I Lied To You About Acne Creams & I'm Sorry
On my old life as a beauty editor.
In the Before Times, back when I was a digital beauty editor churning out questionable content three times a day every day for The Zoe Report and Cosmo and Marie Claire and the like, there was one assignment I dreaded more than any other: the “skincare tips” article.
17 Ways To Get Rid of Zits, Scars, & Other Signs Of Existence!
How To Replace Your Dermis With A Freshly Steamed Dumpling!
The Dermatologist’s Guide To Decimating Your Dead Skin Cells Overnight!
OK, fine these weren’t the actual headlines — but they are uncomfortably close in spirit.
The way it went, I would have to conduct interviews with industry experts; typically, the kind of experts who worked with big PR firms and understood the demands of online content: quick quotes and easy soundbites delivered by end of day. Experts on products, prescriptions, immediate symptom suppression, and sales… but not necessarily experts on the skin itself, you know? Medical media personalities. I’d wince through their answers. “Benzoyl peroxide kills acne-causing bacteria,” a dermatologist would say. “Use it all over for clear skin.” (That is a real tip from a real dermatologist that is still on Al Gore’s skinternet.)
My ego, as it does, would hear something like this and scream AAAGH and ugh and did you even read the research that shows benzoyl peroxide leads to lipid peroxidation and lipid peroxidation leads to acne? Are you aware that killing the c. acnes bacterium with benzoyl peroxide appears to improve acne at first but actually worsens inflammation over time, since c. acnes is “critical to the regulation of skin homeostasis”?! Do you know that “acne-causing bacteria” also protects the skin from free radicals and that WE SHOULD NOT KILL IT?? Are you familiar with the microbiome, like, AT ALL??
My fingers would type, “Dr. So-and-So recommends benzoyl peroxide,” or whatever the tip was, because that was the job and I was on deadline/barely getting paid and neither readers nor editors wanted a wild theory debunking conventional skin wisdom. They wanted hope in a Clean & Clear Persa-Gel 10 tube. The article would easily pass a fact-check because it is a fact: Benzoyl peroxide kills acne-causing bacteria.
Also a fact: You can get rid of a pimple by slicing it off of your face with a steak knife.
Anyway, this is all to say that facts aren’t necessarily truths, and you can’t believe all the “expert”-quoted beauty content you read (even/especially if I wrote it between 2015 - 2018).
You consistently have me screeching with these one-liners and the steak knife one SENT ME.
I swear to god... Shit like that was prescribed to my by my dermatologists when I was as young as 12 yo. Bleaching my bedsheets and clothing, never telling me I need to absolutely wear sunscreen. That damaged me so much and the acne never got better. I was so desperate that cutting the zits off with a steak knife doesn't even sound that absurd.
Thank you for all the work and effort, Jessica. Now I only have a PH neutral facewash without soap in it and I still break out a little bit sometimes when my hormones get going because of my period - thanks to you I now know that THAT IS FUCKING OK AND NORMAL and that my skin isn't bad it is simply doing it's job and sometimes showing me that I am in a certain phase of my cycle. I hate, hate, hate all that bullshit more and more every day that tells us that we're not good enough and need to consume our way to absolution. The inquisition with their letters of indulgence is here and it is a corrupt capitalist skin MLM scheme.