The publication's working notebook.
Short, dated, editor-bylined posts. The thinking-out-loud between rankings. Field Notes is where Glow editors flag the products they're watching, the categories they're rethinking, the experiments still in progress, and the things they would say in a private message but choose to say publicly instead.
What I'm watching this week — three new actives I'd test if my time wasn't spoken for
It's the day before The Glow Edit goes out and I'm reading three new product launches that all dropped in the past fortnight. I'm not testing any of them in the next quarter — the testing calendar is …
Why we test devices for eight weeks, not eight days
I get this question from brands constantly: why does Glow take so long to publish a device review? Eight weeks of testing followed by 2-3 weeks of editorial means a brand can launch in March and not s…
On Australian Glow, the firewall, and the public uncomfortable conversation
A reader emailed last week to ask the obvious question: how can Glow's editorial be considered independent when its founder also founded Australian Glow, a brand that appears in some of our rankings? …
The question I keep getting at dinner parties
I've been a beauty editor for four years and the single question I'm asked at every dinner party I attend is the same: 'what's the one product I should buy?' The first time I was asked, I said somethi…
The shampoo bar experiment, four months in
In December I started using only shampoo bars, having had two readers separately email asking whether the format was worth the switch. I'd tried bars three times before in a salon-professional capacit…
What I stopped recommending in my third year of wellness editorial
When I started reviewing wellness supplements three years ago, I had the standard editor's confidence about the category. Collagen worked, magnesium was useful, biotin had promise. I recommended what …