Beach Blanket Skincare Bingo
Don't you just love a good chart?
Hello, and happy almost-July to you all, Dames Nation!
First, a bit of housekeeping: your Dames are taking next week off, so our next issue will be landing in your inboxes on July 14 (or 15, depending on time zone wizardry). On with this week’s issue!
I’m in a very chart-y, bullet-pointy, listy, oh, wow, a new notebook could really be a game changer for me-y sort of place these days. Even more than usual, I mean. I think it’s partly driven by the impulse toward self-reflection that my birthday tends to prompt. My little brain loves to wrangle sense out of a big undifferentiated mass of mental & emotional stuff. Maybe it’s like creating a report card for myself? Not that I want to encourage the remaining vestiges1 of the deranged relationship I developed with external validation & grades in my youth.
In adulthood, I feel driven more by an urge to keep track of things, account for them, and see what patterns emerge for me. The exercise helps me understand the meaning of what I’m doing — sometimes on a grand(iose) scale, and far more often on a small day-to-day scale. It’s easier for me to do those things when I have a well-designed & manageably-sized visual aid to help me.2
Instead of foisting on you an in-depth look at the Billboard Hot 100 of my soul, I’m going to share a more service journalism-inspired iteration of what I’ve been talking about. Drawing on my love of a helpful chart, and inspired by the charts Julia Turshen includes in her lovely cooking newsletter from time to time, I present to you all a little chart of skincare brands I like, and where they can be acquired.
It seems like every retail and brand site has sales at various points throughout the year, but some brands are exclusive to certain retailers, and who wants to deal with that kind of confusion while they’re trying to find the best prices on their holy grail products? Price comparisons, checking in on possible sales or discounts, deciding the time is right to buy in bulk – the idea is to make all of that easier. Most of what you’ll see below are brands that one or more of Your Dames have endorsed in this very newsletter over the years.
This week’s chart covers what I call Regular Brands. They’re very good, they’re available in lots of places, and they won’t break the bank. I may do a Schmancy Brands version later this summer, too. Because I can’t figure out how to make a chart here in Substack, I’ve linked to it above and through the partial screenshot below. Click & share & print as needed, friends!
Some caveats first:
I relied on each retailer’s app (or website, in the cases of Dermstore, oo35mm, and Soko Glam) to determine if they carry a given brand and have linked to their DTC sites for ease
The information in the chart is current as of this week-ish (6/30/23), and I didn’t do a deep dive on where products are sold in-store, online, or both.
This chart is a work in progress, and I may add columns to address commonly-asked questions from readers, so please do ask ‘em if you’ve got ‘em!
Also! This is by no means a comprehensive look at these brands’ commercial availability. The category of Other encompasses, for now: CVS, Dermstore, oo35mm, Soko Glam, and Yesstyle.
ok, clearly more than vestiges, it’s all a work in progress!
This is me, telling you I’m a former librarian without telling you I’m a former librarian.