- 01
A price we did not observe is not a price
Every price on this site was read off a page we loaded, and it is published with the date we read it. Where we could not observe a price, the field is empty and the page says so, rather than carrying a figure from memory or an estimate. We learned this the hard way: a price recalled from memory turned out to be 44 percent wrong, on the exact number our cost-per-hour comparison is built from.
- 02
Stated is not measured
Burn times published by makers are labelled as the maker's figure, never as ours. We only present a measured number once we have burned the candle ourselves under the published protocol, and where a maker gives a range we record the lower end so a value comparison is never flattered in our favour.
- 03
No ratings until there are ratings
We publish no customer rating, review count, or testimonial until real customers have left them on real orders. Star ratings and review counts are the easiest thing on the internet to invent and the most corrosive to get wrong.
- 04
Opinion is labelled as opinion
Describing what a candle smells like is a judgement, and pages say so. Our selection of which candles matter is editorial, not a sales ranking, and the scent reference states that explicitly rather than implying data we do not license.
- 05
Rankings are arithmetic, not relationships
Where we rank alternatives, the order is cost per burn hour. No brand can pay for placement, and when we eventually sell our own candles they are ranked by the same arithmetic as everyone else's. If ours loses, it stays lost.
- 06
Affiliate links are disclosed by state, not by boilerplate
Some links may earn a commission. Rather than a blanket notice, each page states what is actually true of the links on it, and the disclosure changes automatically when a link starts or stops paying us. A link that earns nothing is not marked as sponsored.
- 07
Deals expire on their own
A discount is listed only after we saw both the regular and sale price on the retailer's own page, and it disappears automatically two weeks later whether or not anyone remembers to remove it. A price we can no longer vouch for is not a deal.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, tell us and we will change it. Corrections are made on the page and noted, not edited away quietly, because a page that changes silently is a page you cannot trust twice.
We also keep a record of claims we chose not to publish, including several that a design tool invented for us and we caught before launch. That list is deliberately part of our internal documentation rather than a marketing exercise, but the principle is simple: the absence of a number is a legitimate answer, and it is always better than a confident wrong one.
Prices are the fastest thing here to go stale. Every price carries the date it was observed, and any price older than three months is revalidated or removed.