Recently, I stumbled upon a product that was quite similar to The Ordinary Mandelic Acid 10% + HA 2%: Stratia Soft Touch AHA. Both products are formulated with 10 percent mandelic acid, and include hyaluronic acid. I asked my dad to compare and contrast the two ingredient lists to see if he thought they were comparable, or if one was superior to the other. Spoiler alert: He strongly preferred one of them for people with sensitive skin!

Do you remember PEMDAS? It’s an acronym that we used in math class to remember the proper order of operations: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction? Or, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (Poor Aunt Sally, what did she ever do to deserve being excused?).

Acronyms are not my strong suit (or perhaps you could say that they’re not my MO). I know the ones that have permeated the mainstream vernacular, but I’ve given up on trying to figure out what the kids are abbreviating these days. However, anyone who reads r/SkincareAddiction (even me!) knows that TO stands for The Ordinary, a brand that is owned by DECIEM. Rumor has it that the company may have some behind-the-scenes drama but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it makes…