My fiance has a pretty big crop of blackheads on his nose. One day I bought him a pack of Biore blackhead strips as a joke, but he actually ended up liking them. It feels detoxifying to peel off the strip and see a bunch of black stuff on the strip, meaning that it’s no longer hanging out in your pores. During our last vacation in Japan, we bought the Japanese version of the Biore blackhead strips, just to compare them with the ones we usually get.

If you have acne, you’ve probably heard about the Stridex pads I’m writing about today. These pads are easy to use, pretty cheap, and they claim to be “easy on skin, tough on acne.” This last point is easier said than done. Although acne is a serious problem, acne treatments can sometimes do more harm than good. The FDA has received a number of complaints from consumers who experienced allergic reactions and/or irritation in response to acne products that included benzoyl…

I’ve always thought of eye creams like bandages—the wound is already there, you’re just trying to cover it up. Chances are, if you’re tired enough to have baggy eyes, you probably need more sleep. No amount of eye cream is going to deflate the puffiness. That said, I do get that there is some sort of psychological benefit that comes along with dabbing a bit of eye cream under your eyes when you’ve had a less-than-restful night. I tend to use it when I need to get up…