How we review and score supplements
The Supplement Watch exists to do one thing well: buy supplements with our own money, use them, dig into what real buyers say, and publish a verdict you can trust before you spend. This page explains exactly how we work, so you can judge our judgment.
Who we are
The Supplement Watch is an independent review publication operated by Sandhill Media LLC in Fort Collins, Colorado, and reading since 2017. We are not a supplement brand, a manufacturer or a retailer. We do not make or sell Jelly Tide or any other product we cover, and we are not the official website of anything we review. Our income comes from affiliate commissions when readers choose to buy through our links, which we explain in full on our disclosure page.
Our reviews are produced by a small editorial team and signed off by Renata Cole, our lead reviewer, who holds a master's in nutrition science and is a registered dietitian nutritionist. Her role is to keep our claims careful, our compliance language honest and our enthusiasm in check.
How we get our hands on a product
We buy the products we review the same way you would: a normal order from the official website, at full price, with no free samples or special access from the brand. Buying retail matters, because it means we see the real checkout, the real shipping time and the real packaging that a customer receives. For Jelly Tide, that meant ordering a multi-bottle bundle and using it on a normal daily schedule.
Our eight scoring criteria
Every product is rated from 1 to 5 on the same eight criteria, and the editorial score at the top of a review is the weighted average of those marks. We weight real-world outcomes most heavily:
- Effectiveness (25%) - did it do what it claims, in our use and in the reviews we read?
- Value for money (15%) - cost per day against what you actually get.
- Tolerability (15%) - how gentle it is, and how often side effects come up.
- Onset speed (10%) - how quickly people notice a difference.
- Ease of use (10%) - dosing, form and how easy it is to stick with.
- Taste and texture (10%) - relevant for gummies, powders and liquids.
- Label transparency (10%) - are ingredient amounts disclosed and clear?
- Repurchase intent (5%) - would buyers, and we, order it again?
We deliberately reward transparency and punish vagueness. When a brand hides its doses behind a proprietary blend, as Jelly Tide does, it cannot score full marks on label transparency, no matter how good the rest of the product is.
How we use buyer reviews
Alongside our own testing, we gather buyer ratings from across the web and the manufacturer's own listings, then summarize them: the average rating, the star distribution, the themes people raise most, how long results took and the share of verified purchases. These figures are an editorial summary meant to show the shape of real-world feedback. They are not a controlled clinical trial, and we say so plainly. We also read the negative reviews carefully, because a one-star rating that mentions an easy refund tells you more about a company than a dozen five-star raves.
Reviews that readers submit through the form on our site are moderated before they appear and are kept separate from the aggregated figures and from our structured data, so unverified submissions never inflate a product's score.
Editorial independence
Affiliate relationships never buy a better score. We set our rating before we finalize any commercial links, brands do not see our reviews ahead of publication, and we are happy to publish criticism of products we earn from. If we would not recommend something to a family member, we will not recommend it to you. When we get something wrong, we correct it and note the change.
Questions about our method or a correction to suggest? Email [email protected]. We read every message.