By RUBY BAUDHUIN
While much has been said about the cosmetics industry’s devastating impact on female beauty standards, the skincare industry has faced significantly less scrutiny.
Skincare, unlike makeup, is generally accepted as a form of personal hygiene and is sometimes associated with the fields of health and science.
This is clearly displayed on the websites of most major skincare brands. On the website of the luxury skincare brand Drunk Elephant, forms of the words “health,” “biocompatible,” “pH,” and “research” appear five, five, six, and two times, respectively, on their “Our Philosophy” page alone. Meanwhile, the drugstore skincare, makeup, and fragrance brand Clinique features numerous images of test tubes and white lab coats on their webpage.
Ultimately, this amounts to no more than effective marketing. “The ‘science of skincare,’” writes beauty editor Jessica DeFino in her 2023 article “The ‘Science of Skincare’ Isn’t Science or Care,” “offers nothing but a way to intellectualize the physical manipulation of one’s appearance; a way to justify the submission of the body to current cultural beauty ideals.”
The issue is not necessarily that skincare doesn’t “work.” But by conflating skincare and science, skincare companies succeed at manipulating consumers into thinking that using skincare doesn’t just improve the aesthetics of their skin, but also their overall health and well-being.
Skincare may show cosmetic “improvements” to the skin, but ultimately ignores underlying issues such as poor sleep, diet, stress, and hormonal imbalances. At times, it can even contribute to dermatological issues including sensitive skin, inflammation, breakouts, rosacea, and eczema, according to a 2019 article by Courtney Rubin ( “All of Those Products Are Making Your Skin Worse” published by The New York Times).
Furthermore, DeFino explains that the general concerns targeted by skincare products can usually be addressed by more holistic solutions: “Eating salmon and nuts supplies the skin with essential fatty acids. Exercise elevates antioxidant activity. Sleep stimulates self-exfoliation. Facial massage boosts lymphatic drainage. Meditation increases moisture (seriously). Vitamin D regulates oil production and vitamin C contributes to collagen production.”
Unfortunately, factors such as sleep, diet, and stress are often influenced by income level. Likewise, anti-aging skincare, which made headlines this year for its growing market appeal among young teens, is a costly concern that may only be afforded to the middle class and wealthy.
As critic Susan Sontag writes in her 1972 essay “The Double Standard of Aging,” “anxiety about aging is certainly more common, and more acute, among middle-class and rich women than among working-class women. Economically disadvantaged women in this society are more fatalistic about aging; they can’t afford to fight the cosmetic battle as long or as tenaciously.”
“Indeed,” she continues, “nothing so clearly indicates the fictional nature of [the crisis of aging] than the fact that women who keep their youthful appearance the longest—women who lead unstrenuous, physically sheltered lives, who eat balanced meals, who can afford good medical care, who have few or no children—are those who feel the defeat of age most keenly.”
Billionaire reality star Kim Kardashian is a prime example of this anxiety. As she said in a 2022 interview with The New York Times, “If you told me that I literally had to eat poop every single day and I would look younger, I might. I just might.” In the same interview, Kardashian revealed that she follows a nine-step regimen to take care of her skin. A set of nine products from her skincare line retails for $673 on the SKKN BY KIM website.
So why do so many people still consider skincare a form of self care? There is certainly something to be said for skincare’s ability to inspire ritualistic mindfulness. Studies show that women who followed a daily skincare regimen experienced “improved feelings of empowerment, happiness and self-esteem.” In a world in which women have little control over larger systemic forces like capitalism and patriarchy, we can at least control what we put on our faces—and thereby, the appearance of our skin.
Leave a Reply