What are we learning from the history of skin care? Our nutrition, wellness, packaging, and mental health are all in a renaissance of evolving but skin care remains stagnant and unchanged. The very strategies implemented by doctors, dermatologists, and medispas offer temporary solutions that irritate and encourage the problem, never resolving it on a fundamental level.
Basically, everything we thought we knew about how to care for our skin, our pores, blackhead prevention, and anti-aging is actively sabotaging its health.
But how the *bleep* did we get here? I went down the internet rabbit hole and put the broken pieces together.
The History Of Skin Care
1900’s
The First Chemical Peel. Scientists discovered that our dermal layer has the power to completely reproduce a missing epidermis. Wow. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should, looking back we know (some of us anyway) that this causes premature dermal thinning.
1930s-1970s
Chemical peels gained momentum in the anti-aging world as plastic surgery began to explode.
1950s
The industrial chemical industry created a system to measure components of different chemical elements including all oil. They smuggled this one facet of this new system intended for factory use into the skin care industry and reapplied it to skin care after testing on live rabbit ears.
Somewhere along the way, they discovered retinol but they also did two other things: they did unethical testing on prisoners. The scale of non-comedogenic (barely ok) and comedogenic (bad) oils was invented.. Thus, 0 will not clog pores, and 5 will.
1972
The” barely ok” and” bad oil” list along with generic vitamin A (retinol) hit the market. They also set into place the three rules about what they thought was causing acne: excess oil, excess skin cells, and excess bacteria. Today we know now that these are merely symptoms, not the root cause.
2003
The first major medical study reported that inflammation is a major cause of acne.
2007
Dr. Johnson brings to market Dermal Nutrients which is an upgrade to generic vitamin A because they are noninflammatory and non-sun-sensitizing. Retinol has evolved but most people are still using the obsolete form.
2009
The second big medical study states that inflammation sparks acne. They go as far this time to say that Inflammation happens FIRST!
They reported, “Yet the pathogenesis of follicular hyperkeratinization (acne) is still unclear”.
They also reported that the sebaceous gland is being contemplated as the “brain of the skin”. Rather than the formerly believed “living fossil of the skin. Turns out that our sebaceous gland is the hero of our skin and not the villain!!
2010
Skin Harmonics brings a truly holistic, effective, and corrective skincare model that confronts the root cause of acne, adult acne, premature aging, and precursor lesions.
2020
This initiatory inflammation discovery is confirmed for acne. They go on to say that no acne care is complete without addressing nutrition. Something holistic practitioners knew many years prior.
Today you can’t find a doctor who is not on board but for years the same doctors insisted this was new-age crockery. Microbiome health is finally accepted as a mainstream understanding. The word “Inflammageing” was coined to express how inflammation and aging are synonymous.
2023
Another huge medical report is released from India on the supreme importance of our natural acid mantle and epidermal functions. They give a call to action for skin professionals to step up and protect it. Ayurvedic principles rely on oil to help our skin detox and to help with health. Imagine their wonder as American skin care tells them that oils are going to clog skin pores.
The Confusion About Skin Care & New Answers
When we hydrate our skin effectively with a layer of oil on top this allows for our pore canals to soften, naturally open, and deliver our own oils which prevents the formation of blackheads and clogged pores.
Everyone is so confused about skin care and this page from the Board of Dermatology demonstrates the confusion:
1. Use a moisturizer because when your skin gets dried out your sebaceous gland will overproduce oil.
2. Use these inflammatory and drying topicals: benzoyl peroxide, witch hazel, salicylic acid, alcohol, and tea tree oil.
3. But then use a moisturizer that is noncomedogenic and will not clog your pores, oil-free.
These instructions are so confusing, contradictory, and downright madness-making.
The Truth About Getting Hydrated Skin
I’m here to tell you that it is IMPOSSIBLE to have hydrated skin without using a layer of oil to prevent your skin’s water from evaporating.
Why would doctors, dermatologists, and medispas stop selling their old topicals?
1. They don’t know.
2. They don’t want to know because they are profitable without needing to change a thing.
Skin Care The Right Way
We have known about the role of inflammation in acne since 2003 yet all acne topicals are aggressively inflammatory. Acne topicals have not been updated for over 20 years. How can this be possible?! Using conventional acne products is very much like throwing gasoline on a fire.
While our approach to nutrition, wellness, and mental health undergoes constant evolution, the realm of skin care remains stagnant and unchanged, perpetuating problems rather than resolving them fundamentally. The historical trajectory reveals a disturbing reliance on temporary solutions with incomplete principles and outdated beliefs.
It’s time to challenge the status quo, embrace new understandings of skin health, and finally receive skin healing at the deepest root level. Discover Skin Harmonics as the new answer to old skin problems.
About the author
I took many wrong turns when I started learning about skin at 19. The more I spent on skincare, equipment, and training, the further I felt from actually helping skin. I was frustrated with only being able to offer temporary and superficial solutions at best. What emerged from the disappointment and turmoil, I now call, The Regenerative Skin Process. Skin Harmonics is a dedicated medical fusion holistic skincare clinic that provides a root cause approach delivering lifetime skin health through medical grade skin care products, new learning, and Deep Pore Cleansing Facials.
