How Shade Tally is paid, and what we refuse

Some links on Shade Tally are affiliate links: if you click one and buy, the seller or Amazon may pay us a commission. Every such link goes through an address on our site that begins /go/, is marked as sponsored, and sits below a note on the same page saying so.

Who may pay us

These are the only sellers we link to with affiliate links, and the status of each programme as we understand it. We have not yet been approved by any of them, so until we are, the links go to each seller's ordinary home page and pay nothing.

• Amazon Associates, which we use to link Crest 3D Whitestrips.
• Hismile, through the FlexOffers network.
• BURST Oral Care, through the Impact network; BURST does not publish its commission.
• SNOW Oral Care, whose programme is listed on third-party directories; we could not confirm its terms at SNOW itself.

We do not print commission rates, because several are unpublished or only reported by third parties.

What pays us nothing

Some of our first recommendations earn us nothing, and we make them anyway. Take-home trays from a dentist, which we rank first among whitening kits, have no affiliate link. Neither does in-office whitening, a professional clean, an ordinary fluoride toothpaste, or the advice to ask a dentist before whitening at all.

What we refuse to link

We refuse some links on principle, and publishing that list means we cannot quietly drop it.

• Any clinic, practice, salon or whitening provider. We explain how to get a quote; we do not refer you anywhere.
• Products sold for teenagers to get around age rules, and any promotion aimed at under-18s.
• DIY whitening methods, such as charcoal scrubs or acidic home remedies, which the ADA says lack evidence of safe, measurable whitening.
• Sellers that will not name their active ingredient. A product that does not say what bleaches your teeth does not get a link from us.

How commission affects rankings

It does not. Our ranking of whitening kits weighs disclosure of the active ingredient and strength, the independent evidence for the product type, the label's own guidance, and price per treatment. The option ranked first pays us nothing.

Endorsements and reviews

We publish no testimonials, customer reviews, star ratings or before-and-after images. In the US, the FTC's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials (16 CFR Part 465, published in August 2024) bans fake or false reviews and testimonials, and in the UK, rule 2.1 of the CAP Code says "Marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such." We aim to make every affiliate link unmistakable, and we would rather have none than a misleading one.

Questions

If you think a link is not clearly marked, or a page reads as though a seller's claim were our own, tell us.