The most seductive skin-care products today don’t have French names or romantic backstories about flowers plucked at midnight or flecks of 24-karat gold suspended in nectar. Pretty packages are for amateurs. The current enticement is a plain white tube adorned with a typed sticker spelling out percentages, lot numbers, and warnings. If you’re serious about your skin, you want unpronounceable ingredients, clinical studies, unsexy fonts. The hard stuff. Couldn’t you just swoon?
These new products are available by prescription from telehealth sites with the clear suggestion of superiority over the jars you’d find at Violet Grey or Sephora. It’s one more step in the scientification—yes, a word I made up—of skin care.