Legally Blonde was on TV this weekend. I happened to catch the part where Elle visits Brooke in jail and brings her a gift basket that includes the full line of Clinique skincare products. It turns out that Clinique has been quite successful at product placement in movies and television. That comes as no surprise—the brand has highly recognizable packaging, including the signature pale yellow color of its Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion (and Gel), which is the topic of today’s…

Shave gels are one of the most interesting personal care products on the market—particularly the ones marketed to men. They have to simultaneously achieve the purpose of soothing the skin after it’s been freshly shaven with a sharp (or sometimes dull) razor, they have to make men feel pampered (which is usually achieved through some combination of fragrance and a velvety texture), and they have to make sure they don’t damage the integrity of razors by clogging or dulling the blades.…

On a recent trip to Sephora, I picked up a small travel size of IT Cosmetics CC+ cream (yes, I’m a sucker for browsing through those little product bins while waiting in line). This product bills itself as “Your Skin But Better” (and it even trademarked that phrase). After taking a quick scan through the massive ingredient list, I saw that it contained physical sunscreen ingredients (a mix of zinc oxide and titanium dioxide), so it offered full protection against the full…