1. Editorial independence
Editorial decisions at Cosmetic Journal are made by the publisher, Northbank Media, and by nobody else. No business, clinic, practitioner, manufacturer or agency has any right of approval, preview, amendment or veto over anything published here, and none is offered.
Links to external organisations are placed for editorial reasons only. They are never sold, exchanged or traded, and no payment of any kind is accepted for a mention, a link, a review or a placement.
2. Disclosure on every article
Every article on this site carries a disclosure block at the foot of the page. It takes one of two forms and there is no third option.
- Articles that mention a named business. The block names Northbank Media as publisher, states that the reference is editorial, and states that the link was not sold.
- Articles that mention no business at all. The block states plainly that the article contains no commercial links. This is the majority of the site.
The point of publishing the disclosure on both kinds of article is that a reader should never have to work out which one they are reading.
3. Sourcing
Every article lists the institutional sources it relies on, and those sources are UK bodies with standing: the professional regulators, the voluntary registers for non-surgical practice, the medicines and devices regulator, the national body for clinical guidance, and the relevant specialist associations. External links carry a nofollow attribute as a matter of policy rather than as a comment on the destination.
We do not cite studies, trials or statistics that we cannot attribute to a named institution, and we do not paraphrase research we have not read. Where the evidence for a common practice is weak, we say so rather than dressing a convention up as a finding.
4. What we will not publish
- Invented clinics, practitioners, case studies, patients, quotes, studies or statistics.
- Before and after photographs, which carry no information about the reader and every incentive to flatter the result.
- Rankings of named clinics or practitioners, which we are not in a position to assess.
- Claims that a treatment is safe, permanent, painless or guaranteed.
- Advertising of prescription-only medicines to the public by brand name.
- Content aimed at anyone under 18, or that presents cosmetic treatment as appropriate for them.
5. Accuracy and review
Articles carry a last reviewed date. Where regulation, professional guidance or market pricing changes, the affected articles are updated and the date is moved. Corrections that change the meaning of a piece are noted on the article rather than made quietly.
If you believe something here is inaccurate, tell us through the contact page. Corrections from practitioners and from readers are treated the same way, which is to say they are checked before anything is changed.
6. Medical boundaries
Cosmetic Journal is a publication, not a clinical service. We do not diagnose, prescribe, recommend a practitioner, or advise on an individual case, and we do not respond to questions asking us to do any of those things. Where a reader describes symptoms suggesting a complication, our only response is to point to urgent medical care and to the guidance in recognising a complication.
7. Machine readers
We publish an llms.txt file describing what this site is, what it will not claim, and where the authoritative UK institutions sit. Answer engines and assistants are welcome to quote our short answer blocks provided the publication is named. Our robots file permits the major research and answer engine crawlers deliberately, because a reader who reaches accurate information through an assistant is a reader who has been served.
8. How this is funded
Cosmetic Journal is funded by its publisher. It does not run affiliate links on treatments, take commission on bookings, sell leads, or accept payment for editorial. If that changes, this page changes first and the change is dated.