About MoreThanMy

— who is behind it, and what they actually use

Hi. I'm JamieG.

Wife. Mother. Daughter. Sister. Sister in Christ. And — to a few small miracles who could not pronounce "Grandma" and were never corrected — Nene.

If you are not from the South, that is pronounced knee-knee, and no, we do not know who started it either.

I have been buying skincare since I found the sunshine and the lotion, which in Tennessee is roughly the same afternoon. And I wrote all of it down. What it cost, what it promised, what it actually did, and how long it took to do it — a spreadsheet nobody asked for and this site could not run without. It is why we can tell you whether the $48 serum beat the $11 one. (Usually it did not. Sometimes it did. We say which.)

I also have a fragrance wardrobe. Not a collection — a wardrobe. It has seasons. My husband has learned to ask "is this a new one?" in a tone that suggests he already knows the answer and has made peace with it.

I will be gentle with you about most things. The toner you have been loyal to for six years is not one of them — it is doing nothing but taking up counter space.

And this is CatieH.

My daughter, and the reason this site is not just one woman's opinion in a trench coat.

Catie handles the hair and nail reviews. She also has her hair done professionally, which in this climate is less a luxury than a strategy — and it makes her a better reviewer, because she knows exactly what an at-home product is being measured against.

She is also a whole generation behind me, which turns out to be the most useful thing about her — professionally speaking. Do not tell her I said that.

The actual point of two of us

Here is the thing nobody in beauty reviewing wants to admit: most reviews are one person, one age, one skin type, talking as though that covers everyone.

It does not. The moisturizer that saves my face sits on Catie's like cling film. The primer she swears by slides straight off me by eleven in the morning. We are related. For most of her life we shared a bathroom roughly the size of a closet — two women, one mirror, and a counter with strong opinions about how much it was prepared to hold. We still cannot use the same foundation.

So we review the same product twice, a generation apart, and tell you both answers.

When we agree, that is a strong signal. Buy it.
When we disagree, that is usually the more useful review — because the reason we disagree is the thing that tells you which of us your skin is more like.

Catie has been known to describe a look as "clean girl". I have been known to describe the same look as "you have forgotten to finish". Both reviews go up. Neither of us wins. That is the format.

And we test it in Tennessee

This matters more than it sounds like it should.

We are in Garner Town, Tennessee, population 125 — a number I mention because it means that between us, Catie and I are about one and a half percent of this town, and because the mail carrier has a fairly complete picture of my skincare routine whether he wanted one or not.

It also means that from roughly May to September the air outside is a warm damp towel — which is the reason Catie stopped fighting her hair at home and started paying somebody who wins.

A product that holds in a dry climate and a product that holds here are two different products, and most reviews never tell you which one they tested.

We will. If a foundation survived a July afternoon in this state, that is worth more than any claim on the box. If a smoothing cream gave up by lunchtime, we will say that too — and we will say it was ninety-one degrees with the humidity sitting on us like a coat.

What we cover

Skincare, makeup, hair, nails, fragrance, body and bath, tools and devices, style and closet, and the full routines that hold them together.

JamieG leads on skincare and fragrance. CatieH leads on hair and nails. We share style and routines, and there is a reason for that.

We have a bathroom each now. We still visit — not socially, inspectionally. She comes to see what is new on my shelf, I go to see what is new on hers, and neither of us has ever left with exactly what we arrived with. Same with the closets.

The style and routine sections are not a content plan. They are a transcript.

How we review, and what our verdicts rest on

Every verdict on this site says what it is built on. Every time.

Bought and lived with — we paid for it, we used it for weeks, we can tell you what happened at week six when the novelty wore off.
Tried briefly — we used it, but not long enough to swear to it. We say so.
Researched — we have not used it. We have read the ingredient list, the evidence and the claims, and we tell you what they do and do not support.

We will never write "I used this for eight weeks" about something we opened yesterday. The whole site is worth exactly as much as that sentence is true.

We also name the price out loud, and we say plainly when the cheaper thing wins. It often does. That is not a bargain-hunting gimmick, it is just what happened.

We recommend only what earned a repurchase. If we would not buy it again with our own money, it does not get a recommendation, however nice the packaging is and however much we would like to keep being sent things.

How we pay for it

Affiliate commission. If you buy through a link here, we earn a percentage at no extra cost to you. See the affiliate disclosure for exactly what that does and does not change.

What it does not change: the verdict. A product we did not like does not become a product we liked because it pays better. The whole business model collapses the first time you catch us at it, and we would rather keep you.

One more thing about the name

MoreThanMy is a sentence you finish yourself.

More than my skin. More than my hair. More than my worst photograph, my age, my before picture, the number on the label at the back of the jeans.

We are two women who genuinely enjoy this stuff — the ritual of it, the smell of it, the small daily pleasure of a good cream on a hot morning. We just refuse to pretend any of it is the point.

You are more than this. Now let us tell you which serum was a waste of money.

— JamieG and CatieH Garner Town, Tennessee — population 125, two of whom are us