I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why so many of us feel we have to apologise for our skin. I find it really strange how something so ordinary and natural has been turned into something we’re meant to hide, fix and apologise for.
I didn’t notice it at first. I was just flicking through magazines and scrolling on social media, and there it was, the quiet suggestion that our faces, exactly as they are, aren’t quite good enough.
After a while, it started to seep in, that little voice in my head wondering if I’d be more loveable or more successful if I looked a bit more polished, a bit more poreless, a bit younger.
I know that voice well. It used to visit me every time I caught my reflection in a window or a mirror.
And it got me thinking: If I feel like this, then there’s every possibility that others do too.
I sometimes think the skincare industry thrives on a single, unspoken rule: if you can convince people their skin is a problem, they will never stop buying solutions. It sounds dramatic, I know, but spend long enough wading through the promises of “flawless” and “ageless,” and it starts to feel like everyone’s plotting against your face.
It shows up in the adverts telling you your pores should be invisible, as if they were some ghastly oversight in human design. It lurks in the celebrity skincare ranges promising “glass skin,” as though we are all supposed to look like freshly glazed doughnuts. It pops up every time you scroll social media, where someone half your age, with half your life experience, beams from behind a filter that erases every pore and smile line. Even the snapchat filters, the bunny ears and cartoon eyelashes are really just a polite way of saying your real face isn’t quite enough.
Most of us don’t even realise we’re absorbing these messages. We tell ourselves we’re making healthy choices, that we’re investing in ourselves. Sometimes, we truly are. However somewhere along the way, a little voice creeps in to whisper that if you were doing skincare properly, your face wouldn’t dare betray you.
I remember the first time I really noticed my own skin shame. I was around twenty-four, standing in a harshly lit bathroom before a big work event, staring at a patchwork of hyperpigmentation, darkened patches seemed to glow under the fluorescent lights like some sort of cosmic warning sign. On top of this I had also experienced a full hormonal breakout on my chin and cheeks. I’d tried every “miracle” product that promised a miracle overnight. Nothing worked, and it felt easier to believe something was wrong with me than something was wrong with the promises. I layered on concealer until I looked like my face didn’t belong with my ears and neck, I was vaguely presentable, but underneath it all, the panic stayed. What if someone could see? What if they thought I was lazy, unclean, or simply failing at being a woman?
When Did Skin Shaming Become a Trend?
I sometimes wonder when skin shaming actually became fashionable. Perhaps it started with magazines declaring freckles were flaws in need of airbrushing. Maybe it was Disney films, where a beauty spot made you the heroine but a mole on the wrong cheek turned you into the villain.
One person has a beauty spot, another an ugly mole, though they are exactly the same thing. Somewhere along the line, a handful of editors and a few animators decided which features were enchanting and which were to be covered up. We somehow agreed that pores, lines, and little brown marks were a public relations disaster. The moment someone realised there was money to be made from that insecurity, the marketing machine roared to life, and those old stories still hold far more power over how we see our own faces than they ever should.
Why Breakouts Don’t Mean Dirty Skin
Breakouts have always been given the villain treatment. You would think they were a sign you had been rolling around in a compost heap rather than simply having hormones and pores. In reality, spots often mean your skin is working overtime to keep itself clear, so in theory acne prone skin is actually the cleanest not the dirtiest. If you are wondering how to accept your skin, it often begins by questioning who benefits from your worry. Even the names, zits, blackheads, acne, sound like something out of a medical horror story. I sometimes wonder why we don’t just call it “strawberry skin.” It sounds much more charming and cute, and far less worthy of panic.
Rosacea gets its own corner of the shame machine. Labelled greasy, hormonal, acne, red, sore and to top it off, the marketing is directed at women, as if redness couldn’t possibly affect men or children. Rosacea skincare for men and women is rarely mentioned, even though so many people quietly muddle through it. The fewer people who feel seen, the easier it is to keep them buying.
It seems ridiculous in hindsight, but shame always looks sillier in the rearview mirror. At the time, it felt completely natural to apologise for my skin, I had learned to see it as a problem to fix, a blemish on my worthiness, not just my face.
The Problem with Anti-Ageing Marketing
It is peculiar how we spend our childhoods desperate to grow up, only to be told the moment we arrive that growing up was a terrible idea.The same faces that have laughed, cried, pulled all-nighters and weathered every heartbreak are suddenly expected to look as if they’ve spent their days sealed in a climate-controlled vault.
This is the absurdity of anti-ageing marketing: the idea that a life well-lived should leave no trace whatsoever, and to top it off, perhaps the most barbaric of all the sins in the anti-ageing skincare world is that so many of the women in those adverts are actually in their twenties or thirties, drowning in flattering lighting and edited within an inch of their lives.
What I think, is the real damage of this obsession with perfection. It doesn’t just cost us money. It costs us peace of mind. It costs us the right to inhabit our own faces without apology. When everyone around you is chasing flawlessness, you start to believe you should be, too.
How Filters and Poreless Trends Fuel Skin Shame
It has taken me years to unpick that belief. To understand that pores, lines, spots and pigmentation aren’t evidence of failure, they are proof I’m alive. My skin has carried me through stress, illness, late nights, summer holidays and more heartbreak than I’d like to admit. It has regenerated, protected and healed itself over and over. When you think about it, that’s rather heroic. So why treat it like the enemy?
I wish I could say I never feel that twinge of embarrassment. Some days, it still creeps in. The difference now is I can spot it. That voice whispering, If you were doing skincare properly, you wouldn’t look like this, it isn’t mine. It belongs to an industry that profits from making us feel perpetually unfinished. Once you know that, it becomes much easier to decide not to listen.
This is why skin positivity matters so much to me. Caring for yourself shouldn’t feel like penance. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look your best, but when every product is sold with the suggestion that your natural face is somehow a scandal, it stops being care and becomes punishment.
When I started my journey as a skincare formulator, I knew I wanted to create something different, something that felt like kindness. Even the names I chose were part of that intention. For instance, our range for acne-prone skin is called The Lustrous because shining skin is still beautiful skin. The collection for rosacea is The Radiance because redness doesn’t cancel out your glow. The Eternal range is for the simple truth that beauty doesn’t have an expiry date.
If you ask me, the most radical thing you can do in a world that thrives on your insecurities is to say: I am not ashamed, Iam not ashamed of my uneven skin tone or the lines that deepen when I laugh, I am not ashamed that I look my age, I have earned it.
That doesn’t mean I don’t love skincare. I still find it comforting to cleanse away the day and to smooth a cream over my cheeks, so to wake up looking a little brighter. These days, I’m not doing it to erase myself, I am doing it because I want to feel cared for, because I deserve it.
I sometimes think about all the hours I spent worrying about what other people would see when they looked at my uneven skin. If I could have that time back, I’d spend it doing something far more joyful, laughing with friends, reading that book, going out and having fun, and feeling the sun on my imperfect face.
If you’d like to explore skincare designed to support and celebrate your skin, have a look at our skincare ranges, for gentle formulations that feel like kindness.
So here is my invitation: the next time you catch yourself feeling embarrassed about your skin, pause. Take a deep breath, shame isn’t your birthright, you don’t have to carry it, you can choose something softer.
You can choose to believe your skin, in all its honest, unfiltered glory, is already worthy of love.