The Beauty Closet: Estee Lauder Time Zone Creme

Shorting the stock market is perhaps ill-advised. But for those, like me, who subscribe to the no-pain-no-gain theory of skincare, Estée Lauder has come up with a way to play both sides against the middle. Their theory is that draconian beauty interventions—particularly the types that exfoliate, precisely the ones I am super-overinvested in, from AHAs to Retin-A to scrubs to enzymes and on and on—slowly but steadily destroy your skin over time, leaving it thin and older than it would've been. Their new SPF15 promises to strengthen the skin and build it back up. So at night, I continue, perhaps ill-advisedly, to live it up with acids and scrubs; in the morning, I repent and rebuild.