How we work

PUBLISHED 2026-08 · REVISED —

Every Ciaosoos article makes claims a reader could act on with their own money, so this page records how those claims get onto the page: where they come from, how they are cited, and how the articles are dated and revised.

01The source hierarchy

When sources disagree — and on care advice and quality claims they often do — articles follow a ranked order:

1. The people who make the material. A tannery describing how its own leather behaves outranks anyone describing leather in general. When Horween says most marks fade with use, that carries more weight than a retailer’s care card.
2. Standards bodies, medical associations, and regulators. Named standards (ANSI Z80.3 for sunglasses), professional bodies (the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Podiatric Medical Association), peer-reviewed research, and consumer-protection agencies such as the FTC. These settle the health and legal questions.
3. Manufacturer documentation. A brand’s own size chart, movement specification, or washing instruction is the primary document for that brand’s products — authoritative about itself, promotional about everything else.
4. Enthusiast press and forums. Useful for how things behave over years of ownership, and read with the understanding that enthusiasm is a bias.

A marketing claim is never its own evidence. The recurring Claim vs. Fact device in articles exists precisely to put the label’s words next to what the ranked sources actually say.

02Citations on the page

Claims that carry a number, a standard, or a medical stake are cited where they appear: the margin notes tagged Check link directly to the source being relied on — the journal article, the standards page, the manufacturer’s own document. Each source is checked live at the time the article is written, and each link names the page it points to.

03Dates and revisions

Every article carries a dateline under its headline: the month it was published, and a revision date once its substance changes. Corrections that alter what a reader would do — a number, a method, a warning — update the article body and the revision date together. Readers who spot an error can send it through the contact form; corrections with a source attached are the fastest to verify.

04The checklists

Articles end in a numbered checklist because advice that can’t be turned into a sequence of actions at a shop shelf or a checkout page isn’t finished. The checklists compress the article’s sourced claims into the order a buyer would actually use them — highest-value check first, every time.