Skincare, checked against the evidence.
We take claims at their word and then check them: we read the studies, ask what a formula can actually show, and say plainly when the answer is not much yet.
Eight issues, study by study.
Face Value launched in the winter of 2025 as the clinical title of VOL Collective, the independent editorial studio in New York. The first issue carried nine founder interviews, each ending with a sourced box on what the evidence does and does not show.
We sit next to dermatology without pretending to be a clinic. We like founders who can name their concentrations and their sample sizes, we give credit where the evidence is good, and we never mistake a result on cells in a dish for a result on a face.
Today 37,400 people read Face Value each month, most of them in the US, and 10,300 get The Fine Print every Thursday. Seventy-one percent look up an ingredient or a study before they buy. They are skeptical, not cynical, and so are we.
The people behind Face Value
Daniel Mercer
Publisher & Editorial Director
Natalie Hayes
Editor-in-Chief
Vivian Hart
Executive Editor
Ramin Vandi
Director of Features & Partnerships
Madeline Hawkins
Staff Editor
Julia Atkins
Features Editor
Benjamin Marsh
Partnerships EditorAlicia Fischer
Managing EditorSamuel Pearce
Deputy EditorCarla Sandoval
Senior EditorAdam Keller
Commissioning EditorPatricia Abbott
Science EditorGina Walsh
Research EditorEllen Montgomery
Fact-checkerAndrea Sloane
Contributing EditorKelsey Chandler
Copy EditorNina Brennan
Associate EditorAlicia Farrell
Photo EditorLeo Fleming
Newsletter EditorFace Value, year by year
- 2023
VOL Collective begins
VOL Collective publishes its first interview in New York. Its skincare conversations keep ending in the same place: what does the study actually show?
- 2024
The reading list
Our editors start reading the studies behind the claims on the box and building a list of founders who will talk concentrations, vehicles and sample sizes.
- 2025
Issue 01
Face Value launches in the winter with nine founder interviews, and by the end of the year The Fine Print passes 6,000 subscribers.
- 2026
Issue 08 and the first Open Desk
The evidence guides launch in July, from calming redness to rebuilding a sensitised barrier. With 37,400 readers a month, we hold the first Open Desk: a live reading of three studies with the founders and practitioners featured in this issue.