The ARIN Standard
What “verified” actually means here
Every product page on ARIN carries a verification mark. This is the page that makes it worth something — five checks, what each one covers, and the three things it deliberately does not.
We meet the founder
Before anything is listed we sit down with whoever makes it — at the workshop, the press or the kitchen, not over email. We want to know who owns the business, who does the work, and whether the two are the same people.
If a house cannot show us where the product is made, it does not go on ARIN.
We use everything for four weeks
Our team uses each product for a month before it is listed. Not a patch test — a month of ordinary use, by several people with different skin.
Four weeks is long enough for the things that only show up later: a balm that separates, an oil that turns, a scent that stops being pleasant on the twelfth day.
We publish the full ingredient list
Every product page carries the complete INCI list supplied by the house, not a marketing summary of it. If a house will not give us the full list, we do not list the product.
You should be able to check a product against your own allergies without writing to anybody.
We check it is legal to sell
We ask for the paperwork a cosmetic product is supposed to have in Morocco — the safety file, the labelling, the responsible person — and we check the label matches the file.
This is the least interesting check and the one most likely to stop a listing.
We keep checking
Formulations change, cooperatives change hands, a good house has a bad batch. We re-interview every house annually and we re-sample whenever a formulation is updated.
When something fails, we delist and we say so. A standard that has never removed anybody is not a standard.
The limits
What the Standard is not
We do not test formulations in a laboratory and we never claim to. Where a house holds a certification — organic, cosmetic GMP — we publish whose it is and who issued it.
Nothing on ARIN treats, prevents or cures anything. Ingredient stories are editorial. If a product page ever reads like a diagnosis, that is a mistake and we want to hear about it.
A house cannot buy its way past a check, and no placement on ARIN — homepage, Brand of the Month, anywhere — is sold. If that ever changes it will be labelled as advertising.
What happens when a house fails
We delist the product and we say why on the brand page. If it is a safety issue we contact everyone who bought it, and we refund whether or not the bottle has been opened — the seven-day window does not apply to something that should not have been sold.
We would rather publish a delisting than quietly remove a page and hope nobody kept the link.