And as we thought about what this means in practice—how we carry and hold our purpose every day—we started seeing our north stars more clearly. And we thought it was time to share those guiding lights with you. A reminder: Your hair, skin, and body are not afterthoughts. They are you. And you are part of your community. And your community is part of this planet. Beauty, you see, is all around us. Of course, there are real, valid reasons someone reaches for a product. It can be because you have a skin condition that needs both topical and internal intervention. It can be because you are protecting your skin from environmental concerns, like photodamage. It can be because life gets in the way of perfectly healthy habits, and sometimes a brightening serum and highlighter are just enough to make you feel more put together. It can be because, well, you just enjoy beauty products (that alone is enough of a reason!). But ultimately, what we do for our overall health has the greatest impact on the long-term integrity of the skin and hair. A well-formulated serum can do wonders—but it can’t replace basic acts of self-care. To do this, we stay up to date on research about the latest in ingredients: We want to offer and suggest products that are high-quality, effective, and safe—and that means knowing what the latest intel says. The data, innovations, and trends are always changing, and it’s important we know what’s happening so we can make informed recommendations. We also understand that seals and certifications can offer insights into a product’s quality, but it won’t always inform the whole picture. While we believe that third-party verification can be useful for some brands and websites, we don’t believe that it’s the be-all and end-all. Ultimately, we value brands that provide thoughtful, science-backed, honest messaging about their products—whether or not it comes with a certification. Finally, our standards aren’t influenced by passing trends, monetary pressure, or outside incentives: What we write and recommend in our editorial content has been selected and vetted by our editors. This is also true of the beauty industry writ large. There are a lot of areas we need to be better: Every company has work that can be done to make them more sustainable, clean, authentic, and transparent. Every editor and writer has areas of content they could be better educated on. And every consumer has gaps in which they could make more informed choices. The beauty industry is a work in progress—but ideally, it’s progress toward the greater good. What we collectively value, understand, and produce should reflect our constant education and evolution. And clean should also be available to all who want it. A broader community is better for us, the planet, and so on. Everyone should be invited on this journey to do so. This is why it’s valuable that we promote products at all price points. This is why we are encouraging when mass drugstore brands move toward cleaner formulas or more sustainable packaging. It’s why we believe in lifting up promising brands that are just finding their footing—so that ideally, one day, they can become industry leaders. Take, for example, the microbiome. Humans have had skin microbiomes since, well, ever. You, yourself, have had your own unique microbiome since the moment you were born. This microscopic, invisible shield of organisms protects us, nurtures us, and allows our skin to function normally. Without a diverse, flourishing flora, our internal and external bodies suffer. And as new, exciting research emerges about it, biome-friendly skin care is by all accounts “on trend.” But it’s more than that: It is one of the core aspects of your skin health that has supported and sustained you your whole life. I can’t think of anything that symbolizes longevity more than that. Although, I understand that transparency can feel radical and intimidating. Ultimately, it means trusting the audience and consumer: that they’ll understand both the good and bad and be eager to join the journey. We hope you do. We do this in our service stories, which help you find the joy in routines and rituals, big and small. We do this through our science-backed explainers, which are serious about giving you the most up-to-date information available. We do this through trend reports, which aim to put our favorite beauty happenings in a thoughtful context. We do this through our playful tip stories, that find the fun and simple pleasures of a swipe of highlighter or facial massage. We know that there’s a real human on the other side of our content: someone reading our stories, listening to our podcasts, taking our classes, trying our supplements. And we respect the person who came to us, and we don’t want to let them—you—down.
