Stop overthinking skin care. What's essential and what's hype

Life Kit

NPR

Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Business, Education, Kids & Family

4.5 • 5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2026

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The list of skin care products being sold as “essential” can feel endless. What do all those serums, creams, acids and toners actually do — and do you need them? In this episode of Life Kit, host Marielle Segarra talks to health journalist Kelle Walsh, who just wrote a newsletter series for us on this topic.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.
0:10.2	Brands create a lot of noise in the skincare space.
0:13.8	Like, you can't just go to the store and buy a simple moisturizer.
0:17.9	There's a dozen different choices, it seems, from every single brand. And just to
0:22.8	figure out what you need for your skin, you have to wade through it all. It's super confusing and
0:27.4	complicated. Hey, it's Mariel Segarra. And today we're talking about skincare and how it's actually
0:33.9	not as complicated as many brands make it seem. Kelly Walsh is a health journalist who also reports on wellness and lifestyle topics.
0:41.7	And she has been deep in the weeds reporting a special newsletter series for LifeGit about skin care.
0:47.6	Kelly, welcome to the show.
0:48.9	Hey, thanks for having me.
0:50.7	What was your relationship to skincare before you started reporting on this?
0:54.7	I used a gentle cleanser because my skin can be sensitive, a moisturizer, and then sun protection in the form of sunscreen, you know, ridiculously big hats and scarves and sometimes long sleeves.
1:06.5	And then a few years ago, I started using a vitamin C serum because I'd heard it was good for
1:11.1	brightening skin and mine was starting to look dull. And I think it helped, but it's expensive.
1:16.6	The truth is, I didn't feel very savvy about skincare and I actually had some fomo around it.
1:21.8	Like I'd see these other women in their 50s and they would have this bright, dewy, shiny,
1:26.9	buoyant skin and I'd be like, what do they
1:29.0	know that I don't? What are they using? So every once in a while, I'd go down the rabbit
1:33.3	hole and I'd buy some new product and usually I'd stop using it after a few weeks because either
1:38.5	I didn't like the way it felt or I didn't think it was making a difference. When I started
1:42.9	the series, I discovered I had 10 different skincare products and only used four of them. Wow. Okay. Yeah, the rest were just sitting there on the shelf. Yep. The skincare graveyard. So for the newsletter, you talked to a bunch of skincare experts, dermatologists, researchers, and it sounds like you got a lot more confident in your skincare routine. You know, it turns out I was doing pretty well by my skin. Who knew? Right? I still using those
2:06.0	core products and I'm keeping the pricey vitamin C serum. And I recently started using
	...

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