check, and it is the only honest thing a site of our size can offer. What follows is that method, in enough detail that you could repeat it.

1. Specifications come from the manufacturer

Every figure in a spec table on this site - wattage, dry time, dilution ratio, application temperature, bottle size, material clearance - comes from the manufacturer’s own published page, and the link to that page sits in the row next to the number. Not a retail listing, which is frequently wrong, and not another review site, which is frequently copying a retail listing.

Where a maker publishes nothing, the row says so. That is why some products in our roundups have four spec rows and others have one. It looks untidy, and the alternative is inventing figures to make a table look complete. Of the dryers in our registry we hold published wattages for 6 and none for 3, and that gap is visible on the pages rather than papered over.

2. The arithmetic is shown

Where a computation is possible, we do it and print the working. Running cost is watts ÷ 1000 × hours × price per kWh, using the US Energy Information Administration’s published average residential electricity price of 18.34 cents per kilowatt-hour.

You can run it yourself with your own rate in the calculator. The point of showing the sum is that a figure you can check is worth more than a figure you have to accept, and that this is the one thing a research-led site can do better than a testing-led one.

3. Prices are live or they are absent

A price renders on this site only when it came from a verified live lookup within the last 48 hours, and it is shown with the date it was taken. Past that window it disappears automatically and the button reverts to “Check price on Amazon.”

We would rather show no number than a stale one. A price that was right last month is worse than no price at all, because it looks like information.

4. Scores are editorial and stay out of the markup

Products carry a score out of ten and a set of criterion scores. Those are our editorial judgment, formed from the published specifications, the documented instructions and how well the maker documents its own product - and we say so on every page that shows one.

Those scores never appear in the structured data this site emits. No Review markup, no rating markup, no aggregate ratings. Publishing an untested opinion as a machine-readable product rating would contradict the sentence at the top of this page, and it is the specific practice we set out not to imitate. The visible score stays; the markup claim does not exist.

5. Ranking criteria, stated per page

Because we cannot rank on measured performance, we rank on things that are checkable:

• What materials the maker clears the product for
• How well the maker documents application and maintenance
• Published quantities, coverage and intervals
• Whether the mechanism suits the problem, argued explicitly
• Practical fit - whether it is a product a person will actually use

That last one carries more weight than it might look. A treatment applied four times a season beats a better treatment applied once, which is why our top spray pick is the one whose directions let you use it on wet boots.

6. Every product carries a reason not to buy it

All 41 products in our registry have a “skip this one if” line, and it is a required field rather than a nicety. A roundup where every product is good for everyone is not a roundup, it is a catalog.

7. The cheapest correct answer wins

Where a pantry item does the job, we say so and rank it first. The top pick on our salt stain page is distilled white vinegar, which earns us nothing, because Timberland publishes a 1:2 vinegar and water solution and it works. The same logic puts “take the insoles out” above every deodorizer on the site.

What would change our mind

A manufacturer publishing a figure we said was unpublished. A reader with a utility bill that contradicts our running-cost math. A source we misread. Any of those, and we will fix the page and note the change with a date rather than editing it quietly - the corrections policy is in the editorial policy.

What would not change our mind is a brand asking. There is no paid placement on this site and no arrangement under which a product can be added to a roundup. The funding model is set out in full on the affiliate disclosure page.