I am Simone Okafor, and Fresh Faced Living is where I read the study before I repeat the claim.
I spent six years reporting on consumer health, which mostly meant reading company statements next to the research they said they were based on and finding out how often the two did not match. Skincare turned out to be the same job with better photography. A bottle says clinically tested. Somewhere there is a test. What it measured, on how many people, for how long, and whether the result was the one being advertised is usually a short piece of reading away, and almost nobody does it.
How a piece gets written
I start from the question a person would actually ask, then go looking for what is known. Where there is good evidence I say so and point at it. Where the evidence is thin I say that instead of dressing a guess up in confident language. Where I could not verify something at all, that sentence goes in the article, because a gap you can see is more useful than a gap papered over.
What is covered
Eight areas, and they stay the same. Skin basics. Cleansing and washing. Sun and daily protection. Ingredients explained. Bare face days. Skin and sleep. Seasonal skin. Product claims. I would rather go deep on eight subjects than shallow on forty.
What you will not find
No star ratings, no scores out of ten, no invented before and after photographs, and no product of the year. Those formats look like judgement and are mostly formatting. If a product category has a real difference worth knowing, the article explains the difference and leaves the buying to you.
I am not your dermatologist
Nothing here is medical advice. I am a reporter, not a clinician. Skin that is painful, bleeding, changing shape or not responding to anything sensible needs a doctor who can look at it, and no article can do that from a distance.
Corrections
I have been wrong in print and expect to be again. When it happens the page gets fixed and carries a note saying what changed, rather than being quietly edited. Write to me at [email protected].