An Unpublishable Interview On Skin-Positive Marketing
"Acne is beautiful! Here's how to get rid of it."
My take on skin-positive beauty brands is, perhaps predictably, pretty negative.
“Your pimples are beautiful,” they seem to say. “Here’s how to get rid of them!!!” (Acne is just one example, of course. The sector wants you to simultaneously love and destroy all your perceived flaws — eczema, aging, hyperpigmentation, whatever.)
I’ve been critiquing branded skin positivity since it was but a twinkle in branded body positivity’s dollar-sign-adorned pupils, so when the folks at The Cusp — an online community from Holisticism dedicated to discussing conscious consumerism in wellness — asked me to share some thoughts on the subject, I may have gone a little overboard. The majority of my answers didn’t make their final edit. Naturally, I figured I’d publish all the unpublishable ramblings myself. (You can read The Cusp’s very good, very thorough article here.)
Ahead, enjoy the full, unedited version of my interview with The Cusp. Topics include the 100-year-old history of filtered photos (yup, they’ve been altering our perception of reality for that long), the bright side of branded skin positivity, and the move toward neutrality.
The Cusp: What are your thoughts on brands marketing products as pro-acne, skin-neutral, and “inclusive” of all skin types?
Me: Marketing is marketing, no matter how nice it sounds. There are brands that market more ethically and genuinely than others, but at the end of the day, a brand's number one goal is to move product. Making the customer feel good is (sometimes, if you're lucky!) a bonus. That's not to say it's a bad thing that brands want to make money more than they want to make you feel good — that's capitalism, baby! It's the system we're stuck with for now. I still think we can appreciate the shift toward skin-positive marketing for what it can give us (more realistic images of normal skin in mainstream and social media) while acknowledging what marketing cannot, by definition, give us (objective information or true empowerment). Product marketing will always prioritize products over people.
What is your take on how filters have altered our perception of what clear skin looks like?
Filters have completely altered our perception of what human skin looks like, but this phenomenon isn't anything new. It started in the early 1900s with the arrival of movies. Low-definition cameras created a super-smooth, unblemished effect which, of course, altered the general public's perception of what constituted "celebrity-level" beauty. It's only escalated since, thanks to advancements in TV and movie magic: over-the-top lighting setups, stage makeup, camera effects, plastic surgery, airbrushing, and more. Over time, these tools have become democratized. They're not just for celebrities anymore — we literally have them at our fingertips. The danger of this 100-year-old problem at this particular point in history is twofold, I think. One, it seems like we've reached some sort of peak — where can we possibly go from here, when anyone can completely alter their face with a few swipes and make it semi-permanent with twice-yearly injectable appointments? (I once interviewed a celebrity dermatologist for an article on Fashionista.com, and she told me: "One of the biggest things I tell my patients is, 'You want to look more like your filtered photos — what can we do to make you look more like them, so people don't see you in real life and go, what?'" If that doesn't set off alarm bells, I don't know what beauty trend will.) Two, we're increasingly disconnected from real life, especially in the midst of the pandemic. That means we don't get as many "reality check" moments of seeing what actual skin looks like, aside from our own. I would go so far as to say that the majority of our interactions with other people are now digital, and the majority of those digital interactions involve some sort of "filter" — whether it's the smoothing effect on the iPhone camera, a Zoom "beauty filter", a ring light, FaceTune, Photoshop, or an Instagram effect. That messes with our minds. If we're constantly comparing ourselves to two-dimensional, digitally-altered approximations of human skin, of course we'll start to see our own living, breathing, three-dimensional, totally normal-looking skin as "other," "bad," or "less than."
We can appreciate the shift toward skin-positive marketing for what it can give us (more realistic images of normal skin in mainstream and social media) while acknowledging what marketing cannot, by definition, give us (objective information or true empowerment).
What do you think of the acne positive movement?
I think acne positivity, in the hands of individuals, is a step in the right direction. I have some issues with it overall — namely, that in its quest to make everybody feel "beautiful" and declare "all skin is good skin," it continues to frame physical beauty as a marker of worth and continues to assign a moral value to a slab of flesh that has no intrinsic moral value. That said, I do think we need positive value judgments (celebrating our body or skin) to counter decades of negative value judgments (berating our body or skin) before we can arrive at a place where there's no appearance-based value judgment at all: acne neutrality. Acne neutrality means that all skin is just... skin. It's not "beautiful" or "good." It just is. A flesh-suit, an outer coating, a functional layer holding your insides together — not a signifier of status, or factor of self-worth, or even something to be proud of.
Acne positivity in the hands of brands is another story, though. Branded acne positivity doesn't actually work. Behind every skin-positive Instagram post is a product that promises to get rid of the pimple it just told you to love. The marketing may look different, but the messaging is the same old stuff: Buy this product to change your face and find happiness!
Is it pessimistic to think that the beauty industry will co-opt the acne positive and skin-neutrality movements to sell us more beauty products? Or do you think that we're genuinely opening up the beauty category to be less consumption-driven and more about actual skincare?
I don't think that's pessimistic at all. I think that’s spot-on — no pun intended. I've found it really helpful, as a reporter, to predict the progression of skin positivity and skin neutrality by comparing them to the body positivity and body neutral movements, which are years ahead. Through that lens, I think it's obvious that these formerly “counterculture” movements were co-opted for profit. It’s inevitable that the same will happen for skincare. As I like to say: Skincare culture is just dewy diet culture ;)