Rebecca Smith

One of my favorite uses of my PhD is obsessive research on things important to my patients - this is the guide for anyone who has ever felt more overwhelmed by the skincare aisle than the baby aisle at Target.

I have zero interest in spending 45 minutes every morning trying to look like a functional member of society. The solution is simple: do a few slightly high-maintenance things occasionally so daily life requires minimal effort. Brows get dyed so they actually exist. Lashes get handled so mascara becomes optional. Teeth get whitened so coffee can continue flowing freely. Tweezers and wax strips keep things from quietly evolving into chaos.

Sleep and I had a very long, very dysfunctional relationship. For more than 35 years, falling asleep meant lying in bed for hours while my brain enthusiastically replayed every awkward moment of my life, and nighttime anxiety was a regular visitor. Mornings felt like waking up after being hit by a truck. I was deeply suspicious of anyone who claimed to be a “morning person.” It seemed unlikely they were telling the truth. A few years ago I made optimizing my sleep a hobby. The result is this list, with all the supports I’ve tested and maintained to make sleep easier: none of it is magic, but together they turn bedtime from a nightly battle into something that actually resembles rest. 😴

If you've used natural deodorant, its like nothing will work if you switch back to conventional deodorant. You need to detox your armpits. There is science to this though, I promise! In a nutshell, there is a significant microbiome shift, with staphylococcus dominance vs. corynebacterium dominance (which makes you smell like sulfur) which will eventually (!) resolve. But if you want to fast forward through the stage where you smell like eggs, you detox your armpits.

The “everything shower” is the shower where you finally deal with… everything. Hair mask. Shaving. Exfoliating. Deep conditioning. Body scrub. Maybe a foot file if you’re feeling particularly ambitious. It’s the longer shower where you use all the products that don’t fit into the normal five-minute morning routine. Think of it as personal reset, where you exfoliate, condition, moisturize, and generally restore order to the situation. Because sometimes the difference between “barely holding it together” and “surprisingly put together” is about forty minutes and a good conditioner.

The skincare industry loves a luxury moment. Unfortunately, your skin does not care how expensive the jar was. This collection focuses on drugstore products that actually make sense: good ingredients, solid formulations, and things that work requiring a second mortgage. Consider this a list of the quiet overachievers of the CVS skincare aisle.

The Holy Grail, the Haircare GOAT - Abbey Yung. I follow her TikTok religiously, and here is my collection of her recommendations!