NYT Strands Answers Hide a Five-Step Beauty Routine

NYT Strands puzzle #938 on September 27, 2026, hid five bathroom-shelf products under the clue “It’s skin deep,” with the yellow spangram Beauty Care. The blue answers were cleanser, toner, serum, moisturizer and sunscreen.

That list is the morning stack beauty counters sell, down to a toner step a Cleveland Clinic skin doctor treats as skippable. The clue borrows an idiom for something shallow. The grid does not.

Sunday’s Grid Packed a Five-Step Shelf

Strands, edited by Tracy Bennett, who also edits Wordle, puts a theme at the top of a 6 by 8 board and asks you to use every letter. Theme words light up blue. The spangram, the one answer that names the theme and must touch two opposite edges, lights up yellow.

Sunday’s clue pointed at skin. It did not point at pores, layers or metaphors. The words were the bottles. Once that clicked, the board stopped looking like a jumble and started looking like a shelf.

THE SEPTEMBER 27 ANSWERS

Those six strings use all 48 letters on the board, each letter once. The New York Times still offers the free daily Strands game without a subscription on web and in the Games app, with a fresh grid at midnight local time.

The Spangram Winds From a Left-Side B

Beauty Care is a 10-letter, two-word spangram, six letters then four. It is also a slightly off phrase. Most people say skincare. The puzzle wanted the broader shop-aisle label, and that is where solvers who saw BEAUTY across the middle lost time, waiting for a second word that is not the one they use at the sink.

The path starts on the B five letters down the far-left column and winds up and right, hitting the right edge on the Y, then riding the top row through CARE. It spans left to right, which is the horizontal test the game requires, even though the line is not a straight bar.

THE BOARD IN NUMBERS

• Grid size: 6 columns by 8 rows, 48 letters, no leftovers and no overlaps.
• Theme count: five blue words plus one yellow spangram.
• Spangram shape: 10 letters, two words, starts with B and ends with E.
• Longest blue word: MOISTURIZER, 11 letters, parked on the right side.

In a June 2024 note, New York Times Games said about 83 percent find the spangram each day, with completion around 81 percent, in line with the Mini Crossword. Sunday’s yellow word was findable. The wording was the tax.

What the September 27 Strands Answers Were

If you wanted to finish without burning the full list, the useful rungs sat in this order, and each one gives more away than the last.

HINTS, THEN THE FULL LIST

• Theme in plain words: These are products on a bathroom shelf, not types of skin.
• Where you would buy them: A beauty counter, not a produce aisle or a hardware bin.
• Spangram shape: Two words, 6 letters then 4, B at the start and E at the end, spanning left to right.
• Opening pairs: SU, CL, TO, SE, MO for the five blue words.
• The set: SUNSCREEN, CLEANSER, TONER, SERUM, MOISTURIZER, and the spangram BEAUTY CARE.

On the solved grid, SUNSCREEN occupies the upper left, a nine-letter snake through R-C-N / E-S-U / E-S / N. MOISTURIZER fills the lower right around the only Z. TONER sits in the bottom-left corner. SERUM hangs off the letters just right of the spangram’s B. CLEANSER weaves the leftover cluster in the middle. None of those paths is a straight crossword entry. Letters can turn, including on the diagonal, which is the whole trick of Strands.

Toner Shares a Name With Printer Ink

TONER is five letters and looks friendly. It is also the word that belongs to a printer cartridge, and that double life is what made it the easy word people still missed. TONE sits on the board as a valid extra, which can feed a hint without finishing the theme word.

SERUM has the same length and a cleaner read once the shelf is in mind, because nobody is thinking about blood tests on a clue this cute. CLEANSER and SUNSCREEN announce themselves as soon as you stop hunting skin types. MOISTURIZER is long enough that the Z on the right edge is a gift, if you remember American spelling with a Z, not British S.

Score cards that landed on Sunday show plenty of clean finishes, five blue circles and one yellow, no light bulbs. Other boards are stacked with hint icons. One solver who found the spangram first still called the last stretch a scrape. Knowing the shelf helped. Trusting Beauty Care as a phrase helped more.

Dr. McGregor Would Skip the Toner

Sean McGregor, a Cleveland Clinic dermatologist, tells patients to layer from lightest to heaviest so thin formulas are not trapped under cream. His morning list can include a serum. His floor does not.

There are a lot of skin care products on the market, but you want to try and minimize the amount of products you’re putting on your skin and make your skin care routine as efficient as possible. At a minimum, you want to apply a cleanser followed by a moisturizer and sunscreen in that order.

Sean McGregor, DO, Cleveland Clinic

He puts toner in the optional pile. If you use one, he says, it belongs in the morning as the second step after washing. He also warns that toners can dry and irritate sensitive skin, and that retinols do the pore job better. The puzzle treated toner as equal to cleanser and sunscreen. The clinic does not.

McGregor’s own pages walk through cleanser then moisturizer then sunscreen as the three moves that actually have to happen. Use a nickel-sized dab of cleanser with water and your hands, he says, not a rough cloth, and skip a second cleanse, which he argues does more harm than good. A serum, if you add one, goes on after washing and before cream. Vitamin C in the morning backs up sun lotion. It does not replace it.

On the last bottle, the American Academy of Dermatology wants a broad-spectrum sunscreen with SPF 30 or higher, plus water resistance, on skin that clothes do not cover. McGregor’s note allows SPF 15. The academy’s public line is 30, so that is the figure to shop with. Sunday’s grid did not ask for SPF. It only asked you to find the word.

Makeup and Salon Boards Came First

Bennett’s team has sent solvers down this aisle before. The products change. The tax on people who do not live in that aisle does not.

BEAUTY-AISLE STRANDS BEFORE THIS ONE

1. March 8, 2024: Theme “Do the do,” spangram HAIRSTYLE, with beehive, braid, dreads, mohawk, ponytail and topknot.
2. December 7, 2025: Theme “You’re styling,” spangram BEAUTY SALON, with facial, extensions, haircut, waxing and braiding.
3. May 28, 2026: Theme “Talking scents,” spangram FRAGRANCE, with bergamot, jasmine, musk, neroli, pear and sandalwood.
4. July 9, 2026: Theme “On the lips,” spangram KISS AND MAKEUP, with balm, gloss, liner, plumper, stain, stick and tint.
5. September 26, 2026: Theme “A breath of fresh air,” spangram GENTLE WIND, with breeze, current, flurry, gust, puff, whiff and zephyr, the board that sat immediately before the skin-deep list.

July’s lip-product set is the closest cousin. December’s salon list is the closest name. Sunday simply moved the counter from makeup to wash, treat, cream and sun. If those nouns are already in your cabinet, #938 played easy. If they are not, the clue “It’s skin deep” did almost no work until Beauty Care landed.

Three Extra Words Buy You One Hint

You do not have to see the whole shelf at once. New York Times Games built a hint ladder into the rules: find valid words that are not on the theme list, and three extra words unlock a hint that lights letters in a real answer. On Sunday those extras included TONE, CURE, SURE, CORE and SEER, among others. They are real English. They are not the puzzle.

Tap or drag adjacent letters, including diagonals, and you can turn in the middle of a word. Theme hits turn blue. The spangram turns yellow. Fill the board and you are done. Stats such as streaks, “spangram first,” and “solved without hints” attach to a New York Times account and, the help pages say, count from July 8, 2025, forward.

The beta opened on March 4, 2024, after Juliette Seive pitched the idea at an internal Game Jam. The Games app added it on June 26, 2024. Jonathan Knight, head of Games, called it a human-made word search with a twist, which is a long way of saying the editors still choose the lists by hand. Sunday’s list was a shelf. It was also a test of whether that shelf now counts as shared knowledge.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is NYT Strands Free, and What Sits Behind the Paywall?

The daily board does not require a New York Times subscription on the web, the Games app, or the Play tab in the News app. The archive, which runs back to the March 4, 2024 beta, is for All Access, Home Delivery and Games subscribers, and finished archive puzzles cannot be replayed. Playing old boards changes completed-count stats but does not touch streaks, which only follow the puzzle on its release day.

Does a Late Finish Keep a Strands Streak?

No. If you complete the puzzle after midnight in your local timezone, the help center says the streak breaks and a new one starts, and a broken streak cannot be reset. Stats also treat a started-but-unfinished board as unsolved, which lowers solve percentage. Log into the same New York Times account if the numbers look wrong before you file a bug report.

What Kind of Sunscreen Does the Dermatology Academy Want?

The American Academy of Dermatology wants broad-spectrum protection against UVA and UVB, SPF 30 or higher, and water resistance, which lasts 40 or 80 minutes depending on the bottle. Apply it every day on skin clothes do not cover, including cloudy days, when the academy says up to 80 percent of UV can still get through, and reapply every two hours outdoors. A shot-glass amount, about 1 ounce, is the adult full-body dose the academy cites in its how-to.

Who Pitched Strands, and Who Edits It?

Juliette Seive, a research director on the Games team, pitched the concept at the paper’s internal Game Jam. Tracy Bennett edits the daily lists, the same desk that edits Wordle. Everdeen Mason, editorial director of Games, has said the form can even serve as a step toward crossword habits, because the theme teaches misdirection. Zoe Bell, executive producer of Games, has pointed at the long newspaper history of word searches as the reason this one exists at all.

On September 28, 2026, the grid reset as Strands #939 with the theme “A form of art.” The Beauty Care list is finished, five bottles and one slightly stiff phrase, stored for anyone who still wants to walk that shelf.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and puzzle analysis for information only. It is not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment plan, and it does not tell you which cleanser, toner, serum, cream or sunscreen to buy or skip. Talk with a board-certified dermatologist or your own doctor before you change a skin-care routine, especially if you have irritation, acne, eczema or a history of skin cancer. Product steps, SPF figures and game rules reflect the cited clinic, academy and New York Times Games materials as of the dates on those pages and may change.