No one ever talks about how many fucking skincare brands there are. I’ve never looked it up, and I don’t intend to because it would probably just depress me, but there are definitely over 500 brands dedicated to skincare alone, not even including makeup brands (which, I suppose some makeup could also be considered skincare, if you wanna get ~technical~ with it). Now, you’re probably asking yourself, why on Earth would you think that this is a problem?
Well, lemme lay it out for you real quick (okay, maybe not that quick).
First, so many of them sell different versions of what is essentially the same product, and all of them have different prices. So, for example, take a brand like Peter Thomas Roth. Their products are available at stores like Ulta and Sephora, and they are considered a higher-end brand. They carry a product called Water Drench Hyaluronic Cloud Cream Hydrating Moisturizer, which is basically a formula that is supposed to make your skin plump, hydrated, etc. by delivering intense moisture (please, for fuck’s sake, moisturize. Dry skin is not happy skin). It retails for $52 in a 1.7 fl oz. size on their website.
Now, take a brand like Neutrogena, which is a “drugstore” brand, meaning that it is cheaper, and usually sold in drugstores, as well as Walmart, Target, and other big box stores (and Ulta, because they also carry “drugstore” brands). Neutrogena sells a moisturizer called Hydro Boost Water Gel with Hyaluronic Acid for Dry Skin (that’s, um, quite a mouthful). It claims to deliver intense moisture (sound familiar yet?). Their full size is 1.7 fl oz., and retails for $21.49 on the Neutrogena website. It can be found for quite a bit cheaper on Amazon, and probably in physical stores as well.
I have never tried either of these moisturizers (so, I guess you can take this with a grain of salt, but apply this to literally any time you try a “high-end product” and a “drugstore dupe” and you will probably see my point), but from a glance at their ingredients lists, it looks like the formulas are similar, at least in the first few ingredients. Peter Thomas Roth’s has quite a few more ingredients, but I don’t know if that would make me trust it more, or less. Still, because of its price tag, we are conditioned to automatically expect it to work better, when, in reality, there are incredible “drugstore” products out there, too.
So, there’s my first point. Two very different prices for essentially the same product, and we have nothing on which to base our opinion other than the price tag.
Wait a minute, you might be thinking. What about reviews? Yes, I completely agree. Watching, reading, or listening to reviews of a product can be incredibly helpful, especially if a brand is new to you. The problem here is that humans are snowflakes. That sounds cliché (and it is), but what I mean is that no two people have the exact same skin. So, even if I manage to find someone reviewing the product that has dry, acne-prone skin like mine, we still won’t have exactly the same experience with any product we try. It’s a good rough estimate, but unless we see a dermatologist (hello, expensive!), there’s not a great way to know exactly which product is going to be right for our skin.
Which brings me to my next point. Not only are there a ton of skincare brands, but there are so many kinds of skincare available. There are at least 1,000 different masks out there (and I’m not even counting sheet masks — I might have a bit of a thing about sheet masks, in that I refuse to use them), all claiming to get your skin in the best shape of its life. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least ten companies that have come out with some type of charcoal mask, whether it’s a peel-off, a gel, or a mud-mask (I actually have an in-shower one from Shea Moisture that I absolutely love). How do I know which formulation to choose? Is a Glam Glow mask better than a Freeman’s mask just because of the drastically increased price point (please see above tirade)? There’s no way to really know, unless you try it.
Which, conveniently, is a great segue. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the two-plus years I’ve been seeing the same esthetician, Annie (name has been changed to protect her identity), it’s that trying a bunch of different skincare products and constantly changing up your routine does not help your skin. Once you find something that really works, stick to it. Your skin likes routine.
Of course, if your life changes, your skincare will probably need to change as well. This seems like common sense, but let me explain further (*disclaimer: I am not an esthetician. If anyone reading this is, please correct me if I’m wrong. If you’re not, please don’t.). For example, my current apartment is located on the top floor of a small apartment complex on a busy main thoroughfare in a large metropolitan area. I have two roommates, and we have two cats (they’re my roommate’s). Also, our apartment is old, and we don’t have central air, so we keep the windows open wide in the summer. Our building has radiator heat, but they recently installed new storm windows, so the heat easily gets trapped inside. Not only that, we can’t really adjust the radiators in most of the rooms, and the air is extremely dry except in the spring and summer. Long story short, this apartment definitely is a very particular environment, and I’ve had to adapt my skincare to it. I use a lot of moisturizer (according to Annie, I probably always needed more moisturizer than I was ever using, but this is more than even she had recommended), and my skin is doing pretty well. But, if I were to move out, my environment would change, and I might need to use less moisturizer.
So, your skincare should adapt as you do. You’re going to have to try new products once in a while, as you age, if you change up your medications or your birth control, if your hormones change in any way (e.g. if you are pregnant or nursing), and probably a lot of other times I’m not thinking of. But you get the point; I’m not saying never change your products or never try anything new. Trying new things is fun! I love browsing the skincare aisles at drugstores, Target, Walmart, Ulta, and Sephora, in search of my next find. But I’m also not trying to put my skin through the wringer, so I tend away from very harsh products, and ones designed for oily skin, and I try to limit my adventures to once a month or so.
I know that sounds crazy. A lot of people do a face mask more than once a week, and some even do them daily (some even have one for morning and one for night, which I don’t know if I could ever realistically get behind, just because, like, who has the time). And I’m all for frequent use, if you find something that works for you (like that in-shower one from Shea Moisture I mentioned). All I’m saying is that I only really try new things once a month, if that. If it works, I incorporate it. If it doesn’t, I give it away or return it. That way, my skin can still have a pretty solid routine, and it can bounce back fairly quickly from breakouts caused by unsuccessful adventuring (this is probably the best part about having relatively stable skin, even if for you this means you still break out once in a while no matter what).
Side note, this is one reason I think it would be hard to be a beauty influencer. I would like to do it on some level, but I think it might be hard on my skin if I was constantly trying out new products. I’d have to figure out a way to pace it. But anyway, I digress.
For the amount of skincare one person actually needs (which is debatable), there are too many skincare brands. I couldn’t possibly devote the time necessary to try all the hyaluronic-acid based moisturizers designed for dry skin (like mine, generally). It would be exhausting, and expensive. I mean, if I could get samples of them all, I might do it. But it’s hard to do that. Sephora will give you samples, but usually Ulta won’t (though I have had sales associates sneak me one or two on the sly), and you definitely can’t get them at Target, Walmart, or a drugstore, so it’s basically a full-size game. Granted, many stores have relatively generous return policies that allow you to return opened items, but I usually don’t see the point of going through the trouble of buying multiples of the same type of skincare product in order to test them all out and then go return the ones I don’t like (not really trying to give myself an extra errand, ya know). Also, this goes back to my aforementioned strategy of limiting my skincare “adventuring.” Most return policies don’t allow you to return something beyond ninety days, if that.
What I meant to do in that last segment was talk about how many products a person actually needs. I personally use two different moisturizers, a cleansing balm, a face wash, a toner, an in-shower face mask, and an eye cream (which I sometimes forget to use). I also usually use a Vitamin C serum, but I ran out. That’s eight products, which is probably on the higher end (and I don’t use all of them every day). But for every one of those products, I could name at least ten alternatives to the one I bought. That is just too many choices.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk. ;)
