the price is right; You don't have to spend a fortune to look great.

Byline: Sarah Brown

Manhattan dermatologist Lisa Airan, M.D., loves to shop. She buys her shoes at Manolo Blahnik, her bags at Hermes, and her eye cream and cleanser at . . . the drugstore. Today we're far away from Fifth Avenue, in Brooklyn, at New York City's very first Target superstore (where Chloe Sevigny shopped for a Brita water filter at the grand opening this past summer), ready to get down to business. Our mission: the very best skin care at the very lowest prices.

Airan hits the brightly lit boulevard that is the beauty section as if it were the designer floor at Barneys, her eyes flickering back and forth between shelves stocked with Nivea, Dove, and Pond's. "Hey, look-they have the same cleanser I have in my bathroom," she says, pointing cheerfully to Purpose Gentle Cleansing Wash before her gaze settles on Olay, another favorite. She sings the praises of Olay's Regenerist cream ("I love the dispenser on this-the perfect amount comes out every time"), moving on to the company's Total Effects moisturizer. "This is a good one," she says, examining the label. "It has VitaNiacin in it-vitamins B3, E, Pro-Vitamin B5, C, zinc, and magnesium. They did studies to show it really helped people with rosacea. My patients like it a lot. Did you know that fourteen million Americans have rosacea?"

As Airan fills her bright-orange Target basket-in which sits her bright-orange crocodile-skin Kelly-with L'Oreal Line Eraser Pure Retinol and a huge bottle of Curel body lotion for $6.99 ("This dries down really fast, so even if you're wearing an expensive evening dress, you can put it on five minutes before"), she makes one point very clear: "I really believe in recommending these things," she says. "I could create a regimen for any skin type from the products here, and it would be a really good one. There are a lot of great department-store brands"-Airan confesses a weakness for Kanebo, La Prairie, and Cle de Peau-"but you can also get everything you need here." As a patient who has sat in her chair and been sent home with a skin-clearing Neutrogena and Olay shopping list, I can vouch that she's telling the truth.

Airan admits that many of her designer-decked patients are surprised by their doctor's reverence for chain-store skin care. "In a lot of people's minds, price is the determining factor," she says. She remembers one patient-a fashion stylist-who really liked a company's foaming face wash but insisted on transferring it from its plastic tube to a sleek glass bottle. "That just speaks to what the value is," Airan says with a smile. "the contents."