I wrote down every cream I'd bought this year. Then I read it back.

The Solen Base Journal

Eleven o'clock at night, the notes app, a list that was meant to prove my skin was the problem. It proved something else.

By Haider Jafri, founder · 5 minute read

A dramatised story. The routine, the objects and the quotes come from real posts and reviews we read while making Solen Base, and the people quoted were writing about other products, not ours. The narrator is a composite, not a customer.

It was the fourth one that did it.

I'd bought it that afternoon, the one with the percentage in big letters on the front, and when I got home I opened the drawer to put it away and saw the other three. All open. None finished.

So I sat on the bed and opened the notes app on my phone and wrote them all down. I think I wanted proof. Proof that I'd tried, properly, and that it was my skin, and I could stop.

The list

Twelve ninety nine. The one everyone recommends. It lasted three weeks in the drawer and I used it, if I'm honest, maybe nine nights.

Twenty eight ninety nine. The expensive one. Four really good nights. Then I went away for a weekend and never got back into it.

Nine pounds. Still full. I think I used it twice.

A pedicure, which was lovely for about five days.

I looked at it for a long time. And at the time, it read exactly like I wanted it to read. Four goes. Four failures. Skin's just like this.

"I've had cracked, dry heels for decades and have been using different lotions and moisturizers with no lasting results. Some would work well but the results would last a few days at the most."

From a review of another brand's heel sock.

The number I'd never looked at

I read it back the next morning, over coffee, and saw it differently.

I'd written down the money. I'd never written down the nights.

Nine nights. Four nights. Two nights. That's not four creams failing. That's four creams that never got a fair run. If a friend told me she'd tried a new diet for four nights and it didn't work, I'd laugh.

And I knew exactly why they didn't get a fair run, because it was the same every time. The routine was at the worst possible moment of my day. Half ten at night, exhausted, cream on, wash my hands, tiptoe across the landing so it doesn't go on the carpet, sit on the edge of the bed waiting for it to sink in, then a sock I can't stand sleeping in.

On a good night I'd do it. On a tired night I wouldn't. And there are a lot of tired nights.

The fair run

I've started calling it that. The fair run.

A cream can only be judged on the nights it actually goes on. And the nights it went on weren't being decided by the cream. They were being decided by how tired I was at half ten.

Which means I'd spent a year, and more money than I want to add up, judging creams on a test that was really about my evenings.

The stronger percentage was never going to fix that. A stronger cream used four times is still a cream used four times.

That was the first thing that made me feel better in a long time. Not because anything had changed. Because for the first time, it wasn't me.

Where a fair run could come from

So I asked myself what I do every single day, without deciding to.

Brush my teeth. Put the kettle on. Put my socks on in the morning.

Socks. Every day, rain or shine, tired or not. I have never skipped putting socks on because I couldn't face it.

If the cream went on then, right before the socks, it would get a fair run by default. Not because I'd found more willpower. Because it would be stuck to something I already do.

The catch is that a normal sock is made for a shoe, not for going over cream.

What I found

That's how I came across Solen Base. It's a sock made to go over cream, for the daytime. They call it the Day Sock.

It's cotton on the outside and closed toe, so it looks like a normal grey sock and it's invisible under shoes. On the inside, it's lined with gel. That's the side that sits against the cream.

And you use your own. That was the bit I liked most. The tubes in my drawer aren't wasted. The one that had four good nights can finally have forty.

Cream on. Day Sock on. Shoes on. Out the door.

Each pair lasts 3 to 6 months, and you give your feet a rest between wears. There are three Day Socks in the kit and a Night Sleeve too, open at the toes, for evenings. It all goes in the wash at 40 degrees in a mesh bag.

What I want

I don't want a fifth tube. I want to find out what the second one could do with a fair run.

I want to stop keeping a list. And I want to stop deciding it's me.

If your notes app has a list like mine in it, have a look at how the Day Sock works. There's a fourteen night guarantee, and you won't need to buy another cream to try it.