Forget the “glow.” Most anti-aging products are just expensive ways to feel productive while your DNA slowly unravels. I’m 39. Last year, I spent exactly $2,412 on skincare. I know this because I keep a spreadsheet, which is a level of neurosis I’m not proud of, but it helps me track what actually stops me from looking like a piece of old luggage. Most of it was garbage.
The night I melted my chin
It was a Tuesday in November 2019. I had just bought this 30% AHA chemical peel from a brand that everyone on Reddit was obsessed with at the time. I thought, if 10 minutes is good, 15 minutes will make me look like I’m twelve again. It didn’t. About eight minutes in, my face started vibrating. Not literally, but that’s how it felt. When I washed it off, my chin was the color of a slapped tomato and the skin felt like wet parchment paper. I couldn’t wear makeup for a week. I couldn’t even smile without the skin cracking. I felt like a total fool, sitting there in my bathroom at 11 PM, crying over a $10 bottle of acid. That was the moment I realized that “more” is almost always worse when it comes to your face.
The only three things that actually do anything
I know people want to believe in the $300 miracle creams, but they are mostly just fancy scented water and seaweed extract. If you want the anti aging skin care best results, you only need three things. Everything else is just a hobby.
- Tretinoin (or Retinol): This is the only thing that actually talks to your cells. Everything else just sits on top.
- Sunscreen: If you don’t wear this, you might as well throw your money into a paper shredder.
- Vitamin C: For the brightness, I guess. Though honestly, some days I think Vitamin C is a collective hallucination we all agreed to participate in.
That’s it. That’s the whole list.
Why I refuse to buy anything from Drunk Elephant
I know I’m going to get heat for this, but I hate Drunk Elephant. I hate the neon plastic packaging that looks like it belongs in a preschool. I bought their C-Firma serum once and it smelled exactly like hot dog water. I don’t care if it’s “clean” or “biocompatible” or whatever buzzword they’re using this week. If I’m paying $80 for a serum, I don’t want to smell like an Oscar Mayer frankfurter all day. It’s an irrational hatred, I know. My friend Sarah swears by their Protini cream, but I refuse to touch it. I’d rather use a $15 tub of CeraVe for the rest of my life. I’ve bought that same $15 blue tub six times now. I don’t care if something better exists; it works and it doesn’t smell like a deli.
I tracked my forehead for 14 months and here is the data
I told you I was neurotic. I used a digital caliper to measure the depth of the “11” lines between my eyebrows every Sunday morning for over a year. I tested six different “peptide complexes” and three “growth factor” serums. What I found was depressing. In January, the depth was 1.2mm. By the following June, after spending roughly $400 on various serums, the depth was… 1.1mm. A 0.1mm difference. You can’t even see 0.1mm without a magnifying glass. Skincare is like a religion where the gods never answer your prayers, but you keep tithed anyway because you’re scared of what happens if you stop. Total scam.
Actually, let me put it differently—it’s not that the products are fake, it’s that our expectations are insane. We want a bottle to undo twenty years of smoking or sitting on a beach in Florida without a hat. It’s not going to happen.
The part where I might be wrong
I might be completely wrong about this, but I think drinking a gallon of water a day does absolutely nothing for your wrinkles. I’ve seen people who drink nothing but Diet Coke and have skin like silk, and I’ve seen “wellness influencers” who are basically 70% spring water and still have crow’s feet. Anyway, my neighbor has this cat that stares at me through the window while I do my nightly routine, and I sometimes wonder if the cat thinks I’m insane for rubbing five different layers of goo on my face. Probably. But I digress. The point is, I think we overcomplicate the hydration part. Your skin needs oil, not just a trip to the water fountain.
Clean beauty is a marketing lie designed to make you age faster because they’re too afraid to use the preservatives that actually keep your products from growing mold.
I genuinely believe that the fear of parabens has set skincare back twenty years. I’d rather have a chemical that was invented in a lab in 1950 than a “natural” cream that’s going to sprout fungus the second I leave the cap off. It’s an unpopular opinion, but I’m tired of being told that everything is toxic. You know what’s actually toxic? Sun damage. Use the science stuff.
I don’t know if I’ll ever stop buying new stuff. There’s always that little voice in my head that says the next bottle will be the one. The one that finally makes me look rested. But deep down, I know the answer is just more sleep and fewer expensive hobbies.
Buy the Tretinoin. Wear the hat. Stop smelling like hot dogs.
