Serums, hair repair, fragrance sets and at-home devices. The things worth spending on, and the ones where the cheap version works just as well.
Supergoop!
You are not paying for better protection here, you are paying for a texture that means the bottle gets used instead of sitting in a drawer. That is the whole argument.
Elizabeth Arden
Retinol degrades in air and light, so a jar you open nightly is weaker by month four. Sealed single doses mean the last capsule is as strong as the first.
Olaplex
Works on the bonds inside the strand rather than coating the outside, which is why no conditioner substitutes for it however thick it is. This replaced the original No. 3.
CeraVe
Ceramides and hyaluronic acid in a tub. That is what a $120 moisturiser is doing too, in nicer packaging and a smaller quantity.
La Roche-Posay
A cleanser is on your face for a minute and then rinsed off. Expensive actives in a wash are money going down the plughole.
The Ordinary
One stable, well-studied ingredient. There is no premium version of a stable ingredient, only a more expensive one.
Skincare is the category where the gap between what something costs and what it does is widest. Some of it is genuinely worth the…
