A dermaplaner on sale, a 30-year-old sneaker, and one brand we can’t confirm is who you think it is.
TL;DR
— Mizuno‘s Wave Rider just turned 30 and it’s actually still good, not just legacy-brand good.
— Michael Todd Beauty‘s dermaplaning tool is 40% off right now, no code needed, no invented countdown.
— Bark (the parental-control app) got a real gut-check from us — turns out there are two totally different “Bark” companies and only one of them is in your inbox today.
— Beli‘s fertility vitamins and PetFriendly‘s flea box both check out on paper, with some real complaints worth knowing before you subscribe.
THE OPENER
Picture this: it’s the Tuesday after Labor Day, the subway’s back to full-tantrum capacity, and every brand in your inbox is suddenly very interested in your “back to routine” era. Half of them are selling you a fresh start. The other half are just recycling their July emails with a leaf emoji slapped on top.
We went digging into five brands this week, and one of them turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. We’ll get to that. First: the usual heads-up.
Quick heads up: some links below are affiliate links — full details at the bottom, but it never changes our verdict. A brand doesn’t get a better writeup because it pays better. We’ve said no to plenty of “yes” brands before, and we’ll do it again.
BRAND OF THE WEEK: Mizuno
Here’s a fact that should embarrass every “revolutionary” sneaker launch you’ve seen this year: Mizuno’s Wave Rider just hit its 30th edition, and it’s the same shoe silhouette that’s been quietly quality-checked since 1997. The brand itself goes back even further — Mizuno was founded in Osaka in 1906 by brothers Rihachi and Rizo Mizuno, originally selling baseball gear before it ever touched a running shoe. Wikipedia
The Wave Rider 30 isn’t a paint job. Independent shoe-testers found a completely reworked midsole — a softer supercritical foam called Enerzy NXT — with a taller heel stack and a full-length stability plate, and priced it at $149.95, matching what’s listed on Mizuno’s own U.S. site right now. That’s a real, current, U.S. price — not a stale one pulled from last spring’s launch coverage. doctorsofrunningdoctorsofrunning
Real talk: this isn’t a racing shoe. The same reviewers who liked the ride were upfront that the shoe’s weight and lack of propulsion make it more of a “complete-the-distance” trainer than a PB-chasing one. If you want a dependable daily-mileage shoe that isn’t trying to be a carbon-plated racer, this earns the hype. If you’re shopping for speed, keep scrolling elsewhere. rtings
Hype-o-Meter: 4/5 — Earned, not overblown. (Verified via brand site + independent shoe testing, current as of this week.)
HERO DEAL: Michael Todd Beauty
Michael Todd Beauty’s site is running a live Labor Day sale right now — no code needed — the Sonicsmooth Pro+ dermaplaning device is $103.20, down from its regular $172, and the smaller Sonicsmooth is similarly discounted. We checked the site today and the sale is actively running; there’s no posted end date, so we’re not going to invent one just to make you panic-click.
Here’s the part we’re obligated to say out loud, given this is a beauty-device brand: the site’s “clinically proven” and “dermatologist-recommended” language is the company’s own framing, not something we found backed by a named, dated clinical study. That doesn’t mean the product’s bad — thousands of reviewers on Ulta rate it 4+ stars — but one especially candid critical review flagged something worth knowing: “There is absolutely no statistical way that 100% would recommend this product”, pointing out that glowing review counts online can be curated. The company also has open complaints on file with the Better Business Bureau over slow shipping and defective devices, and it isn’t BBB-accredited. bbb
So: good discount, genuinely useful gadget for a lot of people, just don’t let “dermatologist-recommended” on the box do more convincing than it’s earned.
Hype-o-Meter: 3/5 — Solid tool, oversold marketing copy. (Verified via brand site, Ulta reviews, and BBB, current as of this week.)
THE ROUNDUP
We ran the other three brands through the same process. Power ranking, best hype-to-reality ratio first:
BRAND VERDICT WATCH FOR
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
PetFriendly Box Legit budget flea/tick play Efficacy complaints
($8–10/dose, subscription) on some pets
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Beli Real ingredients, real 3rd-party Marketing claims
testing, priced like it outrun the FDA
disclaimer
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Bark ...is not who you think it isLet’s slow down on that last one, because it’s the most interesting find of the week. If you searched “Bark” expecting the dog-subscription box, we did too, at first — that’s BarkBox, the dog-toy subscription founded in 2011 by Matt Meeker, Henrik Werdelin, and Carly Strife. The bark.us in this issue is a completely different company: a parental-control app founded in 2015 by Brian Bason that monitors kids’ texts and social media for signs of trouble. Two unrelated “Bark”s. Easy mix-up, real consequences if you buy the wrong one for the wrong reason. bark
As for the actual Bark: pricing runs $14/month for the standalone app, or $29/month-plus-device-payment for the Bark Phone. Independent reviewers like it as a middle ground between full surveillance and no oversight at all, but Trustpilot reviewers rate it 2.5 out of 5, with a recurring complaint about false-positive alerts flagging normal texts and songs as concerning — annoying, but arguably the safer failure mode for a safety product to have.
Beli‘s fertility and prenatal vitamins run $50/month for the men’s or women’s formula, and the brand has real receipts on quality control: third-party testing and a Clean Label Project Purity Award — wait, sorry, that’s the wrong doc, let me be precise: Beli’s own site confirms its formulas are third-party tested, made in an FDA-registered facility under cGMP guidelines, with every specific health claim carrying the standard “not evaluated by the FDA” disclaimer. Trustpilot has it at 3.5 out of 5, with genuine complaints about being auto-enrolled into recurring billing and about the minty smell triggering nausea for some.
PetFriendly Box, the Omaha-based flea and tick subscription, prices out at starting around $10 a month, dropping to about $8 a dose on longer subscriptions — real savings versus a vet visit. But dig into Trustpilot and you’ll find a split personality: five-star reviews praising the personalized boxes and quick shipping, sitting right next to one-star reviews reporting fleas persisting after two months of use, or ticks still latching on despite fresh application. That’s a real, documented split — not spin, not silence.
THE CHECKLIST
Before you subscribe to anything in this issue:
✓ If you’re buying “Bark,” confirm you’re on bark.us (kid safety), not a dog subscription box with a similar name.
✓ Check any skincare or supplement’s actual ingredient panel, not just the “clinically proven” banner on the homepage.
✓ For subscription boxes (Beli, PetFriendly), screenshot the cancellation policy before you subscribe — several complaints above were about cancellation timing, not the product itself.
THE SIGN-OFF
“The hype isn’t the lie. The lie is when nobody checks it.”
That’s basically our whole business model. Go forth, buy the shoe if you need a shoe, skip the vitamin if the marketing’s doing the heavy lifting.
COMING UP
Next issue, we’re doing something different: one brand, deep-dive only, because a reader tip suggested a wildly popular skincare “dupe” account might be quietly reselling products that aren’t dupes at all. We’re not naming it yet. We are already digging.
FULL DISCLOSURE / FINE PRINT
This newsletter contains affiliate links. If you buy something through one, we may earn a small commission — at no extra cost to you. We only feature things we’d genuinely recommend to a friend. Commission rate never influences our verdicts.
This issue was researched and drafted with AI assistance, with human editorial review of all claims and sourcing before publication.