Worth the hype? Nécessaire

I’m a woman on the internet with a credit card, so of course those ubiquitous Nécessaire ads started creeping into my Instagram feed last fall. Everything about them pinged both my bullshit radar and my insatiable dumb bitch lust for bath products: the minimal bottles with black print, the Goop-adjacent font, the French name that even yokels could translate. Oh la la, le nouveau savon por Becky??? All the zealous testimonials made me even more skeptical, as when any basic product is made to look aggressively more basic but with a hiked-up price. (I’m looking at you, Olio e Osso balm.)

Nécessaire’s whole thing seems to be “face-grade ingredients” but for the body, which is a real end-times notion. They’re going hard with the “the skin on your body needs more than one step, just like your face” angle and my feeling is… does it? I see where this is headed and I’m not putting toner on my butt, Gwyneth. They’ve already added so many extra steps and products to skincare routines in my lifetime and I gotta say, no one looks that much better as a result, but what a great way to keep us obsessing and spending money! Here’s my take on most beauty/skincare stuff: some of it is legit, a lot of it is bullshit, and sometimes I know it’s bullshit but I enjoy the charade as a foamy distraction from my daily life.

I was curious about the Nécessaire products but refused to fork over my own money, so I asked for it for Christmas, which meant I royally played myself because my husband bought it for me and we share a bank account. I got the fragrance-free shower gel, mostly because I don’t care much for the two scents it came in (Eucalyptus and Sandalwood), but also so I could focus on how well it worked and not get distracted by the scent, which could very well be the phrase on my eventual tombstone. I also got the body lotion because that’s where people seemed to get the most excited in the reviews I’d read. I did not request the body serum because just two generations back my family were Dust Bowl sharecroppers and “body serum” is a fake rich lady realm I refuse to acknowledge.

So I washed my body with the $25 soap (excuse me, the 2019 Body Wash of the Year). How was it? It was fine. It smelled of nothing. It sudsed up and rinsed clean and afterward I was not dirty anymore. I didn’t have a reaction to it. Real bare minimum stuff. Then I used the $25 body lotion. My skin isn’t dry, but it is winter so that’s as close to dry as my skin gets. How was the lotion? It was also fine, perhaps a bit finer than the body wash. It definitely moisturized, wasn’t greasy, and didn’t have any scent, which is important to me for body lotion. But after several uses, I didn’t feel any strong attachment or opinions, and I have to admit that before I even finished the bottle, I’d started reaching for my tried and true Curel Fragrance-Free again.

So I had my husband try both for several showers. He has very dry skin all year round and I thought this might be the key to the rave reviews. His take, word for word:

“I didn’t really care… it frothed up okay? My skin felt nice afterward I guess? But it [the body wash] smells like a school cafeteria that’s having potatoes or cabbage boiled in it, with a tiny bit of industrial cleaning product. But the cleaning product is way in the background. However: the cream is very effective and has sorted out my incredibly dry cracked hands in three uses. And the cream smells like somebody let a group of five-year-olds make a pie out of plasticine.”

Maybe he should be the one with the blog, you’re thinking! Except that he’s the one with dry skin and I still had to shout “REMEMBER TO USE THAT LOTION!” through the bathroom door every time.

So is it worth the hype? Not in my experience, no. Are there similar, better, and cheaper options? Definitely! (Get some CeraVe, to start.) Should you buy it? Sure, if you have dry skin and stage your Instagram photos and need to spend $50 by sundown or someone will murder your family.